St. Paul on Same Sex Marriage.

[Eyes to See]

Your exegesis of Genesis 6:2 confirms the reality that interpretation itself is the lingua franca of the scripture. No matter if you read Genesis 6:2 in Hebrew, Greek, Arabic, Swahili, or Pig Latin, interpretation is required to read meaning into (eisegesis) and out of (exegesis) the text.

They took wives of "all" whom they chose. Sound positively Solomonesque.

Where do you get, from the text, that they became "materialized humans"? Perhaps angels are after all humans immaterialized? Wittgenstein, in his usually philosophical frame of mind, and when trying to answer a question like that asked: If someone tells me to use my eyes to see if I have two hands, what then should I used to test the veracity of my eyes? What stands fast? Why, and how?



John

The sons of God were alive when God created the earth. So the angels who live in the spirit realm with Jehovah God were in the spirit realm long before humans were created. That's why i quoted the scripture Jude for you to show you they forsook their proper dwelling place. They left heaven where they belonged and came to earth and took on human form to have sexual relations with human women.

 

[John D. Brey]

True morality is guided by reason and compassion, not by arbitrary superstition.

Father Heathen 3:16?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

Then it is a good thing I don't see myself as God. Or even a believer in a God as if that belief gives me the gift of absolute knowledge.

But if you don't believe in God, then where do you get the gift of absolute knowledge? And if you don't have the gift of absolute knowledge then is it fair to say your morality isn't absolute? And if your morality isn't absolute is it fair to think someone else might have a different, and equally, or more, towards absolute, morality than yours? And if that be the case, then can you appreciate that it might be intolerant of you to swing your morality around like a viking on the warpath even after everyone here has already seen you accidentally send it swirling around your own neck suffocating you to the point of choking out all semblance of rational tolerance for the viewpoints of others?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

The sons of God were alive when God created the earth.

The great sage Abarbanel, and others, might ask you to point them to the place the angels were created? Why, in the creation account, does the text neglect to tell us that? Abarbanel notes that they're a pretty important part of the world. Why does the text gloss over their creation?

So the angels who live in the spirit realm with Jehovah God were in the spirit realm long before humans were created. That's why i quoted the scripture Jude for you to show you they forsook their proper dwelling place. They left heaven where they belonged and came to earth and took on human form to have sexual relations with human women.

. . . Kinda like many in this thread have forsook their proper dwelling place on earth to judge their fellow man from either an Archimedean Perch, or else the throne of the heavenly Lawgiver himself. . . Of course they'd naturally have to nail him to a tree somewhere while they pronounce their judgments on morality and such form his throne.




John

 

[F1fan]

But if you don't believe in God, then where do you get the gift of absolute knowledge?

How could a person claim absolute knowledge if their means and access to it is their belief in God? Let's note that it is a fallible human making a judgment that a God exists, so their thinking may be faulty, they might be mistaken. Given this chance of error how can they assert any absolute knowledge?

So, whether a believer or atheist the person needs to show their work and how they arrived at any moral conclusion. Want to enforce some biblical law? Well, you'd better demonstrate the God exists as a fact, and not just believed to exist, before any authority can extend from that law. As it is, no theist has ever shown any God to exist outside of their imagination.

And if you don't have the gift of absolute knowledge then is it fair to say your morality isn't absolute? And if your morality isn't absolute is it fair to think someone else might have a different, and equally, or more, towards absolute, morality than yours? And if that be the case, then can you appreciate that it might be intolerant of you to swing your morality around like a viking on the warpath even after everyone here has already seen you accidentally send it swirling around your own neck suffocating you to the point of choking out all semblance of rational tolerance for the viewpoints of others?

The only case for any absolute morality would be broad human rights. The more specific laws and rights become the more compromise and tolerance has to be considered. Think of freeing black people from slavery in the 1860's America. These rights were disputed and had to be resolved by a war that cost over 600,000 lives. The South claimed a right to own slaves. If we recall our history the justification for slavery by Southern Baptists was largely because slavery was condoned by God in the Bible. Would you agree that the Confederate South was mistaken in their moral belief and justification?

So we need to be careful who claims the moral absolutes and why. A better approach is humanism and broad, liberal freedoms that protect basic liberties and limit the and intolerance TO these broad liberties. The intolerance that follows from broad liberties tends to be AGAINST small interests that claim a sort of privilege over other people and classes of people.

 

[John D. Brey]

But I am a citizen in a democracy that does support humanist laws that protect the marginalized and expand freedoms, like rights for women, gays, minorities, etc. The prohibition on these freedoms tends to come from those who believe in a strict God yet can't explain the direct impact of harm these freedoms can cause them. Irony that you suggest it's me that is the arbiter of right morality.

You admit you don't have a line on absolute morality. They don't. So how do you know they aren't correct in their prohibitions? They believe they have a direct commandment from God himself not to allow homosexual marriage. You admit your morality has no such absolute line on truth. So why, under what pretense, do you question those who clearly and unabashedly claim a source of divine truth?

If you deny that they have a genuine source of divine truth, would your denial be tentative or absolute? If the latter, what vouchsafes for your proclamation? Logic, reason? Are they your path to the absolute?



John

 

[John D. Brey]

How could a person claim absolute knowledge if their means and access to it is their belief in God? Let's note that it is a fallible human making a judgment that a God exists, so their thinking may be faulty, they might be mistaken. Given this chance of error how can they assert any absolute knowledge?

If I asked you to to picture an Abarinscsith (or one of its offspring) would you be successful? Don't Google it, or search the encyclopedia. It doesn't exist. . . Point being animals and insects don't likely think about things like "absolute" truth. And the fact that we do, implies its very accessibility means our minds are pre-wired to conceive of it, name, it, speak of it.

Furthermore, those who deny it exists make their denial its very appearance if they don't accept the possibility their denial isn't itself absolute. But if they do that, admit their denial is itself not absolute, then they're unarmed against those who live their life, and argue, from the vantage point of a believed in absolute.

If someone absolutely knows they have access to the absolute, there's no weapon beneath heaven that can defeat them. On the other hand, those who believe in their own denial of the absolute, are not only living a contradiction, but though they might evangelize the whole world in their error, in the end, and I say this empowered by the Absolute, they will reap what they sow and will hardly be able to swallow it without gagging.



John

 

[F1fan]

You admit you don't have a line on absolute morality. They don't. So how do you know they aren't correct in their prohibitions?

None of us do. That some will claim a kraal authority because they believe in the Bible is historically a flawed basis, so we have to learn from our past and not give these people any more credence than they can argue for objectively. That means leave the Bible at the door and make your moral case rationally.

They believe they have a direct commandment from God himself not to allow homosexual marriage.

Great, they can follow that law for themselves without assuming an authority over others. This is the same tolerance as Islam prohibiting eating pork but that prohibition being limited to Muslims only. Or do you feel obligated to honor Allah's prohibition on eating pork? If not, and you eat pork, then you are assuming your own moral authority over Allah. Muslims might think you are a heretic, but do you care?

You admit your morality has no such absolute line on truth.

Nope, so I allow other humans to live via their own moral condition so long as it has no direct negative affect on others. That some rigid believers might get upset that gays can marry is their own self-caused dilemma. They choose to assign meaning and authority to the Bible, and withdraw meaning and rules from that book and religious mind set, so they have to be responsible for their own thinking, and what it causes to them by being part of a diverse and tolerant society.

So why, under what pretense, do you question those who clearly and unabashedly claim a source of divine truth?

That they can't demonstrate any such divinity, or authority from an actual God, and that their judgments and morality has any authority over the freedom and liberty of other people in an open society.

If you deny that they have a genuine source of divine truth, would your denial be tentative or absolute?

I reject any claims by mere, fallible mortals that they have any superior moral authority than an y one else. As I noted, who settles a moral conflict between two competing divine authorities, like Muslims versus Christians? The Crusades didn't settle it. You tell me who is correct, and make sure God is shown to exist as an absolute, and not just your belief.

If the latter, what vouchsafes for your proclamation? Logic, reason? Are they your path to the absolute?

The flaw is claiming an absolute, as that only ends discussion and leads to civil right violations. Morality and rights will always have fuzzy edges and this is why we humans need to be the better angels of our nature, and not be agents for a rigid, lifeless religious dogma that masquerades as a God.

 

[F1fan]

If I asked you to to picture an Abarinscsith (or one of its offspring) would you be successful? Don't Google it, or search the encyclopedia. It doesn't exist. . . Point being animals and insects don't likely think about things like "absolute" truth. And the fact that we do, implies its very accessibility means our minds are pre-wired to conceive of it, name, it, speak of it.

Furthermore, those who deny it exists make their denial its very appearance if they don't accept the possibility their denial isn't itself absolute. But if they do that, admit their denial is itself not absolute, then they're unarmed against those who live their life, and argue, from the vantage point of a believed in absolute.

If someone absolutely knows they have access to the absolute, there's no weapon beneath heaven that can defeat them. On the other hand, those who believe their own denial of the absolute, are not only living a contradiction, but though they might evangelize the whole world in their error, in the end, and I say this empowered by the Absolute, they will reap what they sow and will hardly be able to swallow it without gagging.



John

Three paragraphs and no evidence for an absolute. No acknowledgment of fallibility in your belief.

So in essence, you want to believe in an absolute even if you are mistaken. And you can't be sure you are mistaken if you don't think about it. That's why we needed a war to settle slavery.

 

[John D. Brey]

My guess is Paul, like so many others that demonize homosexuality, finds sexuality ichy and uncomfortable and is unwilling to embrace the world his God created as it is.

The god of this world did surgery on my God's original creation (Genesis 2:21). He was allowed, no doubt, to do it. But those who deny my God and stand by their crucifixion of Him are also allowed to do it in accordance with the very councils of God's absolute knowledge and will.

In the world to come we shall see what was the true intent of God's willingness to be battered and bled by sinners for a time.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

You admit you don't have a line on absolute morality. They don't. So how do you know they aren't correct in their prohibitions?
​

None of us do.

Your statement sounds absolute?



John

 

[Father Heathen]

Father Heathen 3:16?



John

For those who need a form of scripture as a means of moral guidance, my post history can be printed out and bound in the form of a holy tome.

 

[John D. Brey]

For those who need a form of scripture as a means of moral guidance, my post history can be printed out and binded.

Oh I already have! And I printed it right over the image of your avatar.




John

 

[Guitar's Cry]

The god of this world did surgery on my God's original creation (Genesis 2:21). He was allowed, no doubt, to do it. But those who deny my God and stand by their crucifixion of Him are also allowed to do it in accordance with the very councils of God's absolute knowledge and will.

In the world to come we shall see what was the true intent of God's willingness to be battered and bled by sinners for a time.



John

Your God hangs like fruit on the Tree of Life and beckons you to join Him.

Gospel of Thomas: "Eden is the kingdom of the father spread over the earth and man does not see it."

 

[John D. Brey]

Forcing a rape victim to marry their attacker is obviously abhorrent.

The New Testament seems to imply that that's exactly what the god of this world has done to his victims. Worst yet is that ya'll (that's the editorial ya'll) ran to the tailor and got yer wedding gowns taken in to be more attractive for him; something I can only chock up to some kind of universalization of the Stockholm-Syndrome.



John

 

[John D. Brey]

In the world to come we shall see what was the true intent of God's willingness to be battered and bled by sinners for a time.​

Your God hangs like fruit on the Tree of Life and beckons you to join Him. . . Gospel of Thomas: "Eden is the kingdom of the father spread over the earth and man does not see it."

The tree, and the fruit spread out over the world, is seen, it's just that it's disguised in the guise of being battered and bled by sinners. Who wants to swallow that cup unless they're willing to say: not my will but thine be my cup.



John

 

[Guitar's Cry]

The tree, and the fruit spread out over the world, is seen, it's just that it's disguised in the guise of being battered and bled by sinners. Who wants to swallow that cup unless they're willing to say: not my will but thine be my cup.

Christ was battered and bled by sinners, and like grapes mashed and left to ferment, sipping of his wine reminds us that divinity is the point beyond the cross; beyond the rotted fruit, and is in everything.

We need to find the Christ inside us as well as the worshipped idol in scripture, and realize, when we delve deeper and deeper, like the mystic onion we are left with nothing else but the rest of the Universe.

 

[Suave]

. . . Regardless of who attributed them to him? . . . Uh, let me see here: Blessed are the Russians for they shall inherit Ukraine.

John

Донбасс нпринадлежит России!

"Путевка в жизнь"

Русские тоже любят своих детей

 

[F1fan]

Your statement sounds absolute?



John

Awkward wording. It's more accurate to say my statement is logical and accurate.

But I feel good that a smart guy like you can only muster a one sentence reply to my previous comments.

 

[John D. Brey]

Донбасс нпринадлежит России!

"Путевка в жизнь"

Русские тоже любят своих детей

Как насчет Польши



John