"God Made Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve"
In this argument, the purpose is not to point out a verse that condemns homosexual relationships, but rather to find passages that support (but not prove) two unrelated claims which are said together to support a third claim:
(Premise 1): All teaching passages concerning marriage assume that marriage is between a man and a woman. Not between two men or two women.
(Premise 2): While there are negative portrayals of homosexuals, there are no positive portrayals of homosexual relationships.
(Conclusion): Therefore, the Bible condemns all homosexual relationships.
The first thing to note is that the syllogism does not hold. Consider the parallel construction that seems to "prove" that Egyptians can't be saved:
(Premise 1): All teaching passages are addressed to Jews or Christians. Not to Egyptians.
(Premise 2): While there are negative portrayals of Egyptians, there are no positive portrayals of Egyptians.
(Conclusion): Therefore the Bible condemns all Egyptians.
So, even if we could prove that both premises were true, it would not prove that the Bible condemns all homosexual relationships.
But let's take a closer look at the two premises.
(Premise 1) In its teachings on marriage, does the Bible assume that the marriage is between a man and a woman? Frankly, yes.
But does that mean it can only be between a man and a woman? Often in discussing a general situation, we assume the most common variant. That does not exclude other variants as long as the description of the situation itself can still be applied to these variants.
Is there any requirement in the teachings on marriage that a man must do for his wife or that a woman must do for her husband that a man or a woman can't do for his or her same-sexed partner?
Lets look at one such passage and see.
[bible]1 Corinthians 7:1-39[/bible]
Is there anything commanded of husbands toward their wives that wives cannot also do for their husbands, or vice versa? No In fact, it starts out giving exactly the same two commands to both the husband and the wife: 1) to avoid fornication, keep to your own spouse and 2) put your spouse's sexual needs above your own. [It might actually surprise some people to read that it addresses this command to the husbands as well as to the wives.]
So there is nothing in the marriage teaching that cannot equally apply to same-sex couples.
(Premise 2) There are already threads in this forum dedicated to the question of whether David and Jonathan were a homosexual couple. To my mind the evidence presented by a "queer reading" is inconclusive, but suggestive. The only consistant argument I've seen advanced against it is that "God would have punished them if they were gay."
In terms of proving premise 2, this is circular reasoning: The whole point of the syllogism is to prove that "the Bible condemns homosexual relationships," and yet any evidence advanced to show positive homosexual relationships in the Bible is rejected, not on its own merit, but on the basis that "the Bible condemns homosexual relationships."
Dear GwynApNudd,
Not really an assumption. Men shall leave their fathers and be untied with their wives and both the two shall become one flesh. No I think one has to assume anthropos is man not men
There are no portrayals of homosexuals or heterosexuals. The acts of the doers of the acts are described and referred to.
you have just said there are no portrayals of homosexual relationships so you cant make the premise that Bible condemns any or all homosexual relationships, the only thing you do know is that any same-sexsex within a possible homosexual relationship is condemned.
No I think they are addressed to Jews and gentiles or Christians and non-believers. I dont see your point as some of those teaching passages commanded to go into all the world and make disciples teaching them to obey everything Jesus taught.
But there are portrayals of Egyptians whereas there arent any portrayals of homosexuals
Yes it does exclude all other variants as God could not find a partner for man so He created woman it was for this purpose that the two unite. All references to sexual unions are man and woman so there is no possible foundation of any other union.
Having established there is no grounding to even assume same-sex partners the argument is based on a false assumption.
First: thank you for staying on topic and responding to my post.
Second: if, as I assume, you have never had any training in symbolic logic, this is a very brave attempt.
A premise is a starting statement for a syllogism. It does not have to be an assumption, it can be the conclusion of an earlier argument. That you have a reason for making the statement rather than just assuming it, does not change it's function in this syllogism.
Your argument does not belong here, where I, to test the syllogism, provisionally accept the truth of the premise, but later when you comment on the part of the post where I examined the basis of accepting this premise. I'll address the argument there.
Likewise your comment on the second premise.
you have just said there are no portrayals of homosexual relationships so you cant make the premise that Bible condemns any or all homosexual relationships.the only thing you do know is that any same-sexsex within a possible homosexual relationship is condemned.
BTW (we don't know, from the syllogism, "that any same-sexsex within a possible homosexual relationship is condemned." It is outside the parameters of this syllogism. That is why the examination of the syllogism is only one of several studies in this thread. The other studies look at whether same-sex sex is condemned.)
The whole syllogism is the translation of the argument I have heard from people on
your "side of the aisle" into symbolic logic.
I do come to the conclusion, as you just stated that the two premises do not add up to the conclusion, but it takes half of the post to show that.
I suspect, however, that you did not mean to agree with me that the argument falls apart and is meaningless, and therefore the "whole tone and scope of the Bible" does
not prove that the Bible condemns same-sex relationships. So i will continue looking at your comments.
No I think they are addressed to Jews and gentiles or Christians and non-believers. I dont see your point as some of those teaching passages commanded to go into all the world and make disciples teaching them to obey everything Jesus taught.
In my second version of the syllogism, I am playing a game of "What if?" I am changing a couple of words and asking if the syllogism still has the same form. If it does, then I ask if the syllogism still makes the same sort of conclusion. That is one established way to test a syllogism.
For this game of "What if?" it doesn't matter whether the premises are objectively true. We just ask ourselves "If we believe the premises, do we reach the stated conclusion?" I chose premises that were almost, but not quite, true in order to make the imagining easier.
Using this game of "What if?" to test the syllogism, I came to the conclusion that it does not hold. The same conclusion you
seem to have arrived at as quoted above.
-----
Then I looked at how true the premises were. I am now ready to look at the comments of yours that I skipped over, and at the last two comments:
GaN said:
(Premise 1) In its teachings on marriage, does the Bible assume that the marriage is between a man and a woman? Frankly, yes.
bms said:
Men shall leave their fathers and be untied with their wives and both the two shall become one flesh. No I think one has to assume anthropos is man not men
No argument here.
GaN said:
But does that mean it can only be between a man and a woman? Often in discussing a general situation, we assume the most common variant. That does not exclude other variants as long as the description of the situation itself can still be applied to these variants.
bms said:
Yes it does exclude all other variants as God could not find a partner for man so He created woman it was for this purpose that the two unite. All references to sexual unions are man and woman so there is no possible foundation of any other union.
God could not find a partner for the man
among the animals. If this teaching against any sexual practice, it is teaching against
inappropriate behavior with animals, not homosexuality. All references to sexual unions are to men and women because they are the norm. The existence of a norm does not preclude the possibilty of minorities outside that norm.
GaN said:
Is there any requirement in the teachings on marriage that a man must do for his wife or that a woman must do for her husband that a man or a woman can't do for his or her same-sexed partner?
bms said:
Having established there is no grounding to even assume same-sex partners the argument is based on a false assumption.
It has not been established that there is no grounding to assume same-sex partners. As long as there exist people who are attracted to others of the same sex, there will be people who form relationships based in large part on that attraction. For many years, there was a concerted effort to retrain left-handed persons to favor their right hand. Some few learned to become ambidextrous, but left-handedness did not go away just because right-handedness was the norm, or because society tried to eradicate it.
GaN said:
(Premise 2): While there are negative portrayals of homosexuals, there are no positive portrayals of homosexual relationships.
bms said:
There are no portrayals of homosexuals or heterosexuals. The acts of the doers of the acts are described and referred to
I'm not sure how to respond to this statement. If you had phrased it in any of the usual ways that I have heard it phrased, I would point out (as I did in my earlier post) that there are many who take a "queer reading" view of David and Jonathan's relationship.
But you are right. Neither David nor Jonathan would not really fit the modern concept of a homosexual, or even a bi-sexual. The Bible merely records their actions, and leaves us with only an understanding of the depth of their love, not the nature of it.
