Some interesting cooments from an AtheistNexus.org discussion on the Book of Romans

Here are some interesting comments from an AtheistNexus.org article about a YouTube video entitled " God Will Make You Gay" by the atheistic transgendered female activist known as Zinnia Jones about the homophobic passage in the Book of Romans.




Reply by Brian George on July 13, 2014 at 8:51pm

Ha Ha this video threw me for a while. I thought "why is there a woman in the video when a man is speaking"? Then I noticed that the audio / video were slightly out of sync, and it hit me that it WAS the woman speaking!
She is spot on though in that you have to go back in Romans to get the true context of verses 21-26. I think I'm going to start calling the ones that like to cherry pick the verses to make their point, quiptians. They only present the "good stuff", and leave out anything that could lead to intellectual debate as to the full context of the verse(s).
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 Permalink Reply by Christine on July 16, 2014 at 7:30pm

I can't seem to get the video to work (uploads too slowly).
I had posted about this part of the bible a while back, and am confused. My MIL says that she and her study group, along with the gay parishoner, discussed Romans, but she never summarized the discussion. But she's clearly very much opposed to the lifestyle.
So maybe one of you can explain? God made people gay on account of them already having these desires?? Guess I'll have to consult my SAB tonight.
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 Permalink Reply by James M. Martin on July 16, 2014 at 10:58pm

Kind of irrational isn't it?
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 Permalink Reply by Michael Penn on September 29, 2014 at 8:09pm

OK, I'm back to this one more time. So when did god "give them over?" Since he is all knowing he must have known they were like this ( or would do this) even before they were born. That would mean these people had no choice in the matter at all, and nobody has any precious "free will." Since they had therefore been "given over" from birth, why are we reading about this now form scripture? What point would it make? What threat of punishment could possibly be here with a predetermined event?
Maybe we could look at this differently and say god did not know what they were going to do, so what we are reading is his punishment then. The all powerful and jealous god did not know something, so in anger he punished these people with a gay curse by "giving them over." That's almost as bad as him not being able to find Adam and Eve after they had "sinned" and they hid behind a tree.
We see a small hint here that if humans will have sex with others of their own sex, then they are connected to animals and other creatures in some strange way. Rather than these humans starting to worship a horse, there is indication that they might also be having sex with it or anything else that comes their way.
My step-dad always says that he doesn't believe god would create people as gay or lesbian. It would make no sense and is a contradiction of god's character. Instead, the devil and demons entice people to be gay and lesbian. It's a choice they make.
Think a minute. God, the devil, demons. They all come out of the same bronze age book. Once you stop believing in that book and any creatures from within its pages the entire bizarre and absurd issue is totally solved.
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 Permalink Reply by Grinning Cat on September 29, 2014 at 11:26pm

Are there religions that accept that we humans are animals? The Abrahamic religions that many of us are familiar with insist, despite overwhelming evidence, that our distinction from other animals isn't a matter of degree but of an entirely different category, a special, different creation.
In a reply to "God, Darwin, and My Biology Class" Tom Sarbeck, raised in Roman Catholic schools, wrote: "In 1954 at the University of Florida I visited the natural history museum and saw the bone structure similarities between humans and other animals. Amazed, I asked myself 'How can we and other animals not be related?' "
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 Permalink Reply by Bertold Brautigan on September 30, 2014 at 12:21am

You're right about this, GC. There's something about the fact that we are (just) another product of nature that they absolutely can't abide. It's sort of a "human exceptionalism" that's about as respectable and sensible and real as "American exceptionalism." Just ask Sarah Palin.
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 Permalink Reply by Freethinker31 on September 30, 2014 at 11:11am

Excellent point  GC.....Humans  evolved  from Apes or Chimpanzees as science  has proven...Obviously they are animals ergo we are animals......Tell  that  to a Theist  and they will deny it......They  still believe  we are all descendants  of Adam and Eve.....LMAO
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 Permalink Reply by Deidre 1 minute ago

I watched the video, and while humorous to think this, that passage doesn't signify that. 'God gave them over,' means that God let them partake of their free will. And that is why they will pay a price for their ''perversions.''

I've always marveled that the very things that mankind hates...lo and behold...God hates the same things. Hmmm...


http://www.atheistnexus.org/forum/topics/because-men-andw?commentId=2182797%3AComment%3A2485212&xg_source=activity








So true, Deidre.  It does seem that Yahweh hates the same things that fundamentalist Christians hate.  I think that the men in the Book of Romans who were having gay sex were actually straight guys who had been engaging in pagan religious practices which inspired them to engage in all sorts of behaviors that the early Christians viewed as being "immoral". Yahweh seemed to get tired of what these Roman Christians were doing and he gave them over to their "shameful lusts". Yahweh let them partake in same-gendered sexual behavior out of their own volition and they ended up "paying the price" for their "perversions". However, we don't know what punishment these men were given, but who were they hurting? Why does Yahweh throw such a fit over same-gendered sexual relationships that aren't actually hurting him? It seems irrational to me.  Why does Yahweh feel so threatened by same-sex love? How could this "loving" god command the ancient Hebrews to force a sexually-abused woman to marry her rapist and why is it that Yahweh didn't seem to have a problem with Lot's two daughters getting Lot drunk and having sex with him which resulted in these two women getting pregnant? I find what Lot's daughters did to be more disgusting than gay sex.



Homosexuality isn't a "perversion", it is a part of nature. The Apostle  Paul didn't seem too thrilled about the idea of sex in general.  He never had sex most likely.  He was probably a repressed and closeted gay man himself.  He wrote in his Epistles to the early  heterosexual male Christians that if they could not handle a life without sex, then they could marry a woman instead of burning in "lust". How exactly is having "lustful" thoughts hurting anyone?  Paul never bothered to explain that.  Think about it.