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Is the implication here that being a Christian requires making homosexuality illegal?

by p_j_w 5y ago

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Well, ask any Christian who considers themselves devout, and they'll happily remind you about Sodom and Gamorrah, Biblical cities which were destroyed by fire falling from heaven for homosexuality.
- trasz 5y ago
  Ask any Christian who know anything about their religion and they’ll know that Sodom had nothing to do with homosexuality; it’s just a translation error.
  - gjsman-1000 5y ago
    Ask any translator or Biblical Scholar and they'll say it's way less clear-cut than that.
    - trasz 5y ago
      “Biblical scholars” are often theologians: political officers rather than scientists, they are trained to lie about that. Amount the actual scholars, it’s pretty much the consensus at this point.
      - gjsman-1000 5y ago
        Define "actual scholar." If most scholars aren't actually scholars, you may be committing the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
        trasz 5y ago
        Scholar, as in somebody doing science. Science follows certain rules. Catholic theology explicitly rejects those rules, thus it’s not a science. There is a science researching those topics, it’s called Religious Studies. It is to theology what chemistry is to alchemy.
        gjsman-1000 5y ago
        Theology is study about religion. Science, by definition cannot apply to things such as determining whether spirits exist. But that doesn't mean that there aren't spirits floating around us, you can't prove that to be scientifically false either. Science also can't tell us if we have a soul, but that's a core element of almost all religions. By definition, Science does not work on Religion, but that does not make the religion false (because you could have a soul even though science cannot prove it), but rather shows you are hitting the limits of what Science alone can achieve. And it is not fair, in that case, to call a Bible Scholar not a Scholar because their field intrinsically cannot use what people call "Science."
        trasz 5y ago
        Science can research religion just fine, like any other ideology and organization. No reason studying Catholicism would be any different from studying Communism, or just one of remaining thousands of religions and their gods. And it’s perfectly fair to call out someone who is pretending to be a scholar, despite being just a propaganda officer, trained to only repeat, never question.
  - meinfuhrer 5y ago
    It's not a translation error. Besides, there are many other verses in the Bible that condemn homosexuality.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  > Well, ask any Christian who considers themselves devout, and they'll happily remind you about Sodom and Gamorrah, Biblical cities which were destroyed by fire falling from heaven for homosexuality. Actually, as a lifelong Christian, that's...disputed. A very common interpretation is that they were destroyed for violating the obligations of hospitality to guests. Even assuming an absence of translation error in the phrase translated as indicating a desire to use the guests sexually (itself a point of intense debate), the offense isn't “gay sex” but “demanding to have guests turned over to be gang-raped”. I think most people would agree that there is a giant moral gulf between the morality of consensual sex and the morality of demanding someone turn over guests to a rape mob.
  - at_a_remove 5y ago
    Leviticus is pretty clear, though. So ... why not mention that?
    - trasz 5y ago
      Leviticus is pretty clear about many things, starting from shellfish.
      - gjsman-1000 5y ago
        The Catholics already answered the shellfish objection. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-bible-on-homosexual-behavior https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-bible-on... You can disagree, but they aren't idiots, they've thought about things. They've had over 2,000 years to think about it. Homosexuality has been around since the Roman era and much earlier.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Homosexuality has been around since the Roman era TIL that the Romans invented homosexuality.

Is the implication here that being a Christian requires making homosexuality illegal?

by p_j_w 5y ago

Is the implication here that being a Christian requires making homosexuality illegal?

Well, ask any Christian who considers themselves devout, and they'll happily remind you about Sodom and Gamorrah, Biblical cities which were destroyed by fire falling from heaven for homosexuality.

trasz 5y ago
Ask any Christian who know anything about their religion and they’ll know that Sodom had nothing to do with homosexuality; it’s just a translation error.
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  Ask any translator or Biblical Scholar and they'll say it's way less clear-cut than that.
  - trasz 5y ago
    “Biblical scholars” are often theologians: political officers rather than scientists, they are trained to lie about that. Amount the actual scholars, it’s pretty much the consensus at this point.
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      Define "actual scholar." If most scholars aren't actually scholars, you may be committing the "No True Scotsman" fallacy.
      - trasz 5y ago
        Scholar, as in somebody doing science. Science follows certain rules. Catholic theology explicitly rejects those rules, thus it’s not a science. There is a science researching those topics, it’s called Religious Studies. It is to theology what chemistry is to alchemy.
        gjsman-1000 5y ago
        Theology is study about religion. Science, by definition cannot apply to things such as determining whether spirits exist. But that doesn't mean that there aren't spirits floating around us, you can't prove that to be scientifically false either. Science also can't tell us if we have a soul, but that's a core element of almost all religions. By definition, Science does not work on Religion, but that does not make the religion false (because you could have a soul even though science cannot prove it), but rather shows you are hitting the limits of what Science alone can achieve. And it is not fair, in that case, to call a Bible Scholar not a Scholar because their field intrinsically cannot use what people call "Science."
        trasz 5y ago
        Science can research religion just fine, like any other ideology and organization. No reason studying Catholicism would be any different from studying Communism, or just one of remaining thousands of religions and their gods. And it’s perfectly fair to call out someone who is pretending to be a scholar, despite being just a propaganda officer, trained to only repeat, never question.
- meinfuhrer 5y ago
  It's not a translation error. Besides, there are many other verses in the Bible that condemn homosexuality.
dragonwriter 5y ago
> Well, ask any Christian who considers themselves devout, and they'll happily remind you about Sodom and Gamorrah, Biblical cities which were destroyed by fire falling from heaven for homosexuality. Actually, as a lifelong Christian, that's...disputed. A very common interpretation is that they were destroyed for violating the obligations of hospitality to guests. Even assuming an absence of translation error in the phrase translated as indicating a desire to use the guests sexually (itself a point of intense debate), the offense isn't “gay sex” but “demanding to have guests turned over to be gang-raped”. I think most people would agree that there is a giant moral gulf between the morality of consensual sex and the morality of demanding someone turn over guests to a rape mob.
- at_a_remove 5y ago
  Leviticus is pretty clear, though. So ... why not mention that?
  - trasz 5y ago
    Leviticus is pretty clear about many things, starting from shellfish.
    - gjsman-1000 5y ago
      The Catholics already answered the shellfish objection. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-bible-on-homosexual-behavior https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/the-bible-on... You can disagree, but they aren't idiots, they've thought about things. They've had over 2,000 years to think about it. Homosexuality has been around since the Roman era and much earlier.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Homosexuality has been around since the Roman era TIL that the Romans invented homosexuality.