You truly do believe that you're sovereign over your own life, don't you? You arrogantly speak of things which "will" happen, as if the only will in the matter is your own.

Yes and no. There are many other wills that affect my judgment and demands. There are the wills of other people. There's the will of the Universe. Each of them will present a substantial roadblock in my life when it comes to make decisions and actions, and it will be up to me to decide whether or not to try to find an alternate route or continue on the path, hoping to overcome such resistance.

Simply put, human autonomy is a myth. Only a fool believes that he is really in charge of himself. We can strip civil government down to its barest foundations and maximize the level of freedoms we have, yet we still are not autonomous individuals. The heart of the reprobate prevents him from recognizing his own limits. His presuppositions are thus stuck in a materialistic realm in which he himself imposes his own laws. He becomes a law unto himself. We are deluding ourselves if we honestly think we are in charge of our own lives.

If what I'm getting out of this is that human society and lives are at the mercy of the limits and laws we have placed on ourselves as a a collective group in the past, present and future, then yeah. Freedom over ourselves and are actions are never truly boundless, however, that's not to say that some of those boundaries can't be broken or overcome, regardless if they're self imposed or not.

You do realize, don't you, that our legal system is based upon certain Christian presuppositions? I'm not saying the Constitution is a Christian document or anything like that, but it cannot be denied that American jurisprudence is rooted in said principles, among others. Separation between church and state does not mean separation between religion and state. The framers argued for the former, not the latter.

Your words are most definitely true, but like devout followers of the bible who fail to understand that some things simply have no more cultural or practical application, some people fail to understand that societal acceptance of things can, and will, evolve and change, and over time, legal acceptance of such things may or may not change with it, not that everything needs to have legal acceptance or contempt.

Do you really think I'm scared by what some undergrad has written in his term paper?

Not really. It wasn't meant to be threatening, I'm just saying I've already got a rather strong argument with sources to make one think. Not change an opinion or a belief, but to think. I'm sure you've caught on by now that both of us are simply wasting kilobytes of space on these servers, because neither of our words are going to affect the other, besides giving us something to occupy our time with.

Then why are you engaging in this discussion? Why did you respond to my comments in the first place?

You seem to think deeply for fun. I like to poke the buttons of those who hold views different from mine.

And what does that prove? How is that statement a reliable factor for determining ethics?

I don't really know. Does everything have to have reliable factors? I mean, have you ever seen the God that you speak of or the miracles he's worked, or have we simply taken the "miracles" in life to be works of his, and thus applied them to the belief that there must be a god for such extraordinary things to happen? Where's the reliable evidence in theology? A book eons old that has been passed through so many hands and had the potential to be rewritten and had it's entire history molested and twisted back when the majority of the populous couldn't read and placed faith in the kings that upheld god's law and the scribes and priests who read from the book? Such a reliable and secure source.

Translation: you don't want to have to deal with the logical and ethical implications of your arguments. It's so much easier for you to make arbitrary determinations about things, especially when it happens to be convenient.

Exactly. Your point? Mine is that just because an argument or a statement has alternative implications and applications outside of the initial application doesn't mean that such implications and applications need to be applied. That doesn't mean that I don't want to deal with those consequences or unforeseen possibilities or actions, it just means that such extraneous circumstances needn't be constantly brought up as ways to debase someone's argument or theory, otherwise nobody gets anywhere in a discussion. Sometimes, for the sake of an argument or discussion, you have to accept (or at least consider the idea) of something being taken exactly the way it appears at face-value in order to have some ground to stand on, otherwise you're just constantly tumbling around and getting nowhere. However, for some people, it's easier said than done. In your case, it seems like drawing things out to their fullest extent is almost habitual, if not inevitable.

Yes and no. There are many other wills that affect my judgment and demands. There are the wills of other people. There's the will of the Universe. Each of them will present a substantial roadblock in my life when it comes to make decisions and actions, and it will be up to me to decide whether or not to try to find an alternate route or continue on the path, hoping to overcome such resistance.

In other words, you don’t believe that you are accountable in any way to a transcendent God who brings forth a transcendent moral law. You bring up all sorts of temporal examples above, but none of them are satisfactory when we’re discussing the issue of ethics. Given what I’ve seen from you thus far, it appears that you possess no moral compass outside of your own personal preferences.

If what I'm getting out of this is that human society and lives are at the mercy of the limits and laws we have placed on ourselves as a a collective group in the past, present and future, then yeah. Freedom over ourselves and are actions are never truly boundless, however, that's not to say that some of those boundaries can't be broken or overcome, regardless if they're self imposed or not.

Absolutely not. I’m not talking about civil governments or any other kind of human government. I’m talking about a sovereign God having ultimate authority over the lives of all human beings. In this sense, I’m not really talking about physical restraints or limitations per se. Rather, I’m speaking to the reality that we are not autonomous over our own lives in the ultimate sense of the term.

Your words are most definitely true, but like devout followers of the bible who fail to understand that some things simply have no more cultural or practical application, some people fail to understand that societal acceptance of things can, and will, evolve and change, and over time, legal acceptance of such things may or may not change with it, not that everything needs to have legal acceptance or contempt.

Then what you’re saying is A) you don’t believe in ethics at all since moral behavior is always subject to societal trends, B) words really don’t have any meaning for the same reason, and C) that our moral behavior is inherently tied to pragmatism.

The problems with points A and B are obviously problematic for obvious reasons I‘ve addressed previously, so I won’t belabor those issues lest I repeat myself. That said, pragmatism is no basis for determining what we ought to do. Just because a particular behavior is beneficial from a pragmatic standpoint doesn’t mean that it’s ethical. Moreover, cultural changes aren’t inherently didactic for determining ethics either for the precise reason that cultures are not equal in and of themselves.

Not really. It wasn't meant to be threatening, I'm just saying I've already got a rather strong argument with sources to make one think. Not change an opinion or a belief, but to think.

How is that going to make me think? Writing a term paper with selected sources that support your point of view is simply a recapitulation of what has been discussed here and elsewhere. What makes people think are original ideas and I certainly don’t see the “other side” articulating any. All I hear is the same hackneyed banter about “equality.”

I don't really know. Does everything have to have reliable factors? I mean, have you ever seen the God that you speak of or the miracles he's worked, or have we simply taken the "miracles" in life to be works of his, and thus applied them to the belief that there must be a god for such extraordinary things to happen? Where's the reliable evidence in theology?

That we can look to the created realm around us--what we call general revelation--to discern the existence of God is no doubt at issue, but the condition of human reprobation negates man by himself to have any ability to properly discern such things. In his state of total depravity, the reprobate is blinded to such aspects of general revelation. Apart from a sovereign act of regeneration by God, the individual man shall remain in this state.

Before one can know God and understand His attributes, he must first understand just how sinful he really is. Yet the latter cannot take place unless regeneration takes place. The reprobate lives in darkness and cannot see his own sin. He worships anything and everything but the one true God. Indeed, the reprobate actively suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, something the Apostle Paul articulates in Romans chapter 1:

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
For this reason God gave them up to dishonorable passions. For their women exchanged natural relations for those that are contrary to nature; and the men likewise gave up natural relations with women and were consumed with passion for one another, men committing shameless acts with men and receiving in themselves the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Though they know God’s decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

In view of all of this, it really doesn’t matter what evidence is offered because your reprobate mind will reject it no matter what. The evidence is certainly manifest, but you will never recognize it anyway. You daily suppress the truth of which I speak. You are a man of lawlessness. Repent and believe, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.

A book eons old that has been passed through so many hands and had the potential to be rewritten and had it's entire history molested and twisted back when the majority of the populous couldn't read and placed faith in the kings that upheld god's law and the scribes and priests who read from the book? Such a reliable and secure source.

You are obviously ignorant of textual criticism or else you wouldn’t have made such a ridiculous comment. First, whether the book is “eons old” is irrelevant to whether its substance is true. It’s a logical fallacy to use age as a criteria to determine whether something is true or correct.

Second, you offer no substantive argument whatsoever to suggest that the canon of Scripture has been “rewritten” or anything like that. For someone who demands evidence of everyone else, you have absolutely no factual basis for making such assertions. In fact, the texts of Scripture are some of the most reliable ancient documents we have. To quote Hank Hanegraaff on the subject:

In fact, interestingly enough when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered at Qumran, they predated the earliest extant text — the Masoretic text by almost one thousand years — yet in spite of this vast span of time, there was no substantive difference at all…..In fact, in looking at Isaiah 53 there were only 17 changes between the Masoretic text and those found at Qumran — 10 involved spelling, 4 style and 3 involved the Hebrew letters for the word light in verse 11. However, none of these differences were substantive — God has indeed preserved His Word.

And whether the common people were literate during ancient times? Again, that’s irrelevant as well. Plenty of people in the masses were illiterate when the Declaration of Independence was written, so are we now going to question the validity of that text as well? What about the Magna Carta? That’s how silly your post-modern arguments really sound.

Exactly. Your point? Mine is that just because an argument or a statement has alternative implications and applications outside of the initial application doesn't mean that such implications and applications need to be applied. That doesn't mean that I don't want to deal with those consequences or unforeseen possibilities or actions, it just means that such extraneous circumstances needn't be constantly brought up as ways to debase someone's argument or theory, otherwise nobody gets anywhere in a discussion.

It’s not an issue of alternative implications because given human nature we will always see the results of these arguments when they are fully realized. Ideas have consequences and they don’t exist entirely within an abstract vacuum.

Oh jesus fucking christ.

This is getting tiresome. Whatever. Just, whatever.

Point is, I'm still going to suck and fuck other men, and be thrilled doing it.

Whatever you can derive about my moral compass from the internet is just lovely, although it's most likely not going ot be accurate unless you watched every day of my life for about a good two weeks or so.

Just, whatever. Run along now, and take your obnoxious intellect and biblebabblebullshit with you. It's getting a little irritating to me, although I'm quite sure you're God's blessed little crusader.

My question is, how or why would an 11 year old even know if he's gay or not yet? My gosh, he hasn't even gone through puberty yet! Yo.

I knew when I was quite young that I was attracted to other girls as well as boys. I didn't limit beauty or attraction to just one gender. And I didn't really think anything about it until I learned what sexuality was. For me, when I was young, it was no different having a crush on a girl than it was having a crush on a boy.

That is a good question. It is hard because people are taught from a young age what is "wrong" & "right" all based on what their parents say or how they act. Until people realize that their children are like sponges & learn hate from them kids will continue to bully those that they either A.) don't understand why that child is different (i.e. color, religion, or sexuality) or B.) believe that it is okay to bully those that are different because they see their dad or mom or some other family member bad mouthing another person that is different.

Acceptance is hard when what you are telling someone to accept goes against the very teaching of the God that a person claims to worship and obey. What you are asking a person to do when they accept it as being acceptable is the denial of their faith, you have caused that person to accept what he believes is immoral and wrong. There is certainly a difference between tolerance (which doesn't require me to accept as right), and acceptance which requires me to believe and give up my belief.

You don't have to accept it. You don't have to like it. You don't have to support it. You do have to, as a Bible believing man, not judge it. God said he'll do the judging. Your job is to treat others as you would treat Christ. Somehow I don't think this is how Christ would like to be treated.

Your job is to treat others as you would treat Christ.

Sorry, that is not the truth. Christ is Lord, Christ is the Living God, and we are to treat others as we want them to treat us. If we are going to try to teach a religious principal at least get it right. We will worship the Lord, that is what we will do for eternity, we will never worship a man.

Amen! Whoever you are~!

Strike out tolerance and acceptance.

Replace with respect. People shouldn't have to accept. It means that they have to change their beliefs indefinitely.

Tolerance means that you have to put up with it, but it's a nasty word. I hate it. I may tolerate someone for the sake of a friend, but in the end, ultimately, I still dislike that person.

Respect is different. Respect doesn't necessarily carry hate or and negative stigma. It simply is an agree to disagree. Homosexuals don't force their lifestyle on you. You don't use your values to block their desire to marry. Each of you may not agree with one another, but you respect the individual and live and let live.

Here in the UK we have what is called a Civil Partnership. It basically means that gay and lesbian couples can be partnered and obtain all the legal rights of a heterosexual married couple. They can have a ceremony if they wish but it is not required (though most do). The reason this act was not called "Gay Marriage" was to completely seperate it from the religious view of marriage and in effect and is therefore a new concept, removed from the church. It allows homosexual couples to have the celebration of their union plus all the legal rights. So far, I am happy to report that there have been no floods, plagues or swarms of locusts attacking the country.

Personally, I don't understand why this cannot be the case in all countries of the world. It doesn't step on the toes of religous people, it gives the same rights to the GLBT community as heterosexual married couples and two people who love eachother very much are able to express that love and commitment before those they love, many with a very personalised humanist ceremony.

I understand that each segment of my post will soon be ittallisiced and disected, but I am not making an argument here. I am simply stating the facts. I personally, as a lesbian do not wish to marry in a church. For a while I cared what people thought about me, including those so opposed to my way of life, but I have recently realised that your acceptance makes little difference to my life. I will have a civil partnership one day and will be entitled to all the rights that you are. I will be able to declare my love for another in front of family and friends.

I hope and am optimistic that the legalization of civil partnerships will not stop, but will become a very real possibility in America eventually. So for all American's fighting for their rights, it is possibile and it can be done. Don't give up hope.

That first paragraph...right there. That's EXACTLY what should happen (IMO). IMO, it sounds like a decent enough compromise. It's separating the Church and the Government, respecting the religious view of marriage, and yet still allowing committed homosexual couples the same rights as a couple as heterosexual couples.

*hugs* Thank you for your post.

I hope that Civil Partnership takes up here in the States. One of my best friends parents are Lesbian & quite frankly I have never met nicer parents (besides my own but I'm biased lol). I believe that they & along with the rest of the GLBT community deserve to have the same rights as heterosexuals. With that I also don't see any way for religious persons & churches to feel like their toes are being stepped on.

Thank you again for your post. Hopefully the time for Civil Partnership will be soon for the States.

I have been looking for proof online that the word "marriage" originates solely from Christianity and was first spoken of by Jesus/God.
At the moment my search is proving unsuccessful, so if anybody knows of any irrefutable source that gives me a definite answer as to the precise etymology of the word "marriage" it would be very much appreciated.

As for the suggestion that marriage (in the Christian sense of the word) should be removed from the government, I am in full agreement on this one, as my previous post about Civil Partnerships obviously indicates.

Who assumed I, as a homosexual, wanted to get married in a Church anyway? Weird. That was never my intention. It seems people just assumed that as we are unholy sinners then our primary objective in life simply MUST be to marry our same sex partners in your churches and force you to watch and applaud. If it's all the same to you, I'd really rather not!

My argument really only makes sense in the UK as here, the church and state are completely seperate, but the fight for equal rights here has never been about religion, only about changing the law, which was easy enough.

So no, Civil Partnership's don't really concern the church. Sure, your free to sit about and complain about it - you do have freedom of speech. And the extremists have a right to wave banners in our faces that say we're going to hell. However, we have the right to hold banners saying "Dip me in chocolate and throw me to the lesbians!". I'm getting off topic...

It was mentioned earlier on in this thread, or perhaps a similar one about Christian lawyers/solicitors being forced to perform divorces/partnerships/etc for homosexual couples, or other Christian professionals being forced in some way to "deal" with homosexuals. Well I'd just like to point out, that over in the UK, where Civil Partnerships are legal, we have plenty of options when it comes to solicitors, and even have solicitors that only deal with homosexuals. Nobody gets forced to do anything they don't want to do.

There seems to be this big assumption that the legalisation of homosexual legal partnerships will automatically mean the abolition of freedom of speech/choice, etc and will automatically mean that churches everywhere will have to change their logo to a crucifix with a pink triangle in the background. What total rubbish.

I appreciate everyone commenting on this thread & voicing your opinions. However, I don't appreciate the tones I'm hearing through most of this. I ask at the beginning of this thread that you not be rude or made snide comments. I understand things get heated but please be respectful in what you are righting. I posted this to get the message out that lying to get what you want is not okay.

I understand that we will not all agree on this. I respect that everyone has a different view but that doesn't give you the right to be rude in your comments to other members voicing in this thread. If I feel that comments are still rude or obnoxious I will talk to staff about getting rid of this thread.

I did NOT post this to start a debate of whether or not religious people are right or not, nor did I post it to start whether or not non religious people are right or not. So once again I ask please do NOT attack the other members or be snide or obnoxious to them in your replies to their posts.

Thank you.

wow my spelling is horrible tonight.

**I asked at the beginning of this thread that you not be rude or make snide comments. I understand things get heated but please be respectful in what you are writing.

Crikey, this shit is still going?

1) People aren't going to all agree on this shit, because it mixes religion with politics.

2) People aren't going to all agree on anything, ever, because people can never agree.

3) Shut up.

I understand that no one is going to agree. But we all have opinions and the right to speak them.

I am a lesbian. I am very much in the deepest of love with my partner. We've been together for 3 years. In 2007, we had a ceremony. No, it is not "legal". In the eyes of narrow minded people, we are just "roomates". But in our hearts, we are married. She is my wife and I am hers. In the eyes of our family, we are married. WE ARE MARRIED.

Sure, I would like for it to be "legal". I would like to have the benifits of the heteros. But am I going to argue with you over why or why not it should happen? No. Because no matter what you say or what the government says, My wife and I are in love, we are married, and as far as I'm concerned we have a better marriage than most straight people could ever dream of.

You can accept it or not. It doesn't really matter. Because if you don't accept it, that's not going to stop our love. We will always love each other. So keep your narrow mind, and I'll keep my never-ending love!