From: zellner@stsci.edu
Subject: Re: Will the -REAL- Christians please stand up?
Organization: Space Telescope Science Institute
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 23:08:51 GMT

In article <01050133.ohmnd7@distant.uucp>, edw@distant.uucp (Ed Watkeys) writes:


 > Assuming, for the sake of argument, that God says homosexuality is immoral,
 > can you tell us why He says it's immoral? 

No, we cannot, not in the fundamental sense that you mean.  We can speculate,
but probably shouldn't.  But let's do try to get the terminology straight. The
word "immoral" means "contrary to custom."  If you or I do things in public 
that are contrary to custom, people will tend to look askance at us.  That's 
a law of sociology, but it's neither here nor there with regard to God's law. 
To describe a violation of God's law, we need a different word:  Sin. 

 > If it's because He says so, please tell us *why* He says so.  Now, we have 
 > your *real* reason for thinking that homosexuality is immoral. Unless you 
 > can explain *why* God says homosexuality is immoral, you're making your god 
 > look pretty arbitrary,                                      ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Of course he's arbitrary.  He's God, and he's not in the slightest accountable
to us for his laws of good and evil, any more than he is accountable for to us
for the way he made the universe or the laws of physics.  And we don't "make
god" anything; he made us, and everything else too.

 > or, alternatively, you're making morality beyond human comprehension, which 
 > would make me wonder why we're being held accountable for things that we 
 > can't even begin to comprehend.

If you mean that God's _motives_ for creating the universe and for making the 
laws of physics and the laws of good and evil the way he did are ultimately 
incomprehensible, you are probably correct.  But we don't need to understand 
his motives.  We only need to understand how his laws affect us.  We can
understand how the law of gravity affects us, and we know that we can get hurt
if we ignore it.  Some people like Newton and Einstein _understood_ gravity
better than other people, but the consequences of violating it are the same 
for everybody.  Likewise for God's laws of good and evil. 

 > You see, the Divine Command theory of morality doesn't work, even to fellow
 > believers. You're going to need to fall back onto some other moral theory.

If we were talking about a man-made god, your questions would make excellent
sense.  But Jews, Christians, and Moslims do not worship any such god.  If
you are looking for some rationality that is more rational than God, or some
standards of good and evil that are higher than his standards, we specifically
deny that any such standards exist.  Correction:  HE specifically denies that
any such standards exist. 

 > I'll be looking forward to your *real* justification for condemning
 > homosexuality.

Homosexuality is no different from any other sin.  It's one of the things that
humanity is subject to.  Some of us have an inclination that way, a larger 
number toward illicit heterosexual activity, some toward gluttony, some toward
drunkenness, some toward gambling, some towards anger or violence, and some 
towards physical possessions or power over our fellow men.  Some have none of
those, and are in danger of the even greater sin of pride.  But if we think 
that discovering such an inclination within us somehow makes it "OK", we mis-
understand the fundamental conditions of human existence.  Any one of those
will, apart from God's mercy, keep us eternally out of his blessings.  We may
dislike that situation bitterly, but that's how it is. 

Cheers, Ben.