My apologies Ben, I stopped listening when you compared being homosexual to being racist.

Leviticus 25:44-46 "Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may have slaves." Though since you mentioned it, the Bible happens to be racist.

I fear this discussion has struck a nerve and could get out of hand, so I hope this will help to diffuse the situation.

Eric: Ben is entitled to his beliefs and has exercised his right to express and defend them. You have the right to your own beliefs and may disagree with Ben, but please respect that he has the same right. I don't think that Ben meant to compare homosexuality and racism as if on equal terms, but simply that he believes both to be sinful. Mass murder is a sin. The theft of some inconsequential item from a rich man is also a sin. Just because both acts are sinful according to Christian doctrine does not necessarily make them equal.

Ben: In the defense of your belief, I see that you did try to demonstrate some tact by explaining that we are all lost children in the eyes of the Church and that you acknowledge your own sinfulness. However, given that this is such a sensitive subject (and you yourself acknowledge that it obviously struck close to home with Eric) the comparison with racism was too direct and comes off as quite abrasive. I sense that you are from a conservative Christian household. I am glad that you are able to provide some defense of your beliefs rather than relying on "blind faith" rebuttals. I was raised in a conservative Christian household, though during my undergraduate years I began to find it impossible to reconcile the existence of the Judeo-Christian God with what I see in the world today. Like many fundamentalist Christians, I was taught to believe homosexuality to be a personal choice. The "sinfulness" of homosexuality was just one problem I wrestled with when I began to doubt my beliefs. To describe things very simply, most children go along in life happily thinking boys are stupid and girls have cooties, then hit puberty and suddenly feel inexplicably drawn to certain members of the opposite sex. There is no choice. Heterosexuals make lasting pair bonds because of their compatible interests, mutual respect, etc. However, they do not "fall in love" for these reasons. The initial infatuation is due to physical attraction, triggered by the subconscious release of hormones. There is a very good reason that young people in love behave similar to drug addicts - they are addicted to the hormones released when they are together and feel withdrawal when they are apart. A heterosexual does not choose who will trigger this response in his/her brain, most will tell you that it just happened. There is absolutely no evidence that a homosexual experiences growing up and falling in love any differently, with the exception that the physical attraction response is triggered by people of the same sex.

The Bible says that the greatest of God's attributes is love (in fact 1 John 4:8 goes so far as to say God is love). The Bible also says that we were created in God's image. Assuming these to be true, then our immense capacity for love and our own creative spirit is a reflection of God's image. Leviticus 18:22 and 1 Timothy 1:10 both indicate that homosexuality is a sin. The question that I could not answer is this: How could God, whose greatest attribute is love (so loving that He is love), create us in his image with immense capacity to love and then so cruelly burden a homosexual by asking him/her to give up the pleasure of sex and the happiness of a loving relationship? The answer that God does not allow greater temptation than we can bear is not one I find satisfying. Most people naturally feel the need for a companion; a partner in life. The Bible describes the heterosexual pair bond as a uniting of the flesh (Genesis 2:24), which is no wonder because lovers really do feel like they are a part of each other. To deny a homosexual a partner in life would deny the piece that completes him/her. To use the flesh analogy, it's akin to needlessly denying an athlete the use of his right arm. If you are satisfied with your explanation and believe homosexuality to be a sin, then that is your right (and though we disagree, I will defend your right to this belief). I just hope that you have really considered that homosexuality is not a choice and that a homosexual experiences attraction to the same sex and the desire to pair-bond in exactly the same way that you feel attraction to the opposite sex and the desire to pair-bond.

Ben is entitled to his beliefs and has exercised his right to express and defend them.

Whether one has a particular entitlement or right to express something is irrelevant to whether one's assertion is true or false.

Eric: I do apologise for the use of this particular example, and, looking back, I realise that a better one most certainly could have been found, though I do believe it was a true example. Also, I absolutely agree with your last statement.

Adam: You're right that I do come from a Christian household, and I thank God for that. It seems that we both came to a tipping-point, where we considered this (and other) difficult issues in the faith, and we came up on different ends of the spectrum.

If I may summarize your argument briefly: Homosexuals did not make a choice to be homosexual, therefore God is either unloving (forcing homosexuals to feel sentiments they can't act on and denying them partnership) or revealed true morality falsely in the Bible (by calling homosexuality immoral).

First, I would point out that, even if true, this objection affects only the doctrine of revelation, not the existence of God (which is, sort of, the point of this thread). However, I believe that the objection does have an answer. Many conservative Christians place their entire argument on the idea that "homosexuality is a choice", but I would suggest that, whether or not it is, it does not make a difference. Let me explain:

If homosexuality is a choice, then we can say that gays have chosen a lifestyle that they ought properly to have known to be immoral, just as someone who chooses to steal.

If it is not, we have a trickier situation. I think that there is a lot of value in the argument from a homosexual: "I would never have chosen to feel this much alienation from my society," and I would lean towards having homosexual feelings not being a choice. Whether these feelings come from biology or conditioning, however, we must recognise that homosexual activity is a choice(just as pre- or extra-maritial heterosexual activity is); it is a choice to act on one's feelings.

However, it is not a new or controversial idea that people are morally obliged to resist their feelings when their feelings are wrong. Someone might have an (seemingly) irresistable attraction to someone that they cannot have. Imagine, for example, a man's father marrying a much younger woman. Is that man allowed to act on an attraction to his stepmother that may seem irresistable? Of course not; such a relationship is immoral, and you could say that "God was taking away his right to be happy by making him heterosexual and denying him his lover," but it is obvious that our feelings should not be indulged by an immoral sexual relationship. To give another example, some soldiers have been known to become addicted to the drugs that were given to them when they were wounded and in field hospitals, but it is still immoral for them to indulge that addiction that they unwillingly aquired. However homosexuals become gay, it has no relation to whether or not it is right.

However, your argument presupposes the existence and value of love. I would ask, what value does love have if human beings are simply chemical machines, the results of cosmic accidents? How do you know that the one you love actually values you as a person, instead of being pulled to you as the result of evolutionary and psychological pressures selecting you as the most preferable partner for passing on DNA?

Denying yourself a relationship with one person does not prevent you from eventually becoming attracted to someone else and pursuing that relationship. This is far less burdensome than denying yourself the joy of a partner in life, essentially denying yourself all relationships.

Even though I am aware that love is the result of some interesting brain chemistry, it doesn't change my experience. Romantic love is still the feeling of butterflies in the stomach or the urge to write poetry. I am still empathetic when I see sadness and grief, and I am no less uplifted when I see joyfulness in others. My fiancee still makes me feel complete, and when I am with her, the fact that I know a cocktail of drugs have been injected into me without my consent doesn't make me feel any less loved. Love has inspired great works of art, tremendous acts of charity, and the defense of the human rights of the weak and downtrodden. Having a physical rather than metaphysical explanation for the existence of love shouldn't change the way anyone values love - it is still one of our greatest and most valuable attributes.

If homosexuality is a choice, then we can say that gays have chosen a lifestyle that they ought properly to have known to be immoral, just as someone who chooses to steal.

Actually no, no we cannot in the slightest. The problem with your argument Ben is that you assume that the Bible is the ultimate moral truth and that everyone 'ought' to know it. By your same reasoning everyone 'ought' to know slavery is totally okay as long as the person is from another country.

You have to prove the Bible is correct before telling us everyone should listen to it. Otherwise your argument is equally invalid as me saying you can cure asthma with talking-therapy because it said so in Dianetics.

Adam: Actually, I wouldn't go as far as to say that people with homosexual feelings are denied a loving partner in life, though I will conceed that it will be more difficult. The reason is this: there are examples (unfortunately rare, but they exist) of people re-establishing moral sexual attractions. That is, they become "un-gay". While this is possible, I would not say that this is an option for most homosexuals, but it doesn't make a difference for two reasons: 1) I've already shown that sometimes burdens (my argument did not differentiate the size of the burdens) have to be borne to remain moral, and that that is acceptable and right, and that 2) many heterosexuals (particularly in the Catholic church) have denied themselves marriage for the service of God. I am not Catholic, and I have not committed myself to a life of celibacy, but for the forseeable future I have ruled out dating in my life because, at this stage, it would distract me from my relationship with God. I know (in a small way) what it's like.

If you are satisfied with the physical explanation of love, and I agree that it is our greatest attribute, then I cannot touch you with this particular argument. However, I would point out the logical consequences of purely biological love: it is ultimately meaningless and will disappear in an unfortunate instant. I wish you and your fiancée all the love in the world, and I sincerely hope that you have a happy life together until you die, but are you really satisfied with love being only a hormonal reaction? If you asked your fiancée if she loves you, and she said, “Right now I feel like I do, but were my hormones to stop firing around you, I might not,” how would you feel? I would encourage you to explore the philosophical groundwork for true, metaphysical love.

One problem with naturalism is that it doesn’t allow us any epistemological basis for anything being actually true. If we are just evolutionary machines in a naturalistic universe, then the human brain has, throughout the ages, been naturally selected to think thoughts that have survival value, not thoughts that are true or logical. Only if we have an immaterial mind do we have a hope that what we think is undetermined and true.

Eric: I have been speaking in a hypothetical sense to show the internal consistency of my own argument, thereby overcoming the objection that the Bible is inconsistent in its ethics and irrelevant to modern life. I realise that I cannot assert the authority of the Bible. If you want me to make a case for the authority of the Bible, I would be thrilled to, but I think that would take up too much time and space, so I would suggest focusing instead on the epistimological discussion that I've started with Adam. I won't respond to the slavery comment, because I've already written in this thread about the Mosaic law.

If you want me to make a case for the authority of the Bible, I would be thrilled to, but I think that would take up too much time and space, so I would suggest focusing instead on the epistimological discussion that I've started with Adam.

Seeing as your argument with Adam is irrelevant without your case for the Bible's authority, it is kind of important. Your asserting that homosexuality is inherently immoral with no basis.

Also your personal interpretation of the Bible, that Hebrew 8:13 renders the Old Testament obsolete, is inconsistent with the idea of biblical law being absolute. If the Bible admits itself that biblical laws can become outdated I don't see how you can preach the absolutism of the New Testament.

I have not been asserting the immorality of homosexuality; I have been arguing it from the authority of the Bible, which I realise (as I stated plainly) I have not made an argument for. My object was never to show you that homosexuality was immoral, but to defend against the argument that the Bible is inconsistent and out-dated. Apart from an argument for the authority of the Bible, I cannot insist that you accept the conclusion of that argument (that any particular thing is immoral). However, I will make an argument for the authority of the Bible:

1. God exists, and therefore it is possible that He communicates in the medium of inspired writing. I recognise that this, too, is an unargued premise. We could simply argue this point, and will gladly, if you would prefer that discussion, because it really ought to come first. We are quickly approaching the point where the thread and my schedule are too full to add many more individual lines of argument.

2. As with any historical document, we ought to consider the Bible "innocent until proven guilty" - that is, true until there is enough reason to doubt its truth.

3. It is demonstrably true or plausible in every aspect, and is without error or contradiction. The burden of proof is on the opponent of this premise to show a location where the Bible is outright, 100% wrong about something or contradicts itself.

4. The truth of the Bible is the best fit to what we can reasonably know about God from extra-biblical data and reason. Basically, it works with what we already know.

5. Therefore, it is more reasonable to believe that the Bible is inspired by God than to disbelieve.

I realise that this is not an imperical argument; I cannot prove that the Bible is authoritative. However, by demonstrating that it is more reasonable than the opposite view, I have effectively done the same thing.

I did not mention Hebrews 8:13, but I do certainly affirm it. Can a sentence be true that says, "The bus route ran from Main Street to First Avenue from 2000 to 2011, and now that route is no longer in service and the bus route runs from Main Street to Green Road." Of course it can. How is that logically different from, "the Mosaic law applied from its authorship until the death of Jesus Christ, and now that law is no longer in application"?