There is Nothing Inherently Wrong with Being Gay

The gospels are to be treated as historical sources because there was not enough time between the writing of the gospels and the events for myths to replace the core historical facts."- What? I do not understand your point here. "Ignatius of Antioch (died 107 C.E.) quotes from John's gospel in his letter to the Ephesians. In fact, he quotes all four gospels in his letters, refuting any claim that these are second century forgeries."- First of all, source this. Secondly, even if this is true, this does not prove that any of the gospels wrote the books of the Bible or that any of the facts in it are true. "We also know they were written by those whose names are on them, for if they were anonymous, a variety of competing authors would have arisen for each gospel as did happen with apocryphal gospels."- Maybe people would have tried to claim they were written by themselves but this still does not prove that the apostles wrote the Bible or that the content has any truth. Someone could have easily written the books under the names of the apostles to add credibility. "Were obscure person deliberately chosen to fool us into thinking they were authentic?"- Obviously they were not obscure people or no one would have taken the books seriously. They must have been known to be the apostles. "It is doubtful that the Gospels could have gotten anywhere unless they were certainly attributable to someone who was recognized as knowing what they were writing about."- Indeed. But how would anyone know that the books were actually written by the apostles? They did not go around publicizing or doing book signings. There is no way to prove that they wrote the books. "If Pro says these are forgeries, I want her to get down to the specifics of how one could have managed to pull off such a hoax on the church as a whole."- Now Con assumes that the church would not want anything but what was written by the apostles. The leaders of the church could have easily written the gospels to give credibility to the church. Now I don't even know why I am arguing about this since I do think the gospels were written by the apostles. This however does not prove the Bible's contents to be factual. " The time gap between the dates of the gospels and the events they relate is too small for myths to replace the historical core. Luke got his information from eyewitnesses. (Luke 1:1-4) John was an eyewitness. (John 1:14; Rev 1:1-10) This refutes Pro's claim that this was written hundreds of years after the events; no, it was written by contemporaries of the events."- Con assumes that if the gospels were written by the apostles then they must be true. What a misconception. Not to mention that Con has not sourced any of his contentions. "Yet, he says, historians reconstruct with confidence the course of Roman and Greek history. For example, the two earliest biographies of Alexander the Great were written by Arrian and Plutarch more than 400 years after Alexander's death, and yet classical historians still consider them to be trustworthy."- Alright but those authors were writing for the sake of recording history whereas the writers and editors of the Bible clearly had an agenda. Also the accounts of Alexander the Great do not defy the laws of modern science. "When Professor Sherwin-White turns to the gospels, he states that for the gospels to be legends, the rate of legendary accumulation would have to be "unbelievable." More generations would be needed."- What do you mean by "legends"? "No disciples would invent a story where a member of the hated Sanhedrin does what is right by Jesus."- Why not? Can you not see how this would be advantageous to them? "The disciples could not have declared Jesus' resurrection in the face of a tomb containing his body. No competing burial story exists, thus we have no reason to think its legendary."- What? Are you for real? There are TONS of competing burial stories, and some which have merit. It would be so easy for them to have disposed of the body and then shown "oh hes not in the tomb! he must have been reborn!" The point is that there is no way to prove that he is reborn. According to modern science it is extremely improbably if not impossible. Even if we haven't come up with a logical explanation does not mean that there isn't one. "Third, we have multiple, independent attestation of the resurrection appearances. (1 Cor 15:3-8; Matt 28; Mark 16; John 20-21)"- This proves nothing. People can see what they want to see. They could also have hallucinated, lied, or mistaken a man for Jesus. "Last, these Jews came to believe in the resurrection so fervently, they were willing to die for this belief."- Once again this proves nothing seeing as modern psychology has found no correlation with how fervently someone believes something and how true it is. "This Jesus, raised by God, believed the Torah which said, "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." (Lev 19:22) If the Son of God says being gay is wrong, its wrong. His resurrection proved he was who he claimed to be, so unless Pro refutes the resurrection, she must see Jesus was God's Son. As such, he would know which scripture was reliable."- First of all, this is not what is written in Leviticus 19:22. If you want to find the actual quote, I' take you more seriously. Even if Jesus was resurrected by some force, that does not prove he is who he says he is. "Pro, please provide your source for this. We don't know which manuscripts you are even talking about; there are thousands of Greek manuscripts in existence"- Obviously I cannot provide you with the manuscripts but this is what I can provide you. To affirm the divinity of Christ, they changed the Bible. http://www.livescience.com... http://www.columbia.edu... http://en.wikipedia.org... http://www.tertullian.org... http://www.gotquestions.org... http://www.thetruthaboutdavinci.com... http://www.fordham.edu... "Please give examples, we don't know what you mean. At least I don't."- Have you read your Bible? http://www.evilbible.com... http://agnosticreview.com... http://www.infidels.org... http://www.awitness.org... "Pro doesn't believe in absolute moral values, so in her belief, there is nothing really wrong then with gay-bashing?"- Nothing inherently wrong yes. But we have developed our idea of morality to keep society in order. We choose our own moral code. I believe that gay-bashing is wrong. " if you truly believe there is no standard of right and wrong above and beyond ourselves, then a man who thinks he should rapes little 8-yr-old girls isn't really wrong. Pro says the society decides morality; so when the "society" of Nazi Germany decided to mistreat and kill Jews during the holocaust, they were right? The laws of their state permitted them to do this, so it was right? When the society decided to keep blacks as slaves, were they right because the society decided this acceptable?"- Nothing is inherently wrong about these things. But for societies sake most of us believe they are wrong, including me. I never said morality is decided by majority. I said culture greatly influences one's moral compass. "Majorities don't decide right and wrong; if it did, Pro would still lose this debate since most people are against homosexuality as taboo. Society says its unnatural. A man raping a ten year old girl is absolutely wrong no matter who or how many thinks it right! So is homosexuality."-A huge amount of people are pro-gays. Cite that this is not so. It is not unnatural because if it were, their bodies would not be telling them to be gay. Though I do not approve of rape, there is nothing inherently wrong with it.