So morality needs context, well i guess i entirely agree with that.

And fundamental moral rules like "Don't be an ass" or "Be awesome to each other" (for anyone who gets that quote) don't change. Yet laws and social norms do, as such how do you see your religion approaches contempory issues like marriage equailty or gender recognition for trans* people? (I don't think anyone reasonable is arguing that rape is right, so lets look at what is really happening, and if the religious right is getting all the headlines, is there a religious left who has it's own opinions?)

@Maniac: In some respect, yes. We do understand a vast majority of the OT because we have the NT, and it explains much of the OT. I do believe that there will be some parts of the NT that we will not fully understand until the second coming. Such things are:
--How is a person saved? Is it by man's free will to accept Christ as Savior or is it by God's divine election and man has no choice?
--How will the events of the end times unfold? In what order? What will the signs be?
--Will there be a rapture of the church, and if so, how will it unfold?

These are a few, but we can say for certain that we know how the church is to conduct itself. That is spelled out very clearly in Paul's letters to the various churches. There will also not be any discrepancy on issues of morality--those have stood since the beginning of time. We know what is right and wrong, good vs evil. The parts that are unclear are those parts that deal with the age to come. Just as the OT didn't understand the age to come (the NT) but did understand how they were to conduct themselves prior to the coming of the Messiah, the NT will not fully understand the second coming but will know how to conduct themselves prior to His second coming. Paul said "For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears...For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known." (1 Cor 13:9-12). To this, Paul was answering his own questions that he posed to the Corinthian church as to the dispensing of gifts and the removal of quarrels among the brethren. He was not pointing to issues about morality, or suggesting that those declared as apostate (in other words "those who have departed from the truth") are actually part of the church and that the church simply didn't understand it. Paul said to cast these people out. We have the ability to recognize false teaching on a vast majority of things, but on the things to come, Paul says, it is as looking into a mirror (they used bronze instead of glass, so images were not crisp as we have them).

So, its issues about how Christ's second coming will occur that is in dispute.


@ora: yes, morality does need a context. Laws were established to define morality, not the other way around. Before the Law of the OT, good and evil existed, as did right and wrong. The Law was created so that men could identify it and see their sin. The Law in no way makes people righteous, but it instead exposes our inadequacies and the need for a Savior.

I've discussed the the issues you're raising now in the past, so by all means refer to what I have said before. We have one Author. He alone declares what is good because goodness and holiness and righteousness are inherent qualities of God, and goodness and holiness and righteousness stem from God. Furthermore, we are only defined as good, holy and righteous THROUGH Him, and apart from Him, there is nothing good in us. We can do good things, but we ourselves are evil because we do not have God.

God defined marriage, only He can abolish it. God defined gender, and only He can alter it. I'm not here to quibble science or man's law, because I know what science and man's law say, and these are no less divided than anything else.


Think of it this way: at our school, administration has declared that no student is permitted to wear ear buds during school hours. Any visible buds are to be confiscated because, according to them, it is an issue of safety since students cannot adequately hear what is going on around them. There are many who have issue with this rule, and many teachers take it upon themselves to allow students to use ear buds during class. In the end, it is not up to the teachers, because they are under the authority of the administration of the school. It doesn't matter that they believe that students that are permitted to use ear buds work more quietly, and they can use ear buds as a reward for good behavior. It doesn't matter that the faculty can argue that if a student turns his music down that it is not a safety concern. What matters is that there is only one governing body that has the right to declare that the use of ear buds is wrong and anyone violating that rule is equally in the wrong.

Now, please don't get offended that I'm comparing ear buds to a more sensitive issue. I'm merely using something simple to explain something complex.

"God defined marriage, only He can abolish it. God defined gender, and only He can alter it. I'm not here to quibble science or man's law, because I know what science and man's law say, and these are no less divided than anything else."

I would say that reality is what it is, and if you believe God created it, then you should use the best tools and methods to understand God's creation - currently we use science to understand things like Gender.

As for God creating marriage, i believe you will find, upon some deeper research, that marriage has existed a lot longer than the Catholic Church. Or any other specific religion. But I will not be trying to prove that point. As a social contract marriage has evolved over thousands of years and multiple cultures - there was a time when love and romance were not considered an important part of marriage, or were something which would come later... There was a time before right to medical access or adoption was not an issue ( i think inheritance was always an issue, and remains so, so not everything has changed)

God didn't create marriage, humans did. Religion co-opted it much later.

Mind has no gender.

But i'm glad to hear your point of view. It is an odd one which i definitely don't subscribe to, but very relevant given that i will be voting next month in a marriage equality referendum.

Marriage: For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.

Gender: He created them male and female, and He blessed them and named them Man in the day when they were created.


Both instituted at the creation of mankind.

@Tru-ninja it appears you believe God was there before anything else and therefore is responsible for the creation of everything. I don't believe that but obviously many people do. I'm not attacking that point of view. I have some fairly logical and I believe respectful questions that follow from it.
If you can say that God predated mankind and had created anything then I think you'd have to agree that God created everything.
And if you'd say that God created everything, then that means God created both the genetic properties for homosexuality or (if you belive it) the free will inherent in some to choose to be homosexual. Therefore, the God who created marriage and gender also created homosexuality. If God created homosexuality why would he not have also created homosexual marriage? And if you don't believe that a God who created marriage and gender also created homosexuality then please explain.
In a world where God exists and created everything at the creation of mankind, God has created homosexuality and homosexual marriage. Prejudice and personal animosity would be the only reasoning behind saying that God created heterosexuality but not homosexuality. He can't be an all-powerful God only in circumstances that fit a person's cultural and political point of view that disparages against homosexual relationships.
I could accept that God exists and created everything, including marriage and gender, if everyone who believes in God also acknowledges that their God is responsible for creating homosexuality.

If you believe in God, then He would certainly have to predate His creation.

God created everything perfect but when sin was introduced into the world, it warped creation making things imperfect. Imperfection is not the result of Creation, but rather the fall of it.

That's a cop-out. That can be used to explain away anything.

God was a guy before gender was created... interesting.

There's no reasoning behind it. Who's to say what is or isn't a "sin".

If your reasoning stems from the OT and/or the NT, then doesn't the OT and/or NT treat some things as "sins" that the majority of society no longer view as immoral or improper or "sinful". Does either the OT or NT even identify homosexuality as a sin? And if so, who cares. Relying on a book written by men to identify what is or isn't a "sin" in only selective categories is hypocritcal. Either every single thing identified as a sin in the OT and NT are sins and should be shamed as such, or none are.

@tvrocks--no one stated God was male.

@muchfarr: Yes, you are correct in saying that the Bible does declare a number of things as sin that people don't want to view as sin.

The same works for any system of laws, even those created by men. No one fulfills the law God set forth, let alone man's law, let alone their own personal set of laws. Therefore, this leads to the undeniable conclusion that we all are lawbreakers in one facet or another, by willful violation.

The fact we cannot be perfect even under our own self-defined rules, let alone the higher standards set forth by God means we are sinners.

By your own admission, everything declared as a sin should be and is shamed. In fact, it is not only shamed, such suns are punished. Such sins separate us from God and condemn us to hell. He'll is the equivalent of prison--a place where the guilty are punished.

You stated very truly that all men are under that same outcome because all men sin, if we use God's series of laws to be judged by. Because all men sin, all are punished. But it is not God's desire that His creation, that He loves, should be sent to Hell. For that purpose, to redeem men from their sinful, fallen state, and create a way for man to not receive the punishment of Hell, God sent his Son to suffer the punishment for our sinful nature, that whoever accepts Christ as Lord and Savior is redeemed from the Law and declared righteous.

This, in itself is the Bible. There are a few other things, like: once we decide to receive Christ's sacrifice on our behalf, what does that mean for us, and does God plan to change things, or will they go on like this forever. But these are smaller issues.

The entire purpose is to point us to the need for a Savior, and show us that God has indeed provided that.

@Tru-ninja so you agree that homosexuality is just as big a "sin" as working on a Sunday, or lying, or disobeying parents, or murder? Is there a scale? Or do men invent their own system of weighing when a "sin" according to the Bible is something to care about? Or do we not invent what are sins by selectively choosing from a book written by men what to treat as a sin when it best serves our agenda?

Tru Ninja, so tell me this, should or shouldn't I listen to my female professor at uni? I mean, after all "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence". Is she sinning? Am I sinning when I let her assume authority instead of stoning her or whatnot?

No reasonable person should ever say that something is wrong because of what is written in a book, especially when they don't believe everything written in that same book.

To be honest basing what is right and wrong mainly off of a book that was written over 2 thousand years ago, by non-verifiable people with almost no evidence is a bad idea. Literally no people have ever met them, met someone who met them, met someone who met someone who met them, or anything even close to that.

@truninja: even if god created the world, why does that give him the right to decide what is right and wrong?

What

Jesus references god as being his father. are you saying he is not male, and that jesus lied?

@ Mujus

"... and who doesn't go around trying to score points off of the other people on this site."

You say this like its a bad thing :-)

@tvrocks: That's a very silly argument that I'm not even about to address.

@michfarr and yassem: I started a long reply and left it at work. Will try and get it to you both soon.

Michfarr, Tru Ninja is putting it better than I can... but you are bring up the question of whether God created evil, and if so, how can he be perfect and good. This is a very old question that goes back a few millennia before you or I were born. TruNinja summed up the position that yes God is pure good like this: "God created everything perfect but when sin was introduced into the world, it warped creation making things imperfect. Imperfection is not the result of Creation, but rather the fall of it."
and you replied: "That's a cop-out. That can be used to explain away anything."

I don't understand your reasoning. What evidence to you offer to show that's not true?

Or rather, to support your claim that it's a cop-out?

The 'cop-out' is that you now have a theory - ie that everything was perfect - but you don't need any evidence to support it, because all imperfections can be explained by the myth of original sin.

From the point of view of evidence to support a theory it is a cop-out.

@tru ninja: it is not an argument, it is a question. If you do not like the question though, here's a modified form. would jesus referencing God as being his father indicate that God is male?

TV, God is a spirit and thus not male or female. Jesus, however, revealed himself as a human male. Male pronouns are used for God, and the title Father/Dad. But when God made man in his own image, it says "male and female he created them," and Jesus said that he wanted to gather the inhabitants of Jerusalem as a mother hen gathers her chicks. And while women's ordination is another hot topic, here is a link to the Women's Ordination Conference that lists quite a few places in the Bible where God speaks of himself as a mother.

http://www.womensordination.org/resources/female-images-of-god-in-the-bible/

I misunderstood the comment then tvrocks.

Mujus put together a very solid answer. To expound, the Hebrew and greek words have gender, in the same way that many languages today have gender. We don't see this in the English language, but each word in many languages is either male or female. The word God in both the Greek (theos) and the Hebrew (el) is a gender male word which dictates the need to pair it with male pronouns.

One good example is in Proverbs 9, wisdom is personified as female, but this is because the word is feminine, not because wisdom is a woman.

@tv: I was referring to your original comment:

"@truninja: even if god created the world, why does that give him the right to decide what is right and wrong?"
I see that as a silly comment.

I will, however respond to this comment:

"To be honest basing what is right and wrong mainly off of a book that was written over 2 thousand years ago, by non-verifiable people with almost no evidence is a bad idea. Literally no people have ever met them, met someone who met them, met someone who met someone who met them, or anything even close to that. "

We do this all the time. It's how history progresses. Until the early 1900's Euclid' Elements was still a textbook used in math classrooms.

When we find truth, it doesn't matter how old it is. Truth transcends time. Christians don't believe the Bible because it's old. We believe it is the Word of God because it continually passes scrutiny and proves itself to be true. Many men have sought to discredit it and have failed. They have tried to write it off as a work of fiction stating that places, events and people never existed, and at every turn, we eventually find archeological evidence that confirms the Bible.
People have tried to write it off as fanciful and irrelevant, and yet when the principles of the Bible are applied to life, people see that their lives are radically changed for the better.

It's up to you how you choose to live your life. You may never believe the Bible and there will be many like you who agree with your statements. When Christ was on the earth and performed miracles, they wrote Him off as demon - possessed or an agent of the Devil. When He rose from the dead, many refused to believe. Therefore, if many did not even believe the Son of God who came with power, then nothing I can do will convince these people either.

I hope one day you see what I see. I was once where you are now, and I don't mean that condescending. Christ changed my life and so I know he can change others.

"When we find truth, it doesn't matter how old it is. Truth transcends time. Christians don't believe the Bible because it's old. We believe it is the Word of God because it continually passes scrutiny and proves itself to be true."

There are many people who do not subscribe to the 'truths' of the bible, does it does not pass scrutiny universally. Hence it can not be Truth (with a capital T)

You can suffer from confirmation bias to support your views, i'm sure that bias will prove your point to your own satisfaction; but that doesn't make something fundamental.