6 ms·

Curious, do you think he's wrong that it's at odds with what was taught by the apostles? It's obviously unpopular, but I have yet to see a convincing argument (

Curious, do you think he's wrong that it's at odds with what was taught by the apostles? It's obviously unpopular, but I have yet to see a convincing argument (based in the teachings of the Bible) that promotes same-sex marriages. If I were in his position, and part of my duty is to interpret and lead via "the holy scriptures," then I would probably want to be as accurate as possible.

breadwinner 1y ago
> my duty is to interpret and lead via "the holy scriptures" Said scriptures also says that a woman can be sold to her rapist after he violates her. I think a more modern interpretation would not be a bad idea.
- zombiwoof 1y ago
  [flagged]
- sepositus 1y ago
  What do you mean? There are plenty of "modern" interpretations. New scholarly commentaries come out almost every year. My point is that, among these, the prevailing assumption continues to be one that doesn't support same-sex marriages in the church. What is lacking, from my perspective, are scholarly interpretations that swing the discussion the other way. The best I've seen simply just exclude the problematic scriptures which really isn't within the Catholic tradition (inerrancy of scripture and all). contexnt: I've studied religions (and still follow the topic) and have a basic understanding of where things are, but take it with a grain of salt.
  - jasonjayr 1y ago
    I think the crux of the problem is that with all the statements the Bible makes, at a plain reading of the text, who are we, as mere humans to decide which parts should be strictly adhered to, or which parts should not, or which parts mean something completely different from the plain reading? As far as I can tell there is no consistent application of logic and understanding what parts matter and which parts do not. And depending on who you talk to, those parts change. I understand that as part of the faith, it is not our place to know the reason God has chosen. However, I believe that there are very serious concerns about the intentions of the people 'qualified' to interpret the texts. Relying on "just trust us" gets us into big trouble, fast. As the saying goes, the devil may quote scripture too.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - sepositus 1y ago
      > As far as I can tell there is no consistent application of logic and understanding what parts matter and which parts do not I would disagree. The art of hermeneutics has been around for a _long_ time and has been refined over time as we develop new understandings about the ancient cultures that wrote these documents. So, yes, things do change, but I would argue they do not _dramatically_ change. For example, the message of "the gospel" has been the same since the founding apostles. But our understanding of something like Genesis 1 has changed dramatically over the years as our understanding of the sciences, history, etc. increase.
  - deeg 1y ago
    For much of Christian history the Bible was largely interpreted as being pro slavery and against interracial marriage. Most people now disagree with those interpretations. There is growing support for LGBT within the church. Here's one example https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/introducing-why-the-church-of-the-nazarene-should-be-fully-lgbtq-affirming https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/introducin...
    - selfhoster11 1y ago
      The Bible doesn't even have the concept of race as we understand it today, because that concept is a very recent invention (to my understanding). Anyone using it to support anti-interracial marriage positions would be doing so anachronistically, rendering their own claim invalid.
- pqtyw 1y ago
  Not the New Testament. Christianity has the luxury (compared to some other religions..) of having very few "divinely ordained" rules. The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament (the one with all not very nice things) however they are rather vague and undefined. So various churches can freely pick/discard almost whatever they want besides the 10 commandments while Muslims can't exactly just throw away the Quran or Hadith (which are much more specific)..
  - mynameisash 1y ago
    > The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament (the one with all not very nice things) however they are rather vague and undefined. Except Jesus said that he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and not one stroke of a letter of the law will pass away. So he didn't change anything about slavery, mistreatment of women, etc.
    - pqtyw 1y ago
      He also said 'Love your neighbor as yourself' and a bunch of similar things. Which kind of makes it complicated. I guess selling other people to slavery is fine as long as you also sell yourself (just like mistreating others). > didn't change anything about slavery, mistreatment of women, etc. The "fulfill" bit is rather ambiguous. AFAIK the most popular interpretation (certainly when it comes to ceremonial rules like not eating pork/shellfish/etc.) is that his intention was to "bring the law to its intended goal/purpose" rather than to maintain it in perpetuity.
    - achierius 1y ago
      But none of that ever applied to gentiles. Not before Christ, not after. Jews today do not claim that non-Jews are obliged to, or even ought to, perform any Mitzvot whatsoever -- and that's despite generally acknowledging that there are universal moral laws which bind all "children of Noah". So if the remaining Jews continue following the Old Covenant, but others choose to rather follow Jesus' 'New and Eternal Covenant', then where would this obligation towards Old Testament law come from?
- lo_zamoyski 1y ago
  Prooftexting is not a good idea. If you think you have a gotcha, then you should get in line with the multitude of teenagers who think they've bested the Church with a verse, and from a bad translation at that. Think about it. It's been thousands of years. A little humility is called for. You're not the first or the last to make flippant remarks like this without understanding.
  - spauldo 1y ago
    That's not exactly a "gotcha." The church's official stance on women has changed drastically over the last couple millenia. It's reasonable to suggest that its stance on same-sex couples might eventually change as well.
- dfxm12 1y ago
  For some added context, Prevost is an Augustinian. Augustine of Hippo himself was not a biblical literalist.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
whynotminot 1y ago
My understanding is that the Catholic church does not actually take scripture as the sole source for church doctrine. “Sola Scriptura” is a thing for some — perhaps even most — Protestant denominations. But not for the Catholic Church.
- alabastervlog 1y ago
  > “Sola Scriptura” is a thing for some Protestant denominations. And, infamously and comically, isn't exactly well supported by the text itself.
  - whynotminot 1y ago
    Indeed. You can find yourself in some very frustrating loops, down to the parsing of words back to the original languages they were translated from, when trying to argue the Bible as a sole foundation for literally everything. Source: grew up in churches that tried to do just that.
    - dylan604 1y ago
      Memories of using Strong's reference to do this very thing.
      - alabastervlog 1y ago
        OMG I haven't thought about Strong's Concordance in so long. Memory unlocked, haha. For the (fortunately) uninitiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong%27s_Concordance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong%27s_Concordance
  - ImJamal 1y ago
    Which leads to many Protestants saying the Bible is infallible, but which books belong to the Bible is not infallible. Which, don't tell them, means they have no clue if the books they think are infallible are actually infallible.
- 1y ago
IncreasePosts 1y ago
Christians can't agree on pretty much anything in the Bible, which is why there are thousands of different sects, and a Wikipedia entry for "schisms in Christianity" that is dozens of entries long.
- sepositus 1y ago
  I don't think that's a fair statement. For example, a large majority of denominations (I'd say >80%) agree on something like the Apostle's Creed [1]. But yes, for less core doctrines, there are sometimes dozens of flavors. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
lo_zamoyski 1y ago
It's important to realize that while the pope's main role is to guard revelation from corruption and manipulation, the teachings on same-sex attraction and the gay lifestyle do not require revelation. They rely solely on the natural law. Ethics rooted in unaided reason suffices.
- FeteCommuniste 1y ago
  Oddly enough practically the only philosophers who buy "natural law" arguments against homosexuality are Christian. Makes my motivated reasoning detector go off.
  - moomin 1y ago
    Gay penguins are massively inconvenient for “natural law” arguments.
    - ImJamal 1y ago
      I don't think you know what natural law means. This is from wikipedia. It wouldn't matter if 99% of animals and humans were gay. > Natural law[1] (Latin: ius naturale, lex naturalis) is a philosophical and legal theory that posits the existence of a set of inherent laws derived from nature and universal moral principles, which are discoverable through reason. In ethics, natural law theory[2] asserts that certain rights and moral values are inherent in human nature and can be understood universally, independent of enacted laws or societal norms. In jurisprudence, natural law—sometimes referred to as iusnaturalism[3] or jusnaturalism,[4] but not to be confused with what is called simply naturalism in legal philosophy[5][6]—holds that there are objective legal standards based on morality that underlie and inform the creation, interpretation, and application of human-made laws.
      - harimau777 1y ago
        I don't see how an appeal to natural law holds any value since humanity has a near infinite ability for motivated reasoning. To the point where if someone advocates natural law that suggests to me either that they have a serious lack of wisdom or they aren't arguing in good faith.
dylan604 1y ago
If you're basing everything on the Bible, then you must understand that the Bible was canonized by men in a way that fit their beliefs. Even the beloved 10 commandments are different for Catholics than from the Old Testament. After getting to an age to understand this, the holiness of the scripture just lost its bling for me.
- josephcsible 1y ago
  > Even the beloved 10 commandments are different for Catholics than from the Old Testament. What differences are you referring to specifically?
  - dylan604 1y ago
    The catholic version makes no mention about idols. It then splits covet into 2 separate commandments; one about neighbor's wife, the second about neighbor's things. There are many websites with much more details easily found with a simple search comparing differences of the catholic ten commandments
    - josephcsible 1y ago
      https://bible.usccb.org/bible/exodus/20 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/exodus/20 verse 4 starts with "You shall not make for yourself an idol". And yes, different denominations number the commandments differently, but with the exception of Samaritanism, all Abrahamic faiths agree on what the whole of them are.
- ImJamal 1y ago
  The 10 commandments are the same. Catholics just order and number things differently than Protestants. Both have the same commandments, unfortunately, some Protestants can only read a sentence and don't
GeekyBear 1y ago
> I have yet to see a convincing argument (based in the teachings of the Bible) that promotes same-sex marriages. Here you are. https://whosoever.org/letter-to-louise/ https://whosoever.org/letter-to-louise/
- aeneasmackenzie 1y ago
  This document plays at least two shell games, declaring that “homosexuality” as its own concept is recent (within 200 years) but then smoothly omitting this when discussing scripture, instead of analyzing scripture and then inserting the modern concept. No wonder it doesn’t find any condemnation of a concept it excluded from consideration! It then does a similar trick where the authors of the New Testament are acknowledged to have poor Greek in many cases but then using specific word choice to claim they meant an extremely forced reading, relying on the previous trick a bit too. There’s even a discussion of how nitpicking word choice is bad practice earlier in the same document!
gopher_space 1y ago
> Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Christianity has been comfortable with fairly sophisticated realpolitik since day zero.
ComposedPattern 1y ago
It would be hard to argue that the bible actively promotes same-sex marriage, but I think you could reasonably argue that it says nothing on the subject and so leaves it for the church/community to decide. There are places where the bible gives guidance for heterosexual marriages, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all other marriages are prohibited. Most people are heterosexual, so it makes sense that the bible would talk about marriage in a heterosexual context. There are also several verses that condemn gay sex, but I think you could make the case that it's not talking about the types of loving, committed gay relationships that we have in mind today. And also, even if gay sex is forbidden, you could still hold that gay couples are allowed to get married and adopt children, but that they should remain celibate. That's rough, but Christians commonly hold that heterosexuals aren't supposed to have non-procreative sex either. For comparison, the American Jewish Conservative movement holds that male-on-male anal sex is biblically prohibited, but all other aspects of gay relationships are permitted. And even though the sexual act is forbidden, it's also forbidden to invade someone's privacy by questioning whether they're doing it.
- sepositus 1y ago
  > It would be hard to argue that the bible actively promotes same-sex marriage, but I think you could reasonably argue that it says nothing on the subject and so leaves it for the church/community to decide. This is where I've yet to see convincing evidence. The whole meta-story of the first few chapters of Genesis was about creation. Not just creation of the universe as we know it, but the pro-creation between a man and a woman in the sanctimony of marriage. Whether you have an overly-religious view of Genesis or not doesn't really change the fact that the original authors were clearly "sanctifying" this act of pro-creation (the "meme" if you want to use Dawkins' terms). Other cultures and tribes obviously had their own ways of sanctifying it, but in a large, almost universal majority of cases, it was always between a man and a woman. Changing the gender to same-sex more or less destroy's the original intention of the meme. I mean, you can do it, but I don't think you're walking away with the authentic thought that was being communicated by the authors. I'm purely speaking from an academic sense here (the art of understanding what someone wrote a long time ago). Sure, we can choose to ignore and/or change it because it's "out of date" but that leads back to a point I made elsewhere about how it's not usually within the Catholic tradition to so blatantly alter scripture.
mrguyorama 1y ago
When did Jesus say ANYTHING about homosexuality?
- krapp 1y ago
  He didn't. He did say slaves should obey their masters, however. It's weird that Christians have no problem opposing slavery despite it being unambigiously supported by the Bible, and verbatim by both God and Jesus, but they absolutely cannot budge on homosexuality. Even though the Bible only explicitly forbids sex between men, meaning the Church should have no stance whatsoever on lesbianism, yet they do. It's like they want to eat their cake and have it too.
arp242 1y ago
Jesus travelled around the land healing the sick and helping the poor. He didn't travel around the land with a sign saying "God hates fags". There are just a few (oblique) mentions of homosexuality in the New Testament. It clearly wasn't a main concern. Pope Francis' interpretation always seemed completely consistent with scripture. It's the extremely heavy emphasis on homosexuality that's inconsistent with it. Also: being gay and gay acts are two different things. Catholic priests are not supposed to engage in any sexual acts, so in that sense, it doesn't really matter if a priest is gay.
harimau777 1y ago
My argument based on the teachings of the Bible would be that Jesus said to judge a tree by its fruit. When I look at Christians who oppose LGBTQ people their fruit tends to be... not great. On the other hand, those who support LGBTQ people tend to be much more Christlike.

breadwinner 1y ago

> my duty is to interpret and lead via "the holy scriptures" Said scriptures also says that a woman can be sold to her rapist after he violates her. I think a more modern interpretation would not be a bad idea.

zombiwoof 1y ago
[flagged]
sepositus 1y ago
What do you mean? There are plenty of "modern" interpretations. New scholarly commentaries come out almost every year. My point is that, among these, the prevailing assumption continues to be one that doesn't support same-sex marriages in the church. What is lacking, from my perspective, are scholarly interpretations that swing the discussion the other way. The best I've seen simply just exclude the problematic scriptures which really isn't within the Catholic tradition (inerrancy of scripture and all). contexnt: I've studied religions (and still follow the topic) and have a basic understanding of where things are, but take it with a grain of salt.
- jasonjayr 1y ago
  I think the crux of the problem is that with all the statements the Bible makes, at a plain reading of the text, who are we, as mere humans to decide which parts should be strictly adhered to, or which parts should not, or which parts mean something completely different from the plain reading? As far as I can tell there is no consistent application of logic and understanding what parts matter and which parts do not. And depending on who you talk to, those parts change. I understand that as part of the faith, it is not our place to know the reason God has chosen. However, I believe that there are very serious concerns about the intentions of the people 'qualified' to interpret the texts. Relying on "just trust us" gets us into big trouble, fast. As the saying goes, the devil may quote scripture too.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - sepositus 1y ago
    > As far as I can tell there is no consistent application of logic and understanding what parts matter and which parts do not I would disagree. The art of hermeneutics has been around for a _long_ time and has been refined over time as we develop new understandings about the ancient cultures that wrote these documents. So, yes, things do change, but I would argue they do not _dramatically_ change. For example, the message of "the gospel" has been the same since the founding apostles. But our understanding of something like Genesis 1 has changed dramatically over the years as our understanding of the sciences, history, etc. increase.
- deeg 1y ago
  For much of Christian history the Bible was largely interpreted as being pro slavery and against interracial marriage. Most people now disagree with those interpretations. There is growing support for LGBT within the church. Here's one example https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/introducing-why-the-church-of-the-nazarene-should-be-fully-lgbtq-affirming https://thomasjayoord.com/index.php/blog/archives/introducin...
  - selfhoster11 1y ago
    The Bible doesn't even have the concept of race as we understand it today, because that concept is a very recent invention (to my understanding). Anyone using it to support anti-interracial marriage positions would be doing so anachronistically, rendering their own claim invalid.
pqtyw 1y ago
Not the New Testament. Christianity has the luxury (compared to some other religions..) of having very few "divinely ordained" rules. The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament (the one with all not very nice things) however they are rather vague and undefined. So various churches can freely pick/discard almost whatever they want besides the 10 commandments while Muslims can't exactly just throw away the Quran or Hadith (which are much more specific)..
- mynameisash 1y ago
  > The teachings of Jesus supersede the stuff from the Old testament (the one with all not very nice things) however they are rather vague and undefined. Except Jesus said that he didn't come to abolish the law but to fulfill it, and not one stroke of a letter of the law will pass away. So he didn't change anything about slavery, mistreatment of women, etc.
  - pqtyw 1y ago
    He also said 'Love your neighbor as yourself' and a bunch of similar things. Which kind of makes it complicated. I guess selling other people to slavery is fine as long as you also sell yourself (just like mistreating others). > didn't change anything about slavery, mistreatment of women, etc. The "fulfill" bit is rather ambiguous. AFAIK the most popular interpretation (certainly when it comes to ceremonial rules like not eating pork/shellfish/etc.) is that his intention was to "bring the law to its intended goal/purpose" rather than to maintain it in perpetuity.
  - achierius 1y ago
    But none of that ever applied to gentiles. Not before Christ, not after. Jews today do not claim that non-Jews are obliged to, or even ought to, perform any Mitzvot whatsoever -- and that's despite generally acknowledging that there are universal moral laws which bind all "children of Noah". So if the remaining Jews continue following the Old Covenant, but others choose to rather follow Jesus' 'New and Eternal Covenant', then where would this obligation towards Old Testament law come from?
lo_zamoyski 1y ago
Prooftexting is not a good idea. If you think you have a gotcha, then you should get in line with the multitude of teenagers who think they've bested the Church with a verse, and from a bad translation at that. Think about it. It's been thousands of years. A little humility is called for. You're not the first or the last to make flippant remarks like this without understanding.
- spauldo 1y ago
  That's not exactly a "gotcha." The church's official stance on women has changed drastically over the last couple millenia. It's reasonable to suggest that its stance on same-sex couples might eventually change as well.
dfxm12 1y ago
For some added context, Prevost is an Augustinian. Augustine of Hippo himself was not a biblical literalist.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

whynotminot 1y ago

My understanding is that the Catholic church does not actually take scripture as the sole source for church doctrine. “Sola Scriptura” is a thing for some — perhaps even most — Protestant denominations. But not for the Catholic Church.

alabastervlog 1y ago
> “Sola Scriptura” is a thing for some Protestant denominations. And, infamously and comically, isn't exactly well supported by the text itself.
- whynotminot 1y ago
  Indeed. You can find yourself in some very frustrating loops, down to the parsing of words back to the original languages they were translated from, when trying to argue the Bible as a sole foundation for literally everything. Source: grew up in churches that tried to do just that.
  - dylan604 1y ago
    Memories of using Strong's reference to do this very thing.
    - alabastervlog 1y ago
      OMG I haven't thought about Strong's Concordance in so long. Memory unlocked, haha. For the (fortunately) uninitiated: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong%27s_Concordance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strong%27s_Concordance
- ImJamal 1y ago
  Which leads to many Protestants saying the Bible is infallible, but which books belong to the Bible is not infallible. Which, don't tell them, means they have no clue if the books they think are infallible are actually infallible.
1y ago

IncreasePosts 1y ago

Christians can't agree on pretty much anything in the Bible, which is why there are thousands of different sects, and a Wikipedia entry for "schisms in Christianity" that is dozens of entries long.

sepositus 1y ago
I don't think that's a fair statement. For example, a large majority of denominations (I'd say >80%) agree on something like the Apostle's Creed [1]. But yes, for less core doctrines, there are sometimes dozens of flavors. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles%27_Creed

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

lo_zamoyski 1y ago

It's important to realize that while the pope's main role is to guard revelation from corruption and manipulation, the teachings on same-sex attraction and the gay lifestyle do not require revelation. They rely solely on the natural law. Ethics rooted in unaided reason suffices.

FeteCommuniste 1y ago
Oddly enough practically the only philosophers who buy "natural law" arguments against homosexuality are Christian. Makes my motivated reasoning detector go off.
- moomin 1y ago
  Gay penguins are massively inconvenient for “natural law” arguments.
  - ImJamal 1y ago
    I don't think you know what natural law means. This is from wikipedia. It wouldn't matter if 99% of animals and humans were gay. > Natural law[1] (Latin: ius naturale, lex naturalis) is a philosophical and legal theory that posits the existence of a set of inherent laws derived from nature and universal moral principles, which are discoverable through reason. In ethics, natural law theory[2] asserts that certain rights and moral values are inherent in human nature and can be understood universally, independent of enacted laws or societal norms. In jurisprudence, natural law—sometimes referred to as iusnaturalism[3] or jusnaturalism,[4] but not to be confused with what is called simply naturalism in legal philosophy[5][6]—holds that there are objective legal standards based on morality that underlie and inform the creation, interpretation, and application of human-made laws.
    - harimau777 1y ago
      I don't see how an appeal to natural law holds any value since humanity has a near infinite ability for motivated reasoning. To the point where if someone advocates natural law that suggests to me either that they have a serious lack of wisdom or they aren't arguing in good faith.

dylan604 1y ago

If you're basing everything on the Bible, then you must understand that the Bible was canonized by men in a way that fit their beliefs. Even the beloved 10 commandments are different for Catholics than from the Old Testament. After getting to an age to understand this, the holiness of the scripture just lost its bling for me.

josephcsible 1y ago
> Even the beloved 10 commandments are different for Catholics than from the Old Testament. What differences are you referring to specifically?
- dylan604 1y ago
  The catholic version makes no mention about idols. It then splits covet into 2 separate commandments; one about neighbor's wife, the second about neighbor's things. There are many websites with much more details easily found with a simple search comparing differences of the catholic ten commandments
  - josephcsible 1y ago
    https://bible.usccb.org/bible/exodus/20 https://bible.usccb.org/bible/exodus/20 verse 4 starts with "You shall not make for yourself an idol". And yes, different denominations number the commandments differently, but with the exception of Samaritanism, all Abrahamic faiths agree on what the whole of them are.
ImJamal 1y ago
The 10 commandments are the same. Catholics just order and number things differently than Protestants. Both have the same commandments, unfortunately, some Protestants can only read a sentence and don't

GeekyBear 1y ago

> I have yet to see a convincing argument (based in the teachings of the Bible) that promotes same-sex marriages. Here you are. https://whosoever.org/letter-to-louise/ https://whosoever.org/letter-to-louise/

aeneasmackenzie 1y ago
This document plays at least two shell games, declaring that “homosexuality” as its own concept is recent (within 200 years) but then smoothly omitting this when discussing scripture, instead of analyzing scripture and then inserting the modern concept. No wonder it doesn’t find any condemnation of a concept it excluded from consideration! It then does a similar trick where the authors of the New Testament are acknowledged to have poor Greek in many cases but then using specific word choice to claim they meant an extremely forced reading, relying on the previous trick a bit too. There’s even a discussion of how nitpicking word choice is bad practice earlier in the same document!

gopher_space 1y ago

> Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's. Christianity has been comfortable with fairly sophisticated realpolitik since day zero.

ComposedPattern 1y ago

It would be hard to argue that the bible actively promotes same-sex marriage, but I think you could reasonably argue that it says nothing on the subject and so leaves it for the church/community to decide. There are places where the bible gives guidance for heterosexual marriages, but that doesn't necessarily mean that all other marriages are prohibited. Most people are heterosexual, so it makes sense that the bible would talk about marriage in a heterosexual context. There are also several verses that condemn gay sex, but I think you could make the case that it's not talking about the types of loving, committed gay relationships that we have in mind today. And also, even if gay sex is forbidden, you could still hold that gay couples are allowed to get married and adopt children, but that they should remain celibate. That's rough, but Christians commonly hold that heterosexuals aren't supposed to have non-procreative sex either. For comparison, the American Jewish Conservative movement holds that male-on-male anal sex is biblically prohibited, but all other aspects of gay relationships are permitted. And even though the sexual act is forbidden, it's also forbidden to invade someone's privacy by questioning whether they're doing it.

sepositus 1y ago
> It would be hard to argue that the bible actively promotes same-sex marriage, but I think you could reasonably argue that it says nothing on the subject and so leaves it for the church/community to decide. This is where I've yet to see convincing evidence. The whole meta-story of the first few chapters of Genesis was about creation. Not just creation of the universe as we know it, but the pro-creation between a man and a woman in the sanctimony of marriage. Whether you have an overly-religious view of Genesis or not doesn't really change the fact that the original authors were clearly "sanctifying" this act of pro-creation (the "meme" if you want to use Dawkins' terms). Other cultures and tribes obviously had their own ways of sanctifying it, but in a large, almost universal majority of cases, it was always between a man and a woman. Changing the gender to same-sex more or less destroy's the original intention of the meme. I mean, you can do it, but I don't think you're walking away with the authentic thought that was being communicated by the authors. I'm purely speaking from an academic sense here (the art of understanding what someone wrote a long time ago). Sure, we can choose to ignore and/or change it because it's "out of date" but that leads back to a point I made elsewhere about how it's not usually within the Catholic tradition to so blatantly alter scripture.

mrguyorama 1y ago

When did Jesus say ANYTHING about homosexuality?

krapp 1y ago
He didn't. He did say slaves should obey their masters, however. It's weird that Christians have no problem opposing slavery despite it being unambigiously supported by the Bible, and verbatim by both God and Jesus, but they absolutely cannot budge on homosexuality. Even though the Bible only explicitly forbids sex between men, meaning the Church should have no stance whatsoever on lesbianism, yet they do. It's like they want to eat their cake and have it too.

arp242 1y ago

Jesus travelled around the land healing the sick and helping the poor. He didn't travel around the land with a sign saying "God hates fags". There are just a few (oblique) mentions of homosexuality in the New Testament. It clearly wasn't a main concern. Pope Francis' interpretation always seemed completely consistent with scripture. It's the extremely heavy emphasis on homosexuality that's inconsistent with it. Also: being gay and gay acts are two different things. Catholic priests are not supposed to engage in any sexual acts, so in that sense, it doesn't really matter if a priest is gay.

harimau777 1y ago

My argument based on the teachings of the Bible would be that Jesus said to judge a tree by its fruit. When I look at Christians who oppose LGBTQ people their fruit tends to be... not great. On the other hand, those who support LGBTQ people tend to be much more Christlike.