When is the CHURCH going to force the govt out of it's sacraments

Amber Bird said:

That marriage is not something that has a history that began exclusively in the church does not matter.

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No one said it began in church, and you are making a very strong Straw Man argument that, of course, you will easily defeat. However, try dealing with the facts. No, marriage is not the purview of the church. It is the purview of God. He established it. He ordained it soley as one man, one woman. Now, can you kindly argue against God having exclusivity over marriage rather than the church?

Amber Bird said:

That Gays are not Heterosexuals "choosing" to be Gay, because believing that one is admitting they're choosing to be straight and that leaves the option open to changing their mind ...

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Another Straw Man. How many of these constructs do you have? No one claims heterosexuals have to "choose" anything. Heterosexuality is the way of the world. Homosexual behavior is labeled by God -- you may remember Him as He who ordained and established marriage between one man and one woman? -- as "an abomination." Homosexuals don't "choose" homosexuality any more than a drug addict chooses cocaine or heroin. Which is to say, they didn't wake up one morning and say "I think I'll be gay" or "I think I'll be a meth addict." It is the life style choices they made earlier, the environmental influences they experienced growing up, the parenting they received has all conspired against them. Yet they are still responsible for their eventual choice to act sinfully just as the addict must accept responsibility for acting sinfully. They may not know it as "sin" as they may not know God, but none of them don't know there is something aberrant about either choice. Bad parenting, bad experiences growing up, poor self-image, perhaps even some very limited genetic influence though I absolutely deny there will ever be found a "gay gene" or a "cocaine gene" or "beer gene", as God does not create for destruction. It is possible that, as with addiction, the piling on of external influences combined with a genetic weakness that predisposes one to react in a certain manner in certain circumstances will be found a scientific reality.

Amber Bird said:

They have because they imagine sexuality is something controlled by other than the libido, is not only ridiculous but dismissive and particularly insulting to then say all means and measures that show hate and contempt for Gay equality is actually fostered by love for them.

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So we should stop treating alcoholics, drug addicts, sex addicts, bipolar disorders, major depressive disorders, etc. immediately because by defining them as weak, flawed or (God forbid!) sinful, we are fostering hate? Does that really sound logical. However, while I know you think that is ridiculous, it is the same thing you are saying about gays, particularly here ...

Amber Bird said:

Not insulting to the Gays but insulting to the Christian that believes love hates.

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Please don't allow yourself to find as acceptable the warped view of God's love actually being hate. He defines all sin as an abomination, yet He provides a way for all to be delivered from their sin. He has clearly called homosexual behavior as sin. You can deny this, you can argue against it, you can stomp your foot and say "No! It's not," but you will be wrong. This is turning the Bible on its head and choosing to ignore its teaching. Unaccepable. Totally and complete unacceptable.

Amber Bird said:

I think the issue here is that certain people within the church believe Marriage is their exclusive domain.
Expecting to reach through the bias that uses God's word as a shield to promote disharmony, bias, bigotry and lawful sex discrimination with the premeditated intent of revoking the inalienable right to civil protections and citizen equality for our Gay family of God's creation, is a waste of time in my opinion.

The opponents to Christ like countenances that look toward Gays as fellow souls created in the image and likeness of our Father in Heaven, are determined because they imagine God approves.

That marriage is not something that has a history that began exclusively in the church does not matter.
That Gays are not Heterosexuals "choosing" to be Gay, because believing that one is admitting they're choosing to be straight and that leaves the option open to changing their mind, because they imagine sexuality is something controlled by other than the libido, is not only ridiculous but dismissive and particularly insulting to then say all means and measures that show hate and contempt for Gay equality is actually fostered by love for them. Not insulting to the Gays but insulting to the Christian that believes love hates.

It is inevitable that Gay marriage will one day be fully lawful in the United States. Christians do not have the exclusive right to appoint what marriage is and who can join. The USSC gets the final say, and one day it will come to that.
In the meantime the States that have laws outlining Gay marriage, and that then entitled Gay married couples to equal rights as lawfully married couples set the precedent for sweeping legislation to take effect one State at a time.
It's simply constitutional. Equal protection.

I think people who condemn individuals to lawful discrimination should ask God's mercy for shaking their fist and condemning one class of people to be lawfully unequal in a country founded to be free for all of we the people.
Straights haven't exampled themselves to be the beacon of righteous morality as married couples. So if marriage is a sacred union they'll have a lot of explaining to do to God for how they comported themselves within that covenant they believe is exclusively theirs as Christians.

History of Marriage

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Well I tell you what..

There are Christians like myself, who have enough love and concern for these people to at least warn them that they will stand before a Holy and righteous God...and if they have lived their lives according to the dictates of their own will that their souls will be damned for eternity in hell.

True love is to tell people when their on a path of destruction. It is God they answer to regardless of what the US Constitution says because He is the Creator and He sent His Son to die for their sins.

That's what this is about.

I don't debate this issue to win. I debate the issue with the hope that some will come to believe what God has said, turn from their sin and live their life for Christ.

Amber Bird said:

I think the issue here is that certain people within the church believe Marriage is their exclusive domain.
Expecting to reach through the bias that uses God's word as a shield to promote disharmony, bias, bigotry and lawful sex discrimination with the premeditated intent of revoking the inalienable right to civil protections and citizen equality for our Gay family of God's creation, is a waste of time in my opinion.

The opponents to Christ like countenances that look toward Gays as fellow souls created in the image and likeness of our Father in Heaven, are determined because they imagine God approves.

That marriage is not something that has a history that began exclusively in the church does not matter.
That Gays are not Heterosexuals "choosing" to be Gay, because believing that one is admitting they're choosing to be straight and that leaves the option open to changing their mind, because they imagine sexuality is something controlled by other than the libido, is not only ridiculous but dismissive and particularly insulting to then say all means and measures that show hate and contempt for Gay equality is actually fostered by love for them. Not insulting to the Gays but insulting to the Christian that believes love hates.

It is inevitable that Gay marriage will one day be fully lawful in the United States. Christians do not have the exclusive right to appoint what marriage is and who can join. The USSC gets the final say, and one day it will come to that.
In the meantime the States that have laws outlining Gay marriage, and that then entitled Gay married couples to equal rights as lawfully married couples set the precedent for sweeping legislation to take effect one State at a time.
It's simply constitutional. Equal protection.

I think people who condemn individuals to lawful discrimination should ask God's mercy for shaking their fist and condemning one class of people to be lawfully unequal in a country founded to be free for all of we the people.
Straights haven't exampled themselves to be the beacon of righteous morality as married couples. So if marriage is a sacred union they'll have a lot of explaining to do to God for how they comported themselves within that covenant they believe is exclusively theirs as Christians.

History of Marriage

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Well I tell you what..

There are Christians like myself, who have enough love and concern for these people to at least warn them that they will stand before a Holy and righteous God...and if they have lived their lives according to the dictates of their own will that their souls will be damned for eternity in hell.

True love is to tell people when they're on a path of destruction. It is God they answer to regardless of what the US Constitution says because He is the Creator and He sent His Son to die for their sins.

That's what this is about.

I don't debate this issue to win. I debate the issue with the hope that some will come to believe what God has said, turn from their sin and live their life for Christ.

ALLorNOTHINGatall4CHRIST said:

Why would that not be acceptable? If I choose to be an Atheist that is my choice that is your choice. It is a secular government SECULAR laws.

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It should be a requirement that the government of a nation be active proponents of the values that it is built upon. By allowing secular atheists into govt, we are seeing an expansion of secular atheist values being allowed to corrode Christian values in our society.

Almighty's humble servant said:

Unrepentant homosexuals, according the the Word of God, will not inherit the Kingdom.

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Jesus Christ, the Word of God, said no such thing. The only versions of the Bible that ever make the claim were not printed until after 1958. No Bible prior to that, especially the original scriptures ever says anything even remotely close to that statement. So no, you are 100% wrong.

There is also a forum rule which prohibits endorsing homosexuality on this board. Please refrain from confusing those who, in their attempts to love one another, fall for accepting an abomination as OK.

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Sorry I see no love here. Calling an entire subset of humanity an abomination, when abomination does not even exist in the original scriptures is not loving.

I love my heterosexual brothers and sisters who have fallen into the sin of homsexuality. But I pray that they will repent and turn away from their sin.

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Being gay is a fixed, biological trait found in the entire animal kingdom, including humans and is required biologically for the survival of the species. They are not heterosexuals if they are attracted to the same-sex.

My thread has more to do with the GOVT defining a religious institution. If the word, MARRIAGE, is NOT what the BIBLE calls the union of man and woman in God, then as Christians we should change the name of the vows we take soas to obey the commands of God.

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And I already proved marriage is not a religious institution, and you have no right to tell other people what marriage means to them. You do not own the word.

Almighty's humble servant said:

So you call hanging them and stoning them, and burning the heretics at the stake, endorsing them for hundreds of years.

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anthropologist: When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given love and committment to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.

Almighty's humble servant said:

I always thought they were stoned, hung, or worse when they practiced the abomination openly......that is until satan infiltrated the pulpits with apostates.

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No one has ever been charged with a crime related to homosexuality under Jewish law.

And again, abomination does not exist in any scripture prior to the King James Bible. It's a very bad translation of the Hebrew. Stop using it.

Jase said:

No one has ever been charged with a crime related to homosexuality under Jewish law.

And again, abomination does not exist in any scripture prior to the King James Bible. It's a very bad translation of the Hebrew. Stop using it.

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Then why is it in my Douay-Rheims?

Jase said:

anthropologist: When Same-Sex Marriage Was a Christian Rite

For the Church to ignore the evidence in its own archives would be cowardly and deceptive. The evidence convincingly shows that what the modern church claims has always been its unchanging attitude towards homosexuality is, in fact, nothing of the sort.

It proves that for the last two millennia, in parish churches and cathedrals throughout Christendom, from Ireland to Istanbul and even in the heart of Rome itself, homosexual relationships were accepted as valid expressions of a God-given love and committment to another person, a love that could be celebrated, honored and blessed, through the Eucharist in the name of, and in the presence of, Jesus Christ.

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Nice try. No cigar.

The late Yale professor John Boswell (whose false claims your link leads to) wrote extensively claiming the Early Church somehow approved of gay unions -- even blessing them. He also tried to refute most Biblical condemnations of homosexuality. His "research," (a term barely, if at all, applicable to his work) studies, and conclusions have been repeated and expanded upon by gay advocates and academics ever since Boswell published them. It continues to be taught in gay studies programs in liberal church basements and elsewhere. Rumors and falsehoods never seem to die; they soon become myth, which somehow manages to be promoted and even accepted as truth. It is happening right before our eyes these days. Very quickly, the following explains Boswell's claims, as well as a refutation.

Rites of so-called "same-sex union" (Boswell's proposed translation) occur in ancient prayer-books of both the western and eastern churches. They are rites of adelphopoiesis, literally Greek for "the making of brothers" -- adoption, in other words. Boswell, despite the fact that the rites explicitly state that the union involved in adelphopoiesis is a "spiritual" and not a "carnal" one, argued that these should be regarded as sexual unions similar to marriage.

The historicity of Boswell's interpretation of the ceremony is contested by the Greek Orthodox Church, which sees the rite as a rite of familial adoption, as the term adelphopoiesis literally means "brother making". Other historians, including Robin Darling Young and Brent Shaw, have also criticized Boswell's methodology and conclusions.

Archimandrite Ephrem Lash criticized Boswell's book in the February 1995 issue of Sourozh. According to Ephrem, Boswell mistranslates, misinterprets, and tendentiously organizes texts, and his "knowledge of Orthodox liturgiology is, in effect, non-existent."

I have to admit though, Jase, you finally posted a link. A bad one, but it was still a link.

Almighty's humble servant said:

Good post, but you assume God's creation is NOT good when you say that sexual orientation is not a choice.

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Yeh, we do say that. We do not think it's good for babies to be born with cleft palates or cerebral palsey or without some limbs the rest of us have. We do not think that everything that is, is good by definition.

ebedmelech said:

Well I tell you what..

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No, actually I've heard enough from folks like you.

You will stand before the judgment! You will answer to God for how you treated his offspring. God's will born in flesh Gay and Straight.

Don't tell me what.
Answer to God.

Amber Bird said:

No, actually I've heard enough from folks like you.

You will stand before the judgment! You will answer to God for how you treated his offspring. God's will born in flesh Gay and Straight.

Don't tell me what.
Answer to God.

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If you think so.

Check my posts. I never said anything negative about gay people. I did say what the scriptures say. So I'll be glad to stand before God because I tell them the truth.

If they reject the truth of the scripture, I don't mistreat them or dislike them because I never know what the future holds. Perhaps down the road they will realize the truth. I wouldn't want their experience with me to be one who causes them to not want to talk to another Christian.

However I will not compromise the scripture. So you can think what you wish...that doesn't make it so.

Almighty's humble servant said:

Good post, but you assume God's creation is NOT good when you say that sexual orientation is not a choice.

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Orientation is not a choice. One can't choose who they are attracted to. You certainly didn't choose to find women attractive, they just are. There is no voluntary, conscious decision making process when determining whether someone is attractive or not. Same reason some people prefer blondes, and some prefer red-heads. You don't decide one day, "Gee I think I will find women more attractive than men today".

And if sexual orientation is a choice, that means you are capable of choosing to be attracted to men, which by definition would make you Bisexual, not straight.

ebedmelech said:

If you think so.

Check my posts. I never said anything negative about gay people. I did say what the scriptures say. So I'll be glad to stand before God because I tell them the truth.

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No, you say what YOUR INTERPRETATION of scripture says. The Bible was not written in English, and the 5 vague verses you cling to are not as black and white as you want them to be.

Jase said:

No, you say what YOUR INTERPRETATION of scripture says. The Bible was not written in English, and the 5 vague verses you cling to are not as black and white as you want them to be.

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No Jase!

Scripture interprets itself. It is consistent on the issue. Perhaps one day soon you will come to that knowledge. I stand on scripture says...while you try to explain it away.

You keep with the attempts to challenge the evidence of over 24,000 full/partial NT manuscripts that are consistent about what you call "vague verses". Then you act as if translation is the problem when the world has been translating languages for thousand of years.

You simply don't want God's word to be true...but it is and forever shall be!!

ebedmelech said:

You simply don't want God's word to be true...but it is and forever shall be!!

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Finally I get to agree with you on something.

However, interpretations come and go. And those who go off message have a hard time fighting the current to make it back to the stream of Living Water.

It may be just me, but I think Christianity got highjacked and the Word distorted or else why would there be numerous churches with different doctrine?
John 7:38 Anyone who believes in me may come and drink! For the Scriptures declare, 'Rivers of living water will flow from his heart.'"
39(When he said "living water," he was speaking of the Spirit, who would be given to everyone believing in him. But the Spirit had not yet been given, because Jesus had not yet entered into his glory.)

Stick with the Gospels; teachings of Jesus, keep it simple, love God and enjoy life.

Leap said:

Then why is it in my Douay-Rheims?

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Because both that and the KJV are based on the Latin Vulgate Bible. The DR and KJV were very interrelated translations. That word first appeared in the Wycliffe Bible, also based on the Latin Vulgate.

The Hebrew word that it replaced, however, does not have the same meaning. To us, abomination means something vile, evil, disgusting, etc.

The Hebrew word merely means ritually inappropriate for the Israelites, or "taboo".

Wearing cotton and polyester, planting 2 types of crops in the same field, wearing glasses in the Tabernacle, incense, sacrificing a blemished animal, letting foreigners into the temple, women wearing pants etc. would all be defined by the same word.

Do you seriously think any of those would be viewed as evil, disgusting, or vile?

ebedmelech said:

No Jase!

Scripture interprets itself.

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It does, really? Scripture supports Geocentrism them.

Joshua 10:13 So the sun stood still, and the moon stopped, till the nation avenged itself on its enemies, as it is written in the Book of Jashar. The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.


The notion that scripture interprets itself is ridiculous. You have to process the words on the page through the human brain. That automatically makes our understanding of what's on the page subject to human interpretation.

There are 35,000 denominations all who disagree on things in the Bible. Claiming you are the only one with the "truth" is completely wrong.

Perhaps one day soon you will come to that knowledge. I stand on scripture says...while you try to explain it away.

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I stand by the truth, which is not found in modern English corruptions. And I've already discussed this issue with God numerous times. My view is never going to change.

Jase said:

There are 35,000 denominations all who disagree on things in the Bible. Claiming you are the only one with the "truth" is completely wrong.

I stand by the truth, which is not found in modern English corruptions. And I've already discussed this issue with God numerous times. My view is never going to change.

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But as you say, there are at least 35,000 other answers out there so you must be completely wrong.