Quote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Steven Fawcett
I know that Jesus loves everyone, but is not homosexuality against the Bible?
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Off the top of my rather-groggy-and-vaguely-ill head, there are a few major points to remember and consider before any attempt to answer this question is made:
- Firstly, the 'Bible' is a collection of various texts which were written, edited and compiled over centuries by various authors who were not only reacting to different social and cultural pressures, but who held different religious perspectives and who were writing to different audiences. I'd personally be wary of searching for a cogent and consistent position on a social issue such as homosexuality; or at least of searching without taking the above into account. Even today, there is no one set, universal Bible; are we talking about the Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Slavonic or Ethiopian Bible?
- Many of the instances where homosexuality is traditionally assumed to be mentioned or condemned, in either the OT or NT, are reliant upon later and extra-textual attributions and interpretations. A prominent example of this is the common assumption that the sin of the people of Sodom was homosexuality, whereas in fact the original passage makes no mention of this and other Biblical passages suggest that their sin was actually that of pride and a lack of compassion.
- The culture that much of the Bible was written within did not share our contemporary understanding of 'homosexuality'. There seems to have been little awareness that a person could genuinely and naturally experience sexual attraction to a member of the same-sex, and so any condemnation which may exist would focus on the act and not the underlying sexuality.
- 'Religion' does not equate to 'Christianity' or 'the Bible', and vice versa. (Though I dare say you knew that!
)
As to your OP, homosexuality and homosexual acts seems to have been discouraged, or at least strictly not-encouraged, by most cultures in many times and places, though by no means by all. As at least in part a reflection of their native culture(s), most religions will and do reflect this in some greater or lesser form. Those that tend to encourage a movement away from the conceptual and dogmatic, such as Eastern religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism and etc...) and the various varieties of Neo-Paganism, are generally less affected by this though.
Moreover, within almost every religion there exist both schools of thought which reconcile a devout faith and a homosexual lifestyle, and which denounce it. I highly doubt there is merely one concept of homosexuality for
any religion.
03-17-2008, 12:30 PM
Homosexuality and Religion
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