Let the flood gates open.

In my "This is just stupid" post, I had a lot of good responses. Although, the goal of my post wasn't REALLY to say homosexuality was wrong or right. It had more to do with people minding their own business and moving on to more productive aspects of society. Here is some of my reponses to some comments that actually got me thinking...

First off is 1 Corithians 6:9-10:
"Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do no be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards not slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God."

I was actually surpised when I saw this scripture, because of my many years of being involved in the church, I don't remember coming across a scripture that used the word "homosexual". I soon found out why. My family was big on reading (what they called) the original translation from the Greek writings.

What I had seen before was this from the King James Version (KJV):
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God."

Notice, then KJV version says "effeminate", while the NIV (New International Version), says male prositutes. Also, notice that the KJV says, "abusers of themselves with mankind", while the NIV says, "homosexual offenders". This can be very confusing to people who come across this since there are about 25 different major translations of the bible.

So here it goes...
The original Greek text had two other words these two sins (in bold above). They were "malakoi", and "arsenokoitai". At the time of Paul's writing (yes Paul wrote this book), the standard word for homosexuals was "paiderasste". In fact, without going into details of research, "malakoi" meant "soft", or "loose". So as in loose men, loose morals, etc. The other word, "arsenokoitai", meant roughly, "an economic exploitation by means of sex". So basically pimping. It is interesting to note though that it used to be translated as "masturbators", until about the 20th century when masturbation become commonly excepted behavior and was then changed to reference homosexuals. The last religious writing in English that interpreted 1 Corinthians 6:9 as referring to masturbation is believed to be the [Roman] Catholic Encyclopedia of 1967.

But anyways, getting back to pimping... this was a big problem in Paul's time... temple prostitution. It is also interesting to note that one of the other verses given in a comment was from (another book by Paul) Romans 1:26-27 (although stated as 2:26-27). These verses seem to be the most obvious as being against homosexuality except that they are a little out of context. So starting at Romans 1:24 we see, "Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another." If you read everything in completness, you see the link to 1 Corithians 6:9-10 about the temple prostiution. Paul is again talking about temple prositution (according to my research). In fact he starts off by talking about these acts between men and women (heterosexual), and then goes on to talk about men and men and women and women. Although, I think the overall point was temple prostitution and not homosexuality.

Phew!!!!...
Well, that sums up my info for today. I love looking at this stuff actually, I have several books about different religions and how they came about and evolved from their start to present day. If we are going to use Paul's words as reference (which statistically you'll have to since he did write 13-14 of the 27 books of the new testament), then let me leave you with this one (which was my whole point in the original post):

Romans 2:1-5
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance? But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed.

P.S. Please blog anonymously or with a fake name for your protection.

Ancestors of Birds

I don't think this is something controversial, just interesting. I've been reading a lot of modern discoveries over the past few months that lead up to a starting theory. That theory is that dinosaurs never completely died out. Instead they evolved into what we know as birds. Pardon, my lack of wanting to look up the correct definition of a dinosaur, since I've read that not every ancient reptile is known as a dinosaur (just bare with me). Anyways, I thought this new find was really interesting.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8072396/

They even go as far as to state the following, "Anyone who would argue that birds and dinosaurs are not related — frankly, I'd put them in the Flat Earth Society group." Very intersting indeed. If I had to choose I guess I'd rather have the flying ones that poop on my car instead of biting my head off.

Change of direction

The last post I did called, "This is just stupid" caused a lot of feedback. I had readers from everywhere that showed up. If you haven't read that post below, and the comments, then please do. Anyways, now I'm addicted. Prepare for some other topics of controversy. ;-)

This is just stupid

I think people should have equal say and I also believe in fairness and equal rights. Although, I am always surprised when we try to push society forward in being tolerant and peacefull and religious groups try to push society backwards.

The link below is to an article on MSNBC about a Christian Activist group going after Ford Motor Company because "the company which has done the most to affirm and promote the homosexual lifestyle". To me, this seems like the same mentallity of people who wouldn't let go of segregation. That's just my opinion.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8047423/

While, I'm at it, I have to state the obvious. If Christians are supposed to believe that homosexuality is so wrong that we must stand up against it, then why not stand up against other real "crimes". Being gay seems like the least of all sins if you ask me. What are murder, theft, spousal abuse, drug addiction, etc.? Why are these groups wasting so much time and energy on gay people?

I think it is because they are an easy target. Most gay people I think want to live normal lives, unless they feel like their rights are being trampled on. Why not tackle violence in the US? Probably because that is too dangerous. I still have a hard time seeing the exact line about homosexuality being a sin in the biblical text. There are lines about sodomy, but a report I saw about gay men in the US stated that a very small percent actually did that. The other larger percent performed in other ways. I would imagine that there are more heterosexual men sodomizing women (I can't believe I'm writing about this).

Anyways, I'm through writing about this. Let me know YOUR thoughts!!