Questions Concerning the Possibility of an Openly Gay NFL Player, and Dr. Brown Takes Your Questions

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Dr. Brown shares his thoughts and gets your feedback about the “coming out” of prospective NFL player Michael Sam and then takes your biblical and theological questions. Listen live here 2-4 pm EST, and call into the show at (866) 348 7884 with your questions and comments.

 

Hour 1:

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: We are making a big fuss out of someone saying, “I’m attracted to the same sex.” America wake up.

Hour 2:

Dr. Brown’s Bottom Line: Society may hate us, society may mock us, and society may misunderstand us. Our role is to be like Jesus in the midst of a sinful world.

 

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Sobering Lessons from the Sex Scandals

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98 Comments
  1. ^^

    Greg Allen,

    “James,
    Here is how I see it:

    Paul was not condemning modern gay marriage.”

    Agreed! That goes without saying. Paul clearly never had the modern concept of same-sex marriage in mind when he wrote Romans 1 or 1 Corinthians 6.

    “He was condemning homosexuality as it was practiced back then — temple prostitution and paedophilia.”

    In the interest of being objective, here is where I would have to somewhat dispute the above statement of yours. While Paul may have had some form of cultic prostitution in mind when he wrote Romans 1:24-28, I think it’s probable that he was condemning homosexual behavior more broadly. Paul’s focus here isn’t just on acts but also attitude and mind, which implies a wider application of his condemnation. The behavior is condemned as degrading and unnatural, along with the mind that is given over to “degrading passions”. It would be highly unlikely that Paul would use this kind of language if he’s only condemning a particular kind of setting in which same-sex behavior is performed. On top of that, when you include the fact that Paul condemns even basic deviations from gender roles elsewhere using the creation account (ie. 1 Corinthians 11) it would then seem virtually undeniable that Paul is condemning homosexual behavior more generally.

    Also, I don’t think pedophilia is in reference here because Romans 1:27 speaks of having passion for one another, which implies that for Paul consenting adults are included in his judgement. Adam’s misguided objection that “why does he [then] say ‘men with men’ committing indecent acts” rather than boys with men shows his unfamiliarity with the Greek. The Greek “ἄρσενες ἐν ἄρσεσιν” literally means “male in male”. The Greek neither says “boys with men” or “men with men”. These are simply the product of our modern translations. Again though, for the reason I stated above, I think Paul has in view consenting adults rather than pederasty.

    My current view towards this is that the Bible condemns same-sex behavior generally but under circumstances where the behavior is condemned by the authors in view of particularly situational settings of same-sex conduct. The difference here between myself and other Christians is how I take to the authority of scripture. I see Paul’s condemnation of same-sex acts in the same light I see Paul’s view towards gender roles. In other words, in the same way that so many Christians today brush off his statements toward women and gender roles, I also brush off his statements in regards to homosexuality. Paul for me is wrong in his views on both accounts.

    “The notion of sexual orientation was completely inconceivable back then. There is no possible way that Paul was addressing that issue.”

    I agree insofar as Paul almost certainly did not understand that there were some people who had genuinely homosexual orientations. It appears Paul, like the vast majority of Jews back then, believed that all people were heterosexual, and that because of certain circumstances (ie. idolatry), they became perverted.

    Anyways, thanks for sharing your view. Despite some academic disagreements we may have, I still very much appreciate your consistency in standing up for gay rights here on this website, both from a Biblical standpoint and a secular standpoint. Keep up the good fight!

  2. Sorry, the html tags on this site aren’t working properly above. Tested it in an html editor. So it appears to be this site. Sorry for the repeated comments

  3. Josh,

    In your post 31 you said “I hold to what I wrote. People are affected by the sins of others. It’s evident to me, it sounds like you don’t understand sin or refuse to accept what scripture says in regards to sin.

    I understand the Christian point of view on this. The problem in my opinion is in how far you take this stance. It’s one thing to say that sin caused the fall and people to have a sin nature. It’s completely another thing to say that sin causes some people to be pervasively inclined to it by their natural biology or circumstances. Suppose you were living in ancient Israelite society where it was forbidden to eat the blood of animals (Genesis 9:4, Leviticus 3:17, Leviticus 17:14, Deuteronomy 12:23, etc). Now suppose there is someone in that society where for them not eating the blood of animals causes them to incur serious health problems along with great mental anxiety. Suppose also that this problem is entirely the result of their biology and is completely out of their control. For some reason, their biological makeup requires them to have to eat blood in order to avoid serious health problems. For example, not eating blood causes them to develop serious nutritional deficiencies that leads to their muscular-skeletal structure being deformed and damaged considerably over time. Major mental anxiety and stress result from resisting the strong innate urge to consume blood, a life-sustaining resource for them.

    Now that I’ve presented this situation to you, let me ask you some questions. Would it be fair to condemn that person to hell for giving in to their powerful desires to consume blood, given the condemnations in scripture? Should we expect this person to resist their desires as well as risk their health and happiness because of the clear verses condemning the practice? Would it not be unfair and ultimately cruel to do so?

    Well, that’s how I see the issue of homosexuality. To me it’s similar. You’ll probably disagree on the consequences of forbidding people to act out on their homosexual desires, but I see the consequences of forbidding people to act out on their natural sexual orientation as ultimately cruel and potentially even dangerous. Condemning them to hell is equally cruel.

  4. James,

    If Paul did not speak for YHWH, you should trash the whole Bible. The rest of it is in agreement with Paul. Stop playing around and get serious. Be a homosexual or be a Christian. You cannot be both…according to scripture. When you sell yourself to do abomination, you are not a servant of YHWH. That is all there is to it.

    Romans 6
    16 Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?
    17 But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you.
    18 Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
    19 I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness.
    20 For when ye were the servants of sin, ye were free from righteousness.
    21 What fruit had ye then in those things whereof ye are now ashamed? for the end of those things is death.

    Also the supposed horns of a dilemma that you attempted to foist upon me by using a bad translation of Deut. 22:28 is regrettable. I in no way support rape and neither does the Bible. The word “קזח” in 22:25 means to force. The word “שׂפת” in 22:28 means only to catch. The same word is used here:

    Ge 39:12 And she caught “שׂפת” him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.

    She caught him, but he refused. In Deut. 22:28 he caught her and she accepted. The stronger word in 22:25 means to force and would be a word that would constitute rape.

    A little study on your part instead of accepting some pro-homosexual website’s false claims would have been a more honest approach.

    Ex 22:16 And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife.
    17 If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

    The above passage is instructive in understanding Deut. 22:28, but you failed to mention the rest of the teaching of scripture on the subject. You were content to find a version that would paint the Bible in the worst possible light instead of pursuing the whole matter. Shame on you.

    So yes, I agree with what the Bible does actually teach, but I do not agree with your false ideas of what it teaches. It does not teach that rape is acceptable or a way to get a wife. It does teach that homosex is sin and abomination.

  5. Bo,
    I’m sorry. It was Adam who defended the rape of young women. I already had a conversation with him a while back in which I completely annihilated all of the arguments he just re-posted above. True to form for a Bible believer he totally ignored the objections to his false and ridiculous claims and just repeated them as if no objections to them were ever raised. So I’m not wasting anymore time reading or responding to anything Adam writes. I don’t see why anyone else does either.

  6. Van,

    “You don’t have to say another thing. I rest my case. Your entire case just collapsed absolutely. Only a Christian or a Muslim could ever argue that rape is a good thing. You just did that. Thanks.”

    I rest my case about your irrationality. Tell me, precisely where did I ever say that rape was a good thing? Quote me directly. Or, do you still assume that this text about the prisoners of war is about rape, rather than about willful marriage to these men out of economic necessity?

    My point was that you don’t understand the context of these laws, and the fact that we are not talking about rape, but normal marital relationships. The reason these women who are prisoners of war would *want* to enter into a relationship with these men is because of the fact that there is an economic necessity. You completely ignored that, and blew it off, and came up with some irrational conclusion that I am somehow saying that rape is a good thing.

    More and more, you are showing that humanist morals are vastly inferior, not only because you don’t have a basis for them [it is just your say so, or society’s say so], but also because you have to misrepresent people in order to make your case, when you don’t have a case, because you think that you are an expert in *everything* simply because you have studied a little science. Well, Van, let me tell you, that does not make you an expert on philosophy, the history of the Ancient Near East, or linguistics.

    “If and when God commands believers to murder, rape and steal all of those crimes instantly become permissible. With God ANYTHING, ANY CRIME is permissible and the Bible gives ample proof of this in story after story after story.”

    Ya, and this notion of God’s nature and character being unchanging is just thrown out the window.

    “My moral compass requires that I do not associate with people who make excuses for the rape of young women. I have an objective basis for morality and you have proved beyond any doubt that you do not.”

    This coming from a man who just argued that morality changes with culture????????? Precisely how is that objective????????? It isn’t; it is culturally relative!!!!!!!!! Van, you are deceiving yourself big time here.

    “I’m sorry. It was Adam who defended the rape of young women.”

    That’s called a lie, based upon your irrational allegiance to your misinterpretation of scripture. I will thank you to apologize for your slander, although, being an atheist, I don’t know upon what basis you would ever do that. I guess that is just atheistic morality for you. The point of my argument is that these prisoners of war were not raped, because they *wanted* to get married due to economic necessity. You can’t answer that at all, as it is simply historical fact.

    “I already had a conversation with him a while back in which I completely annihilated all of the arguments he just re-posted above.”

    Lol, go back and reread how Van says that he can’t think about anything, and yet he thinks my argument is wrong. He says I don’t have a basis for saying the same thing, I provide it in the fact that man is created in the image of God, and he ignores it, and still says I don’t have a base. Go read about how we are to have science be only empirical, and yet we are supposed to be logical, even though the laws of logic are not empirical. I don’t know what alternate reality Van is living in here, but the reality is, his arguments leave him with no place to argue at all. Sounds to me like the very thing that Paul talked about:

    1 Corinthians 1:20 Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

    Yes, Van, it is foolish to adopt a position that leaves you unable to think about anything, and then start thinking about morality. It is foolish to talk about rationality when you adopt a materialistic worldview, and rationality requires laws of logic which are not material. You haven’t answered these things; you have skirted them, because your worldview is grossly incoherent. You are not even the best atheist I have ever ran into! Please, let us exercise some humility here [then again, since humanism is nothing more than an exaltation of man’s pride, again, I don’t know on what basis that could ever be asked of you].

    Sounds to me from the other comments that people are actually getting tired of hearing from you, Van, not me. Again, what is it about atheism that makes you believe that you are an expert in everything? You are not an exegete of the Hebrew Bible; you are not a historian of the Ancient Near East; you are not a linguist. Why do you pretend like you are one, and hold on to these bogus interpretations that would be laughed out of even the most liberal institutions like the Society for Biblical Literature? As I said, you are every bit as religious as we are, and you are every bit as indoctrinated as we are; actually, I take that back, you are more religious than we are, and you are far more indoctrinated in your own superstitions than we are. It is time to come clean; your incredible misrepresentation of me is the clearest evidence that you have an ax to grind.

  7. James,

    I gotta commend you for being one of the only people here who will actually consider what I believe and fairly debate me on the subject. I appreciate that.

    (And his is probably the last entry I’ll do on this discussion thread. Tomorrow, I get back to my busy schedule. So, only reply if you want to. )

    >> , I think it’s probable that he was condemning homosexual behavior more broadly

    I think Paul was condemning homosexuality as he knew it.

    Yet, this was a blanket condemnation. But that was because Paul didn’t have and understanding of homosexuality as a sexual orientation. His “blanket” only covered the know practice of that day.

    He only knew homosexuality as a destructive, victimizing and practice. And — very importantly — a threat to the extended clan concept of marriage.

    Some will say, “But God knew what the gays would become in the 21st Century.”

    This, of course, is bad hermeneutics. God, through the bible, addressed the issues of that day and it is our job to faithfully apply those to a modern context.

    As for the Greek, I’m not sure it helps us much since it’s about the concepts of “man” and “boy” — not the linguistics. We think so racially differently about those categories now. And, to confuse matters, some in the ancient Near East may have thought of pre-pubescent boys as a kind of woman!

    (I always hate to give up the Greek cards since I spent so many years learning it! 🙂 )

    At the end of your post, I think our opinions start to converge.

    I am an Evangelical Christian and hold to that interpretational strategy. Nobody here believes me but I may have a _more_ conservative believe in the bible than they do.

    For instance, I believe that the sky is a vault that holds back the cosmic sea. (Here in Oregon, it leaks a lot. Proof!)

    But I don’t confuse the bible with science. Most people here try to reconcile the bible with science and they get BOTH bad theology and bad science in the process. I studiously avoid that.

    As my conservative hermeneuties applies to this topic: I believe that Paul universally condemned homosexuality. I completely accept that and believe it.

    But, the world changed.

    We know better now. While some expressions of homosexuality deserve to be condemned, some modern expressions do not — namely monogamous gay couples

    Our massive increase in “general revelation” on this subject means we have to adjust our understanding of special revelation.

    This is nothing knew and there is a conservative, Evangelical way to do that.

    We all did it with Capernicus, most of us Christians have done it with Darwin and we can do it modern psychology.

    The bible will be fine. The Church won’t fall on that issue. Murder or marrying dogs won’t become cool. Relax. God’s got this.

  8. Greg,

    You whine:
    “I gotta commend you [James] for being one of the only people here who will actually consider what I believe and fairly debate me on the subject…(And his is probably the last entry I’ll do on this discussion thread. Tomorrow, I get back to my busy schedule. So, only reply if you want to.)”

    Grow up! Get real! You have been offered fair debate after fair debate, but you conveniently always “got to go.” When it comes time to pick up the toys, so to speak, you hear your mother calling and leave the rest of us to do the work when your fun of taking potshots is over. That’s my story and I am sticking to it.

    You wrote:
    “As my conservative hermeneuties applies to this topic: I believe that Paul universally condemned homosexuality. I completely accept that and believe it.

    But, the world changed.

    We know better now. While some expressions of homosexuality deserve to be condemned, some modern expressions do not — namely monogamous gay couples”

    2Ti 3:13 But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving, and being deceived.

    The world has changed alright. It got worse…just as Paul said it would. Sin became more insidious. Deceit became more rampant. When Paul writes, “abusers of themselves with mankind” in 1 Corinthians it is about continued action. The committed homosexual is a continuous abuser. It is these that are committed to such fornication that will not inherit the kingdom of YHWH.

    Yep! YHWH did know what would happen in the future and He gave fair warning to us not to be fooled by oxymorons like “same sex marraige” and euphemisms like “committed gay couples” and cultural morality (which is not morality at all).

    You wrote:
    “Our massive increase in “general revelation” on this subject means we have to adjust our understanding of special revelation.”

    All the above sentence does is prove that we think that we are smarter than YHWH…that we are eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead of from the tree of life. Your use of “general revelation” is just a euphemism for pride and rebellion. What you are saying is that YHWH’s infallible details of right and wrong do not count in our big picture that we have been painting. And that is the whole problem. We have invented our own version of what life and love and righteousness is. We are living in a self-made kingdom of feelings and fallacy instead of entering YHWH’s kingdom of spirit and truth. We have been deceived, just like Paul said.

    And you may be wrong. It might become cool to murder just like in CAR or Nazi Germany. Human sacrifice and cannibalism may become the in thing. (Abortion and using fetal tissue to sustain life are basically this in many ways.) It may become cool to have sex with animals, since most will believe the lie that we are descended from them. Depravity knows no limits…especially when strong emotions like love and hate and strong desires like revenge and lust go unchecked in a “society” by the word of YHHW and righteous laws based upon His word.

    It is for these very reasons that the inhabitants of Canaan were destroyed by YHWH’s divine command. It was for these very reasons that humanity was destroyed in the flood. It was for these very reasons that Sodom was burnt to a crisp. It will be like the days of Noah and Lot at the end…according to Messiah. But you probably think that our modern “general revelation” has rendered His statements null and void too.

    Revelation 18
    1 And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory.
    2 And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.
    3 For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies.
    4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues.

    The vast majority of “the church,” as you see it, has already fallen. Or at least is in the process of falling. You can continue to be a partaker of her sins or you can repent and come out of Babylon. You can continue to embrace the doctrine of devils and partake of the plagues if you wish.

    You are right in a way that you do not understand. “Relax. God’s got this.” It is just not the One that the Bible declares. It is not time to “relax.” Your message is the same as the prophets of Jeremiah’s time. It lulls to sleep the people with promises of peace, when destruction is coming. It soothes the emotions while damning the soul.

    Jeremiah 6
    13 For from the least of them even unto the greatest of them every one is given to covetousness; and from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.
    14 They have healed also the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
    15 Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? nay, they were not at all ashamed, neither could they blush: therefore they shall fall among them that fall: at the time that I visit them they shall be cast down, saith the LORD.
    16 Thus saith the LORD, Stand ye in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and ye shall find rest for your souls. But they said, We will not walk therein.
    17 Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.

    It is time to get back to the old paths of YHWH’s righteous ways instead of walking in the abomination of the your new “general revelation.”

    It is time to wake up Greg…to hear the trumpet and wake up.

  9. “As far as the rape of young women, it was certainly not rape if you understand the culture of the time.”

    Rape is rape no matter how you try to paint it. Only a Muslim or Christian Bible believer could ever make an excuse for rape and this believer goes even farther and says that in this instance rape is defined as “good” simply because God commanded it. So rape, murder, stealing and any other crime is “good” as long as believers get it in their heads that God commands it. That is the most dangerous kind of moral relativism there is.
    I demonstrated the absolute superiority of humanist morals over morals gleaned from the Bible and no one has or can offer a satisfactory objection to this demonstration. So it stands: Humanist morals are vastly superior to Christian morals, always have been, always will be and you believers will always have to live with that fact.
    When you can excuse the rape of young women your morals are in the gutter.

  10. By the way, all of these comments about me not knowing this or that are false. I know a lot more about the Bible than any believer does. I know camels were not domesticated in Israel until the 9th century BC. So the people who fabricated the stories about Abraham didn’t know that Abraham could not have had a caravan of camels during the era he supposedly existed. Now we critics have known this for decades but the news media is running with the story now and we’ll witness a few million more believers running from Christianity as soon as they discover these facts. Christianity is like that balloon with a hole in it flying around the room backwards as all the air (people) rushes out f it.

  11. Van,

    You bragged,
    “I know a lot more about the Bible than any believer does.”

    Pretty tall horse you are riding on with your nose up in the air as well. Be careful where you step as you are likely to spread a foul odor wherever you walk when you cannot see the ground in front of you. But we will all be able to smell where you’ve been…and we will not likely try to walk in your steps. I don’t think that you gained in popularity or in esteem by you last post. Your head is inflating though and it is easier to recognize your motivation. You are not an atheist. You are a antitheist that believes yourself to be god. You just attack anything that challenges your reputation that you have created in your own mind for yourself.

    Did it ever occur to you that every camel bone in the middle east has not been dug up yet? Science can only say, “We have found camel bones where we have dug that we think, by our flawed dating techniques, are thus and so old.” It cannot say that there were no camels in Israel at such and such a time without digging up the whole landscape. The logic that you use is amazing…amazingly self serving.

    Keep worshiping yourself if you like, but just realize that the more you bow down to yourself and look up to see that you are not in front of yourself but actually beside yourself (crazy) that you will continue to crawl around in circles like a dog chasing his tail. And someday, if you get tired of going in circles, you may realize that the place where your tail is connected is not where the your brain is located.

  12. Bo, in regards to Van – Proverbs 9:7

    Proverbs 9:7 Whoever corrects a mocker invites insults.

    Van is left speechless…. Until he needs another rebuke…

  13. Van,

    “What these archaeologists are doing… is when they read about somebody like Abraham having camels, they’re saying, “Aha! The Bible is saying that camels were widespread in Palestine during this period of time, and there’s no archaeological evidence for that,” Dr. Andrew Steinmann of Concordia University-Chicago tells Issues, Etc., a Christian radio station.

    Two archaeologists at Tel Aviv University, Erez Ben-Yosef and Lidar Sapir-Hen, claimed earlier this month they have dated the earliest domesticated camels to the end of the 10th century BC. “In addition to challenging the Bible’s historicity, this anachronism is direct proof that the text was compiled well after the events it describes,” the university said in a statement.

    Steinmann agrees there’s no archaeological evidence for widespread use of camels in Palestine at this time, but adds that that’s not what the Bible is saying.

    Amy Hall, a staff with the Christian group Stand to Reason, has transcribed the professor’s interview on her blog.

    “What it is showing is that somebody who originally came from Mesopotamia, like Abraham, he did have some camels,” she quotes the professor as saying. “And then the other mentions of camels in Genesis and in the early part of the Bible have to do with either people related to Abraham that were living in the Arabian Desert (for instance, the Ishmaelites…have camels when they come and buy Joseph and take him down to Egypt), or other peoples like that, associated with the Arabian Desert-the Amalekites…who live on the edge of the Arabian Desert are mentioned a number of times having camels. But there’s no mention of Israelites owning camels….”

    Steinmann was also asked about the charge that the new archaeological finding is proof that “someone’s been tampering with the text and unwittingly gave themselves away by putting camels in Abraham’s possession.”

    On the contrary, the findings show that Old Testament accounts are “very accurate,” the professor responds. “Because they confine it to people from Mesopotamia or the Arabian Peninsula. If this person was going to give himself away, you would expect [to see] him depicting the Canaanites having camels, or people like that. But he doesn’t say the Canaanites or the Phoenicians are making extensive use of camels.”- http://www.christianpost.com/news/camels-in-genesis-prove-old-testament-is-very-accurate-professor-claims-as-he-refutes-archaeologists-findings-114678/

  14. Any semi careful reading of the Genesis text shows the whole thing is a fabrication. Joseph gets sold into slavery to the Ishmaelites. It never dawns on the Christian reader, even the so-called scholars, that the Ishmaelites are Joseph’s first cousins, not some band of foreigners. They would have known Joseph very well. It doesn’t take the fact that we’ve unearthed absolutely nothing that could support any of the Bible’s stories. All you have to read the text to see how absurd the whole thing is.

  15. Some have so distorted Paul’s gospel in part, advocating for the works of darkness, they can hardly be recognized as Christians. Some I can not recognize in honesty as being legitimate children of God, and many of these have been taken away from the truth because of the gay agenda which is of the world.

    I thought today about mocking, teasing, harassing
    and such which some openly homosexual people endure, and it seemed to me that if there is harm done to them by this, that the real harm would be small compared to the same treatment to one who is not gay but might be perceived to be that way, for one reason or another, which certainly is harmful and destructive.

    Which would be more harmful to a person, if he was stoned to near death for being openly adulterous, or if he was stoned to near death if he was only thought to be adulterous but was not?

    I would think the greater harm would be if one who was not an adulterer suffered the stoning, for the one who was indeed guilty of it and was not repentant, might have a bit of an awakening as to the seriousness of his sin through a near death experience because of it.

    I say this even though I am not for stoning, nor am I for openly teasing, taunting, or harassing anyone, though the temptation to be involved at times is always around somewhere in this world.

    I heard some talk on TV about the need for players in the NFL to do some real talk about the importance of not harassing anyone who is gay, but I did not hear anything about players who may decide not to be a part of a team that has openly gay players on it.

    There have been many football players who share their faith in Christ, and will talk about how playing football is much more than simply playing the game.

    I believe a team should be more at times than simply people to join up with for only one common purpose, such as playing football, because playing football is and should be about much more than just playing football.

    Even as kids growing up in a neighborhood, we would decide who we would play football with and who we would not play football with, yet in my home town, nearly all the kids were just basicly good kids.

    But there were those we considered to be hoodlums and those type we did not want to play with, though sometimes we did consider it when we were a bit older and thought we were faster, stronger, and bigger than they were, and we just wanted to let them know that we were not about to be intimidated by them, though we really didn’t want much if anything to do with them.

    I recall how one of them got a five dollar bill out of my pocket during one day of playing football, and I wished I did not play with them.

    We didn’t fight about it. We just ended the game and separated. We didn’t consider ourselves to be fighters.

  16. Van,

    Do you know what all of your first cousins look like? What about second third and fourth cousins? My aunts and uncles would not recognize all of my 9 children. Jacob had 13. I do not know for sure what my cousins look like any more. In a day when there were no photos or fast communication or travel, do you think that people separated by two hundred miles of desert knew each other by sight? How do you know that they were first cousins? It is about 170 years from when Ismael was cast out of the family until Joseph was sold into slavery. Do you really think that those that bought him were his first cousins? You are not much of a skeptic when it comes to believing everything that liberal scholars print. I guess most of us read our Bible and understand it better than you and the people that you get your information from. Sold to his first cousins????…..I have some swamp land in Florida that you might be interested in buying.

  17. We were in Israel a couple of years ago. We got to take part in an archeological dig at Shilo. My very own sons found a carved stone vessel from the time that the tabernacle was standing there. So much for your assertion that nothing has been dug up to indicate that the stories in the Bible are true. Shall I mention Hezekiah’s tunnel, the confirmation of the existence of the Amorites, the dead sea scrolls, the city of David, the wailing wall etc., etc., etc.

  18. My favorite theologian/mathematician
    Blaise Pascal- Van, Pascal would walk away from the absolute stupidity that you post here. If you were not just being an arsonist to reason, and you asked Pascal give me proof of G_d- would you even ponder his reasoning? I say you would not, just like you are doing here.

  19. To look at the world God created and then to think that God does not exist is a stupid thing to do, plain and simple.

    There’s basicly two kinds of people in the world, those who deny God, and those who walk the earth he created and thank him for what they see that his hands have made, and they are the ones that begin to experience him.

  20. “My favorite theologian/mathematician
    Blaise Pascal- Van, Pascal would walk away from the absolute stupidity that you post here. If you were not just being an arsonist to reason, and you asked Pascal give me proof of G_d- would you even ponder his reasoning? I say you would not, just like you are doing here.”

    > Stupidity? Pascal’s wager is one of the most exquisite examples of human stupidity known to man, as any logician or philosophy professor would happily demonstrate for you. However since there doesn’t seem any of them present I’ll take the time to do it for you. I shouldn’t even have to point out that a person cannot sincerely believe something just to be on the safe side and so the absurdity of Pascal’s wager is in the fact that it is impossible to put into practice. One should just believe in God just in case God really does exist? How do you then figure out what religion is the correct religion? Do you become a Christian or a Muslim or a Hindu? If you choose Christianity you run just as much of a chance of winding up in the Muslim hell as a Muslim does of winding up in the Christian hell. This is a very crucial point about any form of Pascal’s wager because it is these theological assumptions that you are wagering on. You see Pascal’s wager is logically invalid if you must already assume its conclusion, which is that biblical Christianity is true. We can’t grant the assumptions that Christians want. But even if we grant this argument everything it asks the argument still fails. The point of the wager is whose assumptions are the correct ones. If you choose Christianity, what denomination do you pick? If you become a Methodist or Baptist how do you deal with the possibility that Catholicism may be the one true religion? To meet the requirements of Pascal’s wager, one would have to simultaneously become a believer in all religions in the world but you can’t do that because many religions forbid beliefs in others. The argument that if God doesn’t exist the believer has lost nothing is also false. If there is no God the believers have lost intellectual integrity, self-esteem and a rewarding and fulfilling life, just about everything that makes life worth living. Pascal’s wager is not a safe bet because it costs a person one’s life and happiness. Thanks, but I’ll keep those things. Finally this wager doesn’t offer a shred of evidence that God exists, it only argues for no good reason that one should believe in God. Pascal’s argument is so easy to see through it’s a wonder anyone can still be duped by it. I’m sorry that you were.

  21. “We got to take part in an archeological dig at Shilo. My very own sons found a carved stone vessel from the time that the tabernacle was standing there.”

    > And this proves what exactly? You believe a 600 year old man built a boat the size of an aircraft carrier out of wood. What else do I have to say?

  22. Van,

    You have been shown to be wrong and ridiculous in your previous posts about Joseph’s supposed 1st cousins and camels. What is there that would make us think that you know anything about the rest of the Bible? You said that there is nothing that has been unearthed that demonstrates the Bible to be true. The carved stone vessel is evidence that the tabernacle stood at Shiloh, just as the Bible says. My youngest daughter found a glass nodule from a Roman era oil lamp. I guess the Bible is right about the Romans occupying Israel too.

    You have shown that you know next to nothing about the Bible and little more about archaeology. What makes you think that we will believe you concerning other things? Your arrogance and hostility has made you irrelevant.

  23. Van,

    “I know a lot more about the Bible than any believer does.”

    I think most people here are recognizing what is going on. You have no humility when it comes to approaching the Bible. You don’t think you have to put forth any work to understand the background and culture of the time. You can assume that rape is what is going on with these prisoners of war, when that would be laughed out of the most liberal of institutions for Biblical scholarship, and then accuse me of justifying rape. However, it never occurs to you that what is going on in that passage is not rape but willful marriage to someone else for economic purposes? You just cannot conceive of it because, as one person says, you have set yourself up to be God, and thus, you have the infallible interpretation of that passage. You may not like what Paul has to say in Romans 1, but he says this very thing:

    Romans 1:21-23 For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. 22 Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures.

    Yes, professing to be wise [and you certainly have done a lot of that here] you have become entirely foolish, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man-namely yourself. Humanism is, at its root, idolatry, and the idolatry of your own position is becoming clearer and clearer. As one person has rightly said, in order to understand humanism, just understand that, in humanism, man plays the same role that God does in Christianity.

    “I know camels were not domesticated in Israel until the 9th century BC. So the people who fabricated the stories about Abraham didn’t know that Abraham could not have had a caravan of camels during the era he supposedly existed. Now we critics have known this for decades but the news media is running with the story now and we’ll witness a few million more believers running from Christianity as soon as they discover these facts. Christianity is like that balloon with a hole in it flying around the room backwards as all the air (people) rushes out f it.”

    And you know that how? More than that, Abraham didn’t come from Palestine. What were the Israelites supposed to say? “My father was a wandering Aramean.” Abraham came from Ur in Mesopotamia, and his relatives were in Aram. As far as the evidence for camels being domesticated there, we have a Sumerian text from Nippur with allusions to camel milk as early as at least 1700BC. At Mari, in Aram, we actually dug up camel remains within the city limits, and, if I am not mistaken, in a house. What was a camel doing in that place if it was not domesticated?

    You may not be aware, but Dr Lawson Younger, one of my professors at Trinity, already dealt with this issue with us in our History of the Ancient Near East class a couple of years ago. You see, Van, we read the materials your side puts out. You don’t read anything we put out, because you don’t believe we have anything to say on the topic. That is why I said that you are far more religious than we are. You simply don’t read outside of the materials put out by apologists for secularism.

    “Any semi careful reading of the Genesis text shows the whole thing is a fabrication. Joseph gets sold into slavery to the Ishmaelites. It never dawns on the Christian reader, even the so-called scholars, that the Ishmaelites are Joseph’s first cousins, not some band of foreigners. They would have known Joseph very well. It doesn’t take the fact that we’ve unearthed absolutely nothing that could support any of the Bible’s stories. All you have to read the text to see how absurd the whole thing is.”

    Remember that thing in Genesis about Ishmael being banished by Abraham? That was when Ishmael was still a boy. Do you honestly think that 1. if they had known, they would have been favorably disposed to Joseph given this family background and 2. They would have recognized him since they had no contact with this side of the family from the time their father was banished as a boy?

    Again, Van, these things are gross oversimplifications. As to archaeology confirming the Bible, the question is what are you going to take as evidence. I mentioned the Tel Dan inscription, and you took the most hard left interpretation that has been destroyed by later finds including another fragment of the inscription itself, as well as a find at the Israelite Alah Valley fortress mentioning a king. You handle the archaeological evidence as well as the Bible in such a fashion that everyone can tell you have been indoctrinated with humanistic ideology. And yet, no matter how much you are refuted, you keep professing to be wise, even though you have become foolish. Is it any wonder then that we see you showing up on a forum to talk about homosexuality? What does Paul say next:

    Romans 1:24-28 Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. 25 For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. 26 For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. 28 And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper

    That is a picture of what happens in the arrogance of humanism. Eventually, you will get to a point where it is okay to rip and tear another human being’s body to shreds all because of your own lust, and you and others will be willing to defend that as something that is perfectly acceptable-and yet, it is the height of irrationality. What we have seen here is Romans 1 play out word for word. That is why I said earlier that homosexuality is, at its root, idolatry. That is why homosexuality isn’t making many in roads into too many churches who actually believe the Bible. It is making inroads into churches who basically are humanists who just express their humanism using Christian theological terms [i.e., liberalism]. There is no surprise that these two agree.

    As I said earlier, humanism is an exaltation of man’s pride. To think that he can make himself the center both ethically and logically is absurd, since he himself is limited and finite, and not universal. It is a self-contradictory system, which ultimately leads to a deification of man himself, and since man is not God, that system will collapse.

  24. Adam,
    I haven’t read a word you posted and I never will again. You can make excuses for the rape of young women until you turn blue. I don’t care.

  25. Van,

    Now you add childishness to the list of strikes against your reputation. You were not actually reading his posts before anyway…just like you have not actually read the Bible, but pull things out of context and regurgitate antitheist propaganda that you have swallowed hook line and sinker…by blind faith. Your supposed skepticism is a sham. You have a very faith based religion in materialism that you are defending to the death. You really should admit it.

  26. Now you add childishness to the list of strikes against your reputation. You were not actually reading his posts before anyway…

    > Not only did I read Adam’s posts carefully, everyone can go back and see how I reprinted his arguments and gave satisfactory responses to them. Not only that, Adam made most of these same arguments on another thread and I raised objections to them that Adam never responded to. So I read his arguments at least twice. It’s not like I haven’t seen these same arguments hundreds of times before. Bible believers have been using the same arguments for centuries and haven’t come with anything new in the last few hundred years.

    just like you have not actually read the Bible, but pull things out of context and regurgitate antitheist propaganda that you have swallowed hook line and sinker…by blind faith.

    > You’re just mad because you didn’t notice that the Ishmaelites were actually relatives of Joseph and an atheist had to point this out to you. Don’t feel bad. Christians Bible scholars never notice that kind of stuff either. Amazing. I don’t know what you mean by antitheist propaganda. The books I read nowadays are either about science or sports because it appears to me that scientists and sports reporters are the only real truth-tellers left anymore.

    Your supposed skepticism is a sham. You have a very faith based religion in materialism that you are defending to the death. You really should admit it.

    > I know it’s hard for religionists to understand this but not everybody is religious, not everybody feels the urge to worship something and not everybody feels compelled to tell other people how they must live and what they must believe. That’s your deal Bo. Not mine.

  27. Van,

    I have known that the Ismaelites were Joseph’s distant relatives for probably more than 30 years. You were proven wrong about them being first cousins. I’ll re-post here, since your memory is so short.

    You Wrote:
    “Any semi careful reading of the Genesis text shows the whole thing is a fabrication. Joseph gets sold into slavery to the Ishmaelites. It never dawns on the Christian reader, even the so-called scholars, that the Ishmaelites are Joseph’s first cousins…”

    I answered:
    “Do you know what all of your first cousins look like? What about second third and fourth cousins? My aunts and uncles would not recognize all of my 9 children. Jacob had 13 [children]. I do not know for sure what [most of] my cousins look like any more. In a day when there were no photos or fast communication or travel, do you think that people separated by two hundred miles of desert knew each other by sight? How do you know that they were first cousins? It is about 170 years from when Ismael was cast out of the family until Joseph was sold into slavery. Do you really think that those that bought him were his first cousins? You are not much of a skeptic when it comes to believing everything that liberal scholars print. I guess most of us read our Bible and understand it better than you and the people that you get your information from. Sold to his first cousins????…..I have some swamp land in Florida that you might be interested in buying.”

    Your willful ignorance and stubbornness and intentional deceptive and dishonest tactics in trying to undermine scripture by misquotes and misrepresentation is despicable.

  28. Van,

    For the record, Josephs first cousins would have been Esau’s children, not Ishmael’s grandchildren and great grandchildren. You might want to do some reading on family trees and genealogies. Maybe you were confusing Esau’s children (Edomites) with Ishmael’s descendents …maybe you did not read Genesis even remotely, semi-carefully.

  29. “Your willful ignorance and stubbornness and intentional deceptive and dishonest tactics in trying to undermine scripture by misquotes and misrepresentation is despicable.”

    > Your own Christian colleges and universities have been teaching evolutionary theory now for over a century. Why blame atheists for undermining your “scripture” when your own academic community has been doing this for a long time now? The Bible is not even remotely historical.

  30. Van,

    If you are still confused, here is a chart of Abraham’s family tree that will help you visualize your error:

    http://www.judeministries.org/details.php?tableID=607&studyID=16

    Disclaimer: I do not know anything of the teaching content of the website on which this chart is found. I do not indorse the site. I am only posting the link for informational purposes. The chart is correct. Please do not connect me in any way to the teachings or teachers on the site.

  31. Van,

    What’s wrong? Can’t you bring yourself to admit your error? Are you hoping this obvious misrepresentation of yours will just go away and no one will notice? Are you still trying to figure out a way that Joseph could have been sold to his first cousins like you asserted? Are you ashamed of your proud statements that you know more about the Bible than Believers and scholars? Are you hiding? It is time for you to be honest.

  32. Van,

    I know your hiding and you know I’m waiting for an honest answer. Maybe you are incapable of an honest answer or an admission that you were wrong. Maybe you consider yourself infallible and thus think that it became correct when you misrepresented the scripture. Maybe you are busy chasing your tail.

  33. Van,

    Ishmael was Joseph’s half great uncle. Ishmael’s 12 sons were Joseph’s half first cousins once removed. The youngest of these 12 would have been close to 120 years old, if they were still living, when Joseph was sold. It is not likely that any of these, if they were still alive, would be consistently traveling as traders. Ismael’s grandsons were Josephs half second cousins. Of the probable 50 of these that were still alive that were males, they would probably all be from 60 to 120 years old. Joseph was 17 and had only been in Canaan for a few years. The great great grandsons of Ismael, Joseph’s half second cousins twice removed, would be of the normal age to be of much use in a trading caravan.

    How probable was it that Joseph was sold to anything but a distant relative, both in consanguinity and locale? How probable was it that anyone in this greatly estranged “family”, if you could call it that, that lived hundreds of miles apart and that was full of enmity towards one another, would recognize each other? How can you assert that you know more than any believer or any scholar on this topic when you so obviously do not know much at all about it…except for what I have explained to you? When will you admit your foolishness and arrogance and ignorance?

  34. Van,

    I forgot to mention that there could have been some of Joseph’s half second cousins once removed in the part that bought him. Do you know your half or whole second cousins once and twice removed?

  35. Bo,
    None of this matters because these supposed people only exist in your imagination anyway. I’m not going to argue about the relationships of fictional characters. Now if you can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that even one of the people we are talking about actually existed using sources independent of the Bible then we could have a conversation. But since you cannot prove any of these people existed the point is moot anyway now isn’t it?

    You need to give it a break man. I can’t spend 16 hours a day on a blog the way you do.

    “The obsessional need to preach… to let every stranger one meets know as soon as possible that one is a born-again Christian, are practices that derive not from a lack of social skills but from manic necessity… Without evangelical activity the fundamentalist psyche sinks into a state of empty boredom…” – Walter A. Davis

    Get a life Bo.

  36. Van,

    Just as I, and everybody else here, expected. You cannot admit your errors even when they are perfectly evident.

    So your arrogant statement that you know more than the believers or the scholars is not going to be apologized for. Your false statements about what the Bible says are not going to humble you. Your supposed semi careful reading of Genesis that you insisted would prove your point is not going to be acknowledged that it proves you wrong. Maybe you should tone down the rhetoric and the arrogant statements and humble yourself and admit your errors. Maybe you would be worth dialoguing with then…maybe.

    I have a life…eternal life. You are the one that needs a life. You need to go live your outrageous faith to yourself if you cannot admit your arrogance and false statements and logic. If you cannot be honest with yourself and us, please do not bother to post here with your drivel.

  37. Van,

    You wrote:
    “None of this matters because these supposed people only exist in your imagination anyway.”

    Wrong! It matters because you asserted something about it that was totally false. It matters because it proves that you do not know what your are talking about. It matters because your arrogance is beyond outrageous. It matters because you brought it up as proof of your point. Since you were wrong, you need to admit it of shut up.

  38. Van,

    It matters because you are attempting to shift the focus off of your dishonest statements and deceitful character. It only does not matter to you because it goes against your self worship. It ruins your idea of yourself. To thy own self be true…but you cannot.

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