Posts by brotherdan

116

Does Genesis 19 condemn Homosexuality?

by brotherdan in

there are many "proof" texts that people (including jws) use to justify their rejection of anyone that is gay.

there are a few scriptures that you can pull up and try to make a case for show homosexuals why they are evil and wrong.. i've been researching more of these scriptures and i'm coming to some very different conclusions than many other christians hold, especially jws.

i wanted to talk about the first text used by many people to condemn homosexual behaviour.

brotherdan

Are fornication and adultery condemned in the Bible? How does one determine if his or her sexual conduct is not fornication?

One word: Life long committment.Why?

1. Fornication: No loving or lifelong commitment is there. You can meet someone on a night out on the town and have sex. No problem. There is no commitment. That is fornication. But do you have to be legally married according to the law of THIS country to avoid being a fornicator? What about the ancient Jews? All they had to do was take a woman that they were commited to home with them and they were considered married. Why should it be different today? Because the US does not recognize marriage unless certain legal documents are signed? I don't see how this could be argued. I love a girl, we move in together and promise to love each other til death...to me, that is marriage.

2. Adultry: This is the rejection of a life long commitement of marriage. Again, this has NOTHING to do with orientation. It is cheating on the commitment that you gave to your partner to be united with them forever.

We have to draw a line between morality and orientation. What is fornication? It is sex outside of a married relationship. It does not specify between man and man, woman and woman, or man and woman.

My point in this post is that Genesis 19 cannot be used to condemn homosexuality if you are doing proper exegesis.

I did not CHOOSE to be attracted to women. I did not wake up one day thinking that I was going to consider women attractive and men not sexually attractive. Gay people are born in the same way. Do you think that the 12 year old that thinks other boys are attractive just woke up and decided to feel that way? I know you enough to know that you don't think that. And neither do I.

I know that there are other scriptures that are seen as rejecting homosexuals. But PROPER exegesis into the scriptures reveals something far different.

13

Hate Crime / Graffiti on KH

by awaken2004 in

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news%2flocal%_flos_angeles&id=7930229 (sorry don't know how to post link).

this is the kh my family attends.

of course my brother only posted this on facebook because it happened to the dubs.

brotherdan

OOOOOOHHHHH, misery, I bet the JWs hated that one.

"You called our Kingdom Hall™ a CHURCH?!?! HAHAHAHAHA....stupid worldlings!!!!"

116

Does Genesis 19 condemn Homosexuality?

by brotherdan in

there are many "proof" texts that people (including jws) use to justify their rejection of anyone that is gay.

there are a few scriptures that you can pull up and try to make a case for show homosexuals why they are evil and wrong.. i've been researching more of these scriptures and i'm coming to some very different conclusions than many other christians hold, especially jws.

i wanted to talk about the first text used by many people to condemn homosexual behaviour.

brotherdan

Exactly, Leolaia! These scriptures in and of themselves cannot be used to condemn homsexuality.

13

Hate Crime / Graffiti on KH

by awaken2004 in

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/story?section=news%2flocal%_flos_angeles&id=7930229 (sorry don't know how to post link).

this is the kh my family attends.

of course my brother only posted this on facebook because it happened to the dubs.

brotherdan

awaken2004: To create a link, paste the URL you want to link to and then Highlight it. While it's highlighted, click the chain button that is located to the left of the add image button above. Paste in the link in the "Link URL" field. Click ok.

DONE!

116

Does Genesis 19 condemn Homosexuality?

by brotherdan in

there are many "proof" texts that people (including jws) use to justify their rejection of anyone that is gay.

there are a few scriptures that you can pull up and try to make a case for show homosexuals why they are evil and wrong.. i've been researching more of these scriptures and i'm coming to some very different conclusions than many other christians hold, especially jws.

i wanted to talk about the first text used by many people to condemn homosexual behaviour.

brotherdan

If Lot though it was a homosexual act he would NOT have offered up his daughters.

Exactly right. This account was FULLY about rape. And think of it from our perspective today. Rape RARELY has anything to do with sex. It almost always about power and submission.

Also, nowhere does it say that Lot was right for doing this. It is a historical account of an event that happened.

These were angels of God, however. Lot was protecting them. Do you think that it would have been impossible for God to intervene for Lots daughters? Look at the account of Abraham. He was allowed to almost sacrifice Isaac. God never wanted that. But Abraham was able to prove his faith and had more faith than I could ever have.

116

Does Genesis 19 condemn Homosexuality?

by brotherdan in

there are many "proof" texts that people (including jws) use to justify their rejection of anyone that is gay.

there are a few scriptures that you can pull up and try to make a case for show homosexuals why they are evil and wrong.. i've been researching more of these scriptures and i'm coming to some very different conclusions than many other christians hold, especially jws.

i wanted to talk about the first text used by many people to condemn homosexual behaviour.

brotherdan

I wouldn't quibble with the meaning of "know" here because it is clearly has a sexual nuance here as it is in Genesis 4:1; the parallel story in Judges 19:22-25 is clearly referring to rape.

It really doesn't say that about the instance in Genesis 19. That's why I brought up the other scriptures that talk about the lack of hospitality. In our culture hospitality is a "weak" word to mean being nice to strangers. But in ancient times it had a far greater conotation. It was acknowledging the human-ness of another person. It was showing respect for their life. I will discuss the matter of the offering of their daughters in both Genesis 19 and Judges 19 in a different post, but for now it goes to show how seriously the ancients viewed the matter of hospitality. I do not justify this, and nowhere does God justify this in the Bible. It's history of something that happened, not justification. God nowhere commanded that this be done. So you cannot blame God for the actions of these men.

Again, the focus of Judges 19 is NOT condemnation of homosexual behavior. It was condemnation of abusing visitors. It has nothing to say about consentual homosexual relationships.

Also, note the similarity of the stories in Genesis and Judges. One was (allegedly) a desire for homosexual rape. But Judges 19 was a carried out heterosexual rape. Why take the Genesis account and say that it condemns homosexuality because of the mens desire to rape, and not condmen heterosexuality for the mens actual rape of a woman in Judges 19? If you condmen one, you have to condemn the other.

Iit seems obvious that neither Genesis 19 nor Judges 19 were written as tools for condemnation toward homosexuals. The major focus of these stories was the issue of hospitality.

116

Does Genesis 19 condemn Homosexuality?

by brotherdan in

there are many "proof" texts that people (including jws) use to justify their rejection of anyone that is gay.

there are a few scriptures that you can pull up and try to make a case for show homosexuals why they are evil and wrong.. i've been researching more of these scriptures and i'm coming to some very different conclusions than many other christians hold, especially jws.

i wanted to talk about the first text used by many people to condemn homosexual behaviour.

brotherdan

What is the Bible's position on gay marriage?

It doesn't specifically say anything about loving and committed relationships that take place within the same sex. It may refer to a man marrying a woman. But it doesn't say anything about same sex commitment.

I will answer each of these posts in order. I just got back from a long lunch. But I am prepared with these arguments. I had the same ones. But if you don't read more into the Bible than what it says, there is a very different conclusion that you will come to regarding this.

24

Losing My Religion is a New Film being made ...

by sleepingbeauty in

theres a new film in production called ' losingmyreligion'.

its being produced by stephan mcguire who is a proper film producer who happens to have been brought up as a jehovahs witness.

think leonardo dicaprio got something to do with making it too :).

brotherdan

I LOVE the idea and I love the trailer. I just hope it can get off the ground. He's been working on this for a while now. I wish there was some sort of update as to how far along in the pre production process they are at.

37

If The Watchtower discourages Greek language study, why did they publish the KIT?

by VM44 in

if the watchtower discourages the study of biblical languages, then why did they publish twice, in 1969 and 1985. the kingdom interlinear translation of the greek scriptures?.

would this not actually encourage the study of the greek language?.

brotherdan

NO!!! They learned greek FOR us so that we don't have to be bothered by it. Wasn't that loving of them?

20

isn't this lovely? Not!!

by therevealer in

jw
friends

.

brotherdan

Then when you are 50 and still haven't had any ice cream you realize that someone was lying to you about the boy because they wanted all the money you were planning to spend on ice cream.

Good one. He never had lukemia to begin with.