There is Nothing Inherently Wrong with Being Gay

My apologies; internet connection problems stopped me from posting in the previous round. Now my opponent asked me to source where Ignatius quotes the Gospels. First, let me source that Ignatius died between 98 and 117 CE and was a student of he apostle John. http://en.wikipedia.org... Second, he cites Luke 24:39 in his Letter to the Smyrnaeans 3:1-2; he cites Matt 7:16-20 in his Letter to the Ephesians 14:2. We could just go one giving examples. (Richardson, C. C. ed. Early Christian Fathers. Philadelphia. Westminster. 1953. reprinted Macmillan 1970) This suggests an early, first century date for the Gospels. The fact that none of the four Gospels mention the fulfillment of Jesus' prophesy regarding the destruction of Jerusalem indicates they were written before 70 CE. Even my opponent herself admits "Now I don't even know why I am arguing about this since I DO THINK the gospels were written by the apostles." So this squarely rebuts her earlier claim in round 2, that "the only reason we have to believe most of these events occurred are because it says so in the Bible which was compiled HUNDREDS OF YEARS AFTER THE EVENTS supposedly occurred. There is no conclusive evidence that the apostles even wrote the books of the Bible." We can trust the Gospels because they were written by contemporaries of the events who were in a position to know what had happened. She asked for sources, so can I. She said, "The Bible was also changed when it was edited by the Counsel of Nasea so we have no idea what the original document looked like." Will you source that? There are over 5, 300 manuscripts of the Gospels in Greek alone, too many for some council to change all. http://www.biblestudymanuals.net... Copies that predate the Council of Nicea agree with those that came after, so I don't Pro has casts much doubt on their reliability at all. Pro maintains that we can't prove the apostles wrote the Gospels, yet, we have more unanimous testimony for the authorship of the Gospels than we have for other ancient historians such as Tacitus; so I guess her library must be pretty small. "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." No historical writing is unbiased. All people have agendas; Alexander's biographers are no exception. The Jewish historian Josephus is biased toward his Judaism, looking at things through Jewish glasses; the atheistic historians begins with the biased assumption of naturalism, and interprets history in that way; rejecting as myth anything he can't explain such as miracles, and the Christians are of course biased in favor of Jesus. But Bible authors were exceptionally honest, even recording things somewhat embarrassing, such as Jesus not even knowing the time of his own return, and the apostles' sins. (Mark 13:32; Matt 26:31-35, 56, 69-75) When making up myths, people don't usually put in stuff that makes themselves or the hero of the story look bad. These writers did their best to report the facts. A church teaching that Jesus is God would not conjure up a story where he doesn't know the day and hour. Just because its Christian history the Gospels record doesn't mean its not recording history. As I said before, more generations are needed for legends (fair tales, myths) to replace the core historical facts of what happened regarding Jesus. Most scholars agree that Jesus did exist, but here is the thing. The myth-theory has two layer - the historical Jesus who did no miracles, and the mythical Jesus who was the embellishment of the Bible writers, adding miracle stories. The problem is that no story of a non-miraculous Jesus has ever been discovered. The earliest references we have for Jesus present him as a miracle-worker. Now if Pro is going to say that a miracle could not have happened, she needs to give good reason for this. You can only say miracles can't happen if you know for sure that God does not exist. So unless she gives us some positive argument why we shouldn't think he exists, she can't rationally affirm that the miracles in the gospels could not have happened. In fact, the gospels are not unique in this regard, for many historical works record miracles, such as when Josephus says the waters of the Pamphylian sea parted for Alexander the Great to cross. This is recorded by four other historians, one of whom was with Alexander at the time and an eyewitness to the events. http://www.godrules.net... "There are TONS of competing burial stories, and some which have merit." Really? Cite one, and give your source please. "People can see what they want to see. They could also have hallucinated, lied, or mistaken a man for Jesus." Couldn't be hallucination because they were too many witnesses and it lasted too long, over 40 days; and if they were making up lies, why invent such a difficult faith to follow? They were persecuted for this faith, yet not one ever revealed it was their lie. Many have died for what they believed to be true, but none have died for what they knew to be wrong. The list of evidences against the hallucination and conspiracy theory are found in "EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST, A Challenge for Skeptics," by Peter Kreeft http://www.freerepublic.com... "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination." (Lev 19:22) This is what the Son of God trusted, but Pro says Leviticus 19:22 doesn't say this. Huh? Please tell us what it says, and how you know this? Pro says that to teach the divinity of Christ they changed the Bible. If she wants to give a specific example for me to answer, fine, but I'm not going to attempt to reply to all the information on her list of sites as it would take up too much space. Let me just put this on the table. John 20:28-29 appears in every single manuscript of John containing this chapter, and in all the quotes of John 20:28-29 where the earliest Christians cited this verse. I challenge Pro to show me proof this was changed, that it said something different before. Here we have Jesus acknowledged to be God by Thomas, and Jesus blesses his confession of faith, showing Jesus agreed. The disciples worship Jesus in Matt 28:9, 17, and in verse 18 he has all authority in heaven and earth. If this was changed from something else that came before it, show us proof. The earliest disciples knew Jesus as God. Don't give me list of sites, I want examples. This is how debate is done; the site link is only to show where the example is from so you can do further reading if you want. Con gives many links to sites where so-called contradictions in the Bible are found. I haven't yet seen a single genuine contradiction. I'll send her one link, a debate on DDO. http://www.debate.org... If she wants to cite a specif example for me to reconcile, fine. Note that Pro says there is nothing wrong with rape, incest, and the like. This is the slippery slope of gay-ism. Once you go down that road, you're open to many other sins. I'll simply let the readers decide if forcing another person to have sex is inherently wrong. Since she doesn't think so, it shows the lack of moral grounding Pro is on. She says, "It is not unnatural because if it were, their bodies would not be telling them to be gay." So if one's body tells him to go butcher her six-year-old son with an axe that won't be unnatural? A parent isn't supposed to have natural affection for her child? It goes to show, when you take God out the picture, it all falls apart - anything goes. Nothing is truely wrong without God's character as the standard. Would you eat food off a toilet seat? Why then, put one's penis in an excrement hole? Its a nasty practices, thus, its inherently wrong for men to bull men. Thank you.