From: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Subject: Re: Homosexuality and Christianity
Reply-To: kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown)
Organization: Minimal.
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 17 Apr 1992 06:18:31 GMT

In article <1992Apr16.174047.27937@athena.cs.uga.edu> hudson@athena.cs.uga.edu (Paul Hudson Jr) writes:
>In article <1992Apr15.224553.21084@menudo.uh.edu> kevin@taronga.taronga.com (Kevin Brown) writes:
>>Indeed.  What Christians like John Muehlhausen completely ignore is
>>that some people's feelings for each other are *strengthened* by
>>sex.  Meaning, of course, that sex in some cases may help strengthen
>>the union between two people to the point that they will marry for
>>a reason most highly regarded by this society: love.
>>In such a case, would sex not be regarded as a *positive* act?  That
>>it occurs outside of marriage in that case is at least irrelevent, and
>>at most a necessary precondition for it to be a positive act.
>
>Look around.  Look at society today.  Look at marriage today.  Before the
>sexual revolution, sex outside of marriage was looked down upon.  
>Notice that the divorce rates were very low.  

You cannot make the claim that people were *truly* happier before the
sexual revolution than afterwards on *this* basis.  The divorce rates
were very low at least in part because divorce was frowned upon by the
society of the time, and that made divorce a losing proposition in most
cases.

>Look at the divorce rate now.

Look at the divorce rate immediately after the "sexual revolution".  Do
you *really* think that there would have been so many divorces if the
people who got divorced were *happy* together?

>Look at how many children are born without having a father present to 
>raise them.  Has this strengthened society.

Would it have strengthened society to raise children in an environment
where their parents were *not* happy with each other?  I think not!

Now, you may claim that the children would have been better off with
two unhappy parents than with one happy parent.  I cannot say whether
or not that would be the case, but I suspect that it would depend
*highly* on the specifics of the situation.

>>Then *why* do so many
>>of you treat the rules in the Bible as absolute law when you *know*
>>that the consequences of following them are sometimes detrimental
>>and the consequences of not following them are sometimes beneficial?
>
>I don't know how many Christians would even agree with your premise that the
>laws God gives are detrimental.  

No, of course they wouldn't agree.  They believe that the benefits are
to be found in the afterlife if they are not to be found here on earth.
But that flies in the face of the fact that God has no need to create
such a consequence.

>Sometimes it is possible to suffer for
>obedience.  Take martyrdom for example.  Several martyrs refused to deny
>Christ.  They paid with their lives.  

So in temporal terms, they lost.  Now you *have* to rely on them winning
in spiritual terms.

But the strength of *that* claim is small indeed, for you have never *seen*
the spiritual consequences.  Instead, you *believe* that the spiritual
consequences are there.

But worse, the mere *existence* of spiritual consequences of temporal
acts flies in the face of the concept of a "loving" God.  A loving God
would not require us to make such immensely important decisions
without giving us the ability to see *for ourselves* what the consequences
of those decisions would be.

>Though there were consequences for
>being obedient, the negative consequences for disobedience were greater, and 
>the rewards for obedience is also great.  

So you *think*.  But what you *think* is counter to any definition of
"love" that I know of as it might apply to God.

>I suppose many of the martys 
>refused to deny Christ because they loved God, rather than because of
>reward or punishment.

Do you *really* think that a loving God would *require* people to suffer
and die for him?  This *is* what you're claiming here.  The people who
martyred themselves would have suffered severe negative consequences in
the afterlife if they had not taken the actions that ultimately caused
them to suffer and die, right?  So they're facing a dilemma: suffer and
die at the hands of men, or suffer and die at the hands of God.

Do you *really* think that God would force the very people he loves to
face a dilemma like that?  When God can change the rules at will in
order to *protect* those very same people he loves, so that they may
live a happy temporal life *and* a happy afterlife?

It would seem that you *do* think this.  And that you *simultaneously*
think that God "loves" these people whom he forces to face this dilemma
(by not changing rules that he created to begin with).  Such a belief
makes a mockery of what we call "love".

It baffles me how you can live with such beliefs...

>Link Hudson.


		Kevin Brown (kevin@taronga.taronga.com)

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