In fact, your entire post exemplifies perfectly my point that Atheists will pick on anything to attack the Church with, without bothering to empathise with the Church.

People like Arix will pick on anything to attack homosexuality, while remaining hypocritical on what in the Bible should be followed or not.

When asked about things that are equally condemned by the Bible as homosexuality, such as shellfish or divorce, they start to give excuses. How convenient, interpreting the book as it long as the interpretation suits their convenience and agendas.

When asked about molest and rape of young children, it seems like Arix is more concerned about outlawing consensual loving relationships between men. I mean, it’s just molest, but gay sex between two consenting adults? NO WAY!

In fact, your entire post exemplifies perfectly my point that Atheists will pick on anything to attack the Church with, without bothering to empathise with the Church.

People like Arix will pick on anything to attack homosexuality, while remaining hypocritical on what in the Bible should be followed or not.

When asked about things that are equally condemned by the Bible as homosexuality, such as shellfish or divorce, they start to give excuses. How convenient, interpreting the book as it long as the interpretation suits their convenience and agendas.

When asked about molest and rape of young children, it seems like Arix is more concerned about outlawing consensual loving relationships between men. I mean, it’s just molest, but gay sex between two consenting adults? NO WAY!

You misunderstand my point.

I am well aware what happened in the case of Baal and Asherah worship during Old Testament times, and the Aphrodite worship that was part of Corinthian life in the time of Paul.

My point was that you cannot derive that from the Romans 1 text.

The Romans 1 text is Paul’s description, as a Christian Jew who has the both the Law of Moses and the Gospel of Jesus as his background, describing the world’s fall into idolatry and sin as a result of the general rejection by mankind of God as God. As a result of this, God gives mankind over to his desires, and so the world is full of those who sin in body (1:24-26) and mind (1:28-31).

And the key word is desires. A desire is something that is already there inside. It is not necessarily chosen by the person. In this case, we learn that men, burning with lust for other men, abandon ‘natural’ relations with women and commit indecent acts with one another.

As I said to Kezu in my summary of that argument – straight men do not ‘burn with lust for one another’. To make the passage say that is distorting it beyond recognition. You may as well say that ‘down’ is ‘up’. Straight men may have sex with men – I grant you that not only is that possible, but it has been done historically and currently, as we both agree on, but they do not do so out of ‘lust for one another’. Something else is clearly going on here. The passage describes men (and women) who want to have sex with one another because they feel like it and are attracted to one another. ‘Burning with lust’ may be strong language, but it essentially describes those who have same-sex sexual desires, which now take over, even with the clear background of the two-sex division of humanity that is God’s intention for sex (which is the issue of ‘natural’ – the God-ordained purpose which bodies are for, not what people ‘feel like doing’).

Paul’s concern is not that every man is doing this – but that it even exists. Yes, I know that gays are only a small proportion of society, but that is not the point. Look at the list of sins in Romans 1:28-31 – the point is not that all of humanity is doing them all the time, but that they are there at all. It is a consequence of a world that has rejected God. It is a consequence of the Fall.

Of course, Paul goes on to describe how the Jews break the Law (chapter 2) and how the whole of humanity is under sin (chapter 3:1-20) before bringing in the good news of righteousness by faith in Christ (3:21-4:25). Yes, we all, homosexual and heterosexual are saved by faith in Christ, but this must be accompanied by identifying with Christ (Romans 6) and putting actual sins to death by the Spirit (Romans 8) for the ultimate attainment of eternal life. Eternal life is both now and not yet, and we are preserved in faith by the Gospel as we both believe its promises and heed its warnings.

Gentle Lamb – I am guessing that by your name you identify as a Christian. I do not want to take that away from you, but one simply cannot twist the scriptures like this. It is a very strained interpretation, and should be recognised as such. It seems that it is an attempt to get away from the obvious conclusion – that Paul condemns same-sex sexual behaviour as being part of man’s fall away from God and his purposes. He also makes the point, ignored by many Evangelicals, that it is not entirely chosen – that same-sex desires are pre-existing before it is acted on in conscious choice. I can understand those who simply ignore the passage out of rejection of God and Christianity, but we Christians are called to be better than that, right?

Sins of the spirit are clearly the most important – but we do not neglect those while also dealing with the sins of the flesh.

If you continue like this, I will report you to the editor for hurling emotional invective at me that does not add to the discussion. For the moment, I will be polite to you.

3) It is objective quantitatively. In terms of psychological impact, molesters are less severe than rapists. You can of course, provide me evidence to prove the converse. I am not off that.

Morally, I am not endorsing Molesters any more than I am endorsing Rapists.

7) Even a 10-hour documentary would be insufficient. I wonder how long it takes to interview 1 billion people (the population of the Global Church)?

8) In case you didn’t notice, I mentioned that I have watched a documentary on BBC about this issue. I didn’t go to the link you posted, so I am unsure if the documentary I watched is the same as the documentary I linked to.

Plus, do not make false accusations. I did not dismiss any of the people quoted in the documentary. I am sure that they are not telling any lies whatsoever, and expressing sincere heartfelt opinions. But then they are not statisticians so they have no idea what the actual numbers are.

9) Now you are being a hypocrite! Who do you think you are to presume to know what I would do in response to such a documentary? FYI, what you say of me constitutes an unqualified personal insult, and you should apologize immediately.

10) Well, you can go and check on the USCCB website.

11-) I am just trying to show you the Church’s Catch-22. In fact, your entire post exemplifies perfectly my point that Atheists will pick on anything to attack the Church with, without bothering to empathise with the Church.

So I guess, at the end of the day, you are still the real hypocrite.

1) “”"Same could have been said about the issue of homosexuality. But that floodgate is allowed to be opened. Actively persued by the Christian Right as a rallying slogan across US.”"” Please clarify “floodgate”.

2) That quote is not talking about the Bible; it is talking about the doctrinal definitions that Christians teach based of from Scripture and Tradition. For instance, those found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. That is, not the text of the Bible that is in Hellenistic Terms, but the explanations of the Text formulated at the Church Councils that are in Hellenistic Terms.

4) The actual issue is that these definitions – not biblical verses – were trans-literated, not translated.

5) I agree, with an addition: Neither are the all-embracing Liberals like Rev Yap doing so.

8) No, I am not. If you feel confused, read through again. If you still feel confused, ask me to clarify.

Look carefully at your quote again. You are totally off-tangent.

What I meant is Moses lived 1000 years before Plato and Socrates and Aristotle, and Jewish Society – with the Ten Commandments and Leviticus – were founded at that time, when as illiterate slaves coming out of Egypt, they had no knowledge whatsoever of any form of philosophical understanding. So the Shellfish and the Two threads are substitutes for the philosophy they embody.

But by the time of Jesus, all these philosophies, plus those of the Greek, Roman and Persian empires, had influenced the Jews, so they had new material they could use which they did not have previously 1000 years ago. Thus, Christ and Paul appeal to this better sense of philosophy and moral understanding; thus the Shellfish and the Two Threads are no longer necessary.

You somehow read exactly the opposite meaning!

In the case of shellfish and clothing, as I explained, the “literal” intention is to give the Jews a distinct identity; at the time of Moses Jewish culture was not sufficiently advanced to understand the distinction of identity philosophically. But in Jesus’ time, the influence of the Romans and the Greeks and Persians before them, as well as the maturation of Jewish society itself, would enable people to at least be able to do bare-bones philosophy. These practices were reflective of a deeper purpose, and as long as the deeper purpose is maintained, the details of the practices can be adjusted for each age and culture.

Arix, i must admit i am impressed. Philosophers the likes of Plato, Socrates and many, many others are unable to impart bare-bones philosophy to the Romans?
Who in turn established Christianity as state religion for 150 years?

Honestly I can believe the true meaning of the Bible is not wrong,
But i cannot accept that there are no errors/misinterpretation/inaccuracy when written down by human hands across different languages that not many can still read let alone master.

Despite all the modern discovery and so on, the bible has yet to be revised, has it now?
(if so i did not remember reading about non-pancake earth and heliocentrism?)
Has it’s contradicting verses in the Bible been updated? or more important question is will it?

Perhaps only then can we Truly talk about shellfish and 2 treads, and it’s deeper purposes.

Kezu (#209),
Sorry, please clarify what you mean here.

not sure which post is this. please drop a specific line next time.
The current #209 is my reply to sllim.

I will fairly admit that the Church is partially responsible for itself being misunderstood. Catholics – and the rest who broke off from Catholicism some time in history – explain their doctrine using Hellenistic forms that are not understood by people today, except the very few who study Greek Classics. So whenever the Church makes use of a term, we must stop and pause to see if the Hellenistic approach to that term is similar to our modern approach. Which, of course, the Atheists are not doing.

You see, that where a lot of people has bones to pick with you and your Bible.
The bible you are quoting from now are in English (which i presume the language you too are using)
If there were concerns of ‘Lost in Translation’ from Hellenistic, then safeguards and precautions should have been put in place? You mean even after 2000 years, nobody thought of such thing?

The issue is not about should or not, its all about whether there’s any Need or not?

But now that translated version from Hellenistic to English (may not be fully accurate reflection of exact meaning as indicated by you) is now being translated further to … how many languages now? *lost count*

And you say what Altheists are not doing?
I would say most of Bible thumping readers are also not doing too!.
How many are taking up Hebrew/Ancient Greeks just to pore through the scrolls in Vatican to gain the actual meaning of scriptures that made up the Bible now?

What most of them do is just regurgitate what being preached from the pulpit every Sunday. Coming from the same English bible that you and I are reading
(which you indicated may not translated accurately from Hellenistic language)

If you ask most of them, they probably think the Bible dropped from heaven and came straight from God in English.

Your post is so lengthy, i need to split up the reply.

Are you sure you are not adopting one of my favorite strategies?
‘If you cannot convince, confuse them’ .

1. Arix did not watch the documentary but condemns it anyway.

2. Arix is more concerned about his church’s public image than the victims who suffered at the hands of his priests.

3. Arix is more concerned about the shortages of priests in his church than the lifetime sufferings inflicted in the victims by the priests.

ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING.

If a priest forces a child of 5 or 6 or 7-years old to perform oral sex on him, molested the child, forced the child to have sex with him during cathechism time, all the time telling the child that this is love, does that mean that the child should ignore everything he teaches them about love?

Absolutely.

Some food for thought.

Arix says: “I do not support the rapists or the molesters (and most were just molesters actually) who were priests…”

The key word here is: “just”.

“Just molesters”, Arix says. Just.

Shocking, especially when it comes from a self-procliaimed “god-fearing Catholic”.

Obviously, Arix has no clue about how it feels to be molested. But of course, he pretends to know.

The Arix goes on and say the documentary is just a one-hour or two-hour documentary. Perhaps Arix needs a 10-hour documentary? Amazing how blind faith makes one really truly blind.

Arix says he perhaps didn’t watch the documentary. How does one “perhaps didn’t watch the documentary”??? You either did or did not. Then Arix goes on, presuming that he did not watch the documentary, to dismiss the people quoted in the documentary!

Amazing. Laughably amazing.

He did not watch the documentary. But he dismissed the people quoted in the documentary.

And why does Arix not watch the documentary? Only his god knows. I am sure if it was a documentary portraying homosexuals negatively, Arix would be lapping it up, even quoting from it, defending it.

Arix then defends his church and his pope: “…the Church did hand many over to the local police.”

Does Arix provide any proof? No. It’s his words. Only. But the important question is: How many is “many”?

And then Arix makes the most vile of the vilest remarks:

“there is a worldwide shortage of priests; if the Vatican were to de-frock all the clergy who participated in the scandal, it would stretch the shortage of priests even further”

I am speechless. Totally speechless.

Arix is saying his church will keep these rapist priests because of shortages of priests which his church is facing.

This is why Arix’s hypocrisy makes me puke.

If a physics teacher took drugs, molested his students, smoked and took porn videos during lesson time, does that mean that his students should ignore everything he teaches them about physics?

Some food for thought.

2) Sure, the Documentary is widely-praised, by whom and for what? I could praise it – as I think I would – for good graphics and plotline, and excellent engagement with the subject. But that doesn’t mean I have to consent that the documentary is fully 100% factual.

4) “thousands” is an estimation. Nobody has actually proven a concrete figure. All the people quoted in the documentary claim to “I agree that there will be more …” or “I am sure that there are …” or “certainly there must be” but none of these are empirically credible statements. Perhaps I didn’t watch your exact documentary, but I watched a similar one on the BBC.

5-7) You are fitting words into my mouth. Neither I nor the Pope endorsed any of the child molesters, and the Church did hand many over to the local police, contrary to what some leading Atheist “thinkers” claim.

I do not support the rapists or the molesters (and most were just molesters actually) who were priests, or who were Church officials, and certainly I concur that a harsher line should have been taken by the Vatican.

Conversely, one must also see it from the Vatican’s viewpoint. Firstly, there is a worldwide shortage of priests; if the Vatican were to de-frock all the clergy who participated in the scandal, it would stretch the shortage of priests even further, and although Atheists might hail it as their victory, the Papacy obviously thinks otherwise.

Secondly, a one-hour or two-hour documentary does not interview everybody. The way such documentaries paint the scandal is as if every single priest and every single bishop is involved in child abuse, which is clearly sensationalist, and is only becoming acceptable because of the decline in people’s respect for the Church. It is as one bishop said, “It doesn’t matter how many hospitals the Church builds in Mongolia or how many schools the Church sets up in Brazil. The moment a single priest molests a single child, the Church is suddenly the Big Satan, and all its contributions to human welfare are forgotten in a blink of an eye.

My – and the Pope’s Message is: “Yes, demand that Justice be done, but do not let the sins of a few cast a shadow of the good done by many.”

That’s very different from the allegation of “cover-up” conspiracy you are alleging.

Do that with regards to the abuse and rape committed by your priests and church and we may believe you.

Neither do I, but the Inquisition tends to be the standard by which Atheists judge the Church. I am not an Atheist, so why don’t you ask them?

Kezu (#209),

Sorry, please clarify what you mean here.

Kezu (#210),

I will fairly admit that the Church is partially responsible for itself being misunderstood. Catholics – and the rest who broke off from Catholicism some time in history – explain their doctrine using Hellenistic forms that are not understood by people today, except the very few who study Greek Classics. So whenever the Church makes use of a term, we must stop and pause to see if the Hellenistic approach to that term is similar to our modern approach. Which, of course, the Atheists are not doing.

In this case, the Church – and most of the orthodox Protestant denominations – distinguishes between the “literalist” meaning and the “literal” meaning of the Bible. Sometimes, both coincide; many times they do not. The “literalist” diverges from the “literal”.

In the case of shellfish and clothing, as I explained, the “literal” intention is to give the Jews a distinct identity; at the time of Moses Jewish culture was not sufficiently advanced to understand the distinction of identity philosophically. But in Jesus’ time, the influence of the Romans and the Greeks and Persians before them, as well as the maturation of Jewish society itself, would enable people to at least be able to do bare-bones philosophy. These practices were reflective of a deeper purpose, and as long as the deeper purpose is maintained, the details of the practices can be adjusted for each age and culture.

In the case of homosexuality, the “literal” intention is to condemn homosexuality as a deviation from the moral ideal, and thus homosexual acts as immoral actions. It is already expressing the deep purpose itself, and therefore brooks no attempt at change. (How the Church should seek to reconcile homosexuals is another matter altogether.) The “literalist” coincides with the “literal” because homosexuality is an abstract concept.

I am not being duplicitous; I am being consistent and honest. This is the standard principle of Biblical Exegesis, applied consistently to all parts of the Bible.

It is an amazing thing to observe how Christians and Catholics, such as Arix here, have no hesitation in condemning others for what they perceive as moral deviancies, while at the same time ignore, dismiss and even ridicule others who point out the crimes of the Church.

History has proved that the Church, despite its good works, is in no moral position to dictate morality. We can cite the Dark Ages, or the Church’s attitude towards Jews in the Second World War. But we shall not.

We shall only cite the most recent atrocities committed by the Catholic Church and its priests, it’s bishops and its archbishops.

Yet when we, observe how Catholics like Arix first dismiss these, then ridicule these, and most important of all, ignore totally and not even mentioning or displaying any contrition for the suffering the many victims endured and carry with them even until today.

Arix has made no mention at all about the victims. In fact, he seem dismissive of them and their suffering. Arix is afraid that if the “truth” comes out, “sensationalists in the media” would have a field day.

In short, Arix’s concern is about the Church’s image.

Arix is more concerned about PR.

Yet, Arix takes it upon himself to condemn a whole group of people – namely, homosexual people. And he does so quoting chapter and verse of his Bible.

Why does Arix not quote chapter and verse of the same Bible to his church which condoned the abuse of so many many children?

It is such blatant hypocrisy, which Arix has clearly displayed, which makes me want to puke each time I see and hear someone like Arix suits himself up and takes the moral high ground.

It makes me puke.

In the Sept issue 2006 of the Trinitarian by the Trinity Church in Singapore, in the article by Rev Gerald Tan, on exposing the works of the enemy in sensual world, he said that

” Asherah is the female counterpart of Baal. Asherah is a false goddess and the worship of Asherah usually involves an Asherah pole, which has an extremely sexual slant to it. Asherah worshippers were also known as ’sodomists’. In our day, this is known as homosexuality”

One of the greatest weapons of the enemy is to twist the truth and sometimes even in church teachings. The worship of Asherah did exist and was very common. It was a goddess where men would have sex with temple prostitutes and that not being enough, it extreme passion even men would have sex with men. These were straight men who were going against their nature to have sex with men. However, the worship was primarily a sex orgies between men and women. It was the goddess they are worshiping and not a naked male idol and so no gays would likely be involved. Its only straight men who would likely indulged. If we interpret the same manner as the extremist Christians, ie based on the action only, then the sin would be heterosexuality. Instead, the Pastor conveniently compared this to to Homosexuality, which in our day defined as loving and committed relationships betwen men. So something vulgar and sex orgies primarily beween men and women in a hetosexual hedonism in idol worship is blamed upon loving gay couples 4000 years later which has nothing to do with them. The Pastor was correct concerning Asherah and incorrect when comparing this to modern day Homosexuality. He was not careful enough to understand that the works of the enemy is deception, and one can be deceived only by half truths.

The Holman dictionary calls Asherah was the fertility goddess of the Phoenicians and Canaanites. She was called “Lady Asherah of the Sea.” It was a naked woman and not a man. It was straight men was was worshipping this idol just like straight men worshiped and have sex with Aprohdite in the city of Corinth. The female naked idol would naturally not find fancy with gay man. However, even a very quick sanity check of any person of sound mind, would know that Gays are only 5 to 10% of the population, and even if legalized would never be pervasive as spreading to the moral heartlands and so enticing the entire nation to same sex sexual orgies. God did not judge Israel because 5% of the population engage in this idol worship (if at all the Pastor’s sermon was correct). He judged because the entire nation become intertwined into it and not just a few percentage. Calling it as Homosexuality and blamming gays is an obvious distortion of the facts. On the contrary, if it were straight men, we could easily have understood the meaning by observing Geylang where prostitutes will lined her streets. The symptom of religious extreminism is that we seldom see our own sins, and use the weak and defenceless and those who can’t answer back as scapegoats. Because the real issue are too challenging to resolve and we rather believe in a half truth.

I am well aware of what some churches have done and condemn it too.</i?

But is this the best one can do or sufficient enough to stop the intolerance and injustice from a position within?

Yes – I read Gentle Lamb’s post when it was first posted, and the articles he/she added.

There are several problems:

1 – Romans 1:26-27 is taken by most commentators to be referring to Gentiles – not Jews. Paul is behaving as a typical Jewish rhetorician and denounces the major sins of the non-Jewish world – including same-sex sexual behaviour. He only gets to the Jews and their bad Law-keeping in Chapter 2. There is no way this passage can possibly refer to ’straight men’ being bored with women. Now I suppose straight men can have sex with anything they want to, given the chandce and need, but all of the Old Testament references to Baal-worshipping orgies either make no reference to same-sex sex or are described in heterosexual terms. And the summit point is this: straight men do not ‘burn with lust for one another’ (1:27). To suggest that it is talking about straight men is laughable. There may be many interpretations, but some are good and some are bad. The ‘clobber passage’ one is bad.

2. As for the 1 Corinthians 6:9 passage – it can be shown quite convincingly that ‘malakos’ and ‘arseonkoites’ refer to the active and passive partners in male-male sex from Jewish and Greco-Roman culture, and no amount of crying ‘homophobia’ will make it otherwise.

May I encourage you to check out the following PDF:

http://www.westernsem.edu/files/westernsem/gagnon_autm05_0.pdf

Warning: it’s 112 pages long, but very detailed.

Once again, we are all encouraged to deal with our own sins. As I have said before the only justifiable position of the church to an unrepentant sexual sinner is to show them the door until such a time as they repent (1 Cor. 5). I am well aware of what some churches have done and condemn it too.