Was Jesus gay?

[Shaker]

Language is a living organism, Shaker.  Society changes the meaning of words over time.  Are you suggesting that God ought to have mde sure that language never changes and that we all spoke the same language?

I'm suggesting that a god of the traditional omnimax attributes would not need to rely on getting its supposed message to humanity across by the inherently risky methods of multiple and regular translation, retranslation and interpretation not merely from language A to language B but within the same language, but would want, would know how and would be able to communicate clearly and unambiguously without these risky and imperfect tools and processes. Translation is a fine art and a constant trade-off between literal rendering and flavour; that's why the risk of misleading texts is significant and constant. A text needs to be interpreted only if it's ambiguous to start with, and that's patently inconsistent with a god of the usual attributes. I try to write as simply and as clearly as I can, but sometimes fail in full accuracy and clarity. That's because I'm a fallible human being of limited knowledge - I don't have unlimited capacities and capabilities as a god is deemed to have, and who would be entirely capable of transmitting a message with the maximum of clarity and the minimum of (in fact, zero) ambiguity.

Perhaps you don't believe in such a god. You seem reluctant to say, and I understand why.

[Hope]

Agreed

As I've said to Khat, this is untrue.  I would agree that religious leaders down the years have used the Bible to enforce their own power - in much the same way as Jewish religious leaders did with their multitudinous glosses to God's instructions, and in much the same as modern governments seek to add things to legislation until the courts say that they can't.

I appreciate the situation you found yourself in as a child, Floo, and feel very sorry for you.  I suspect that that is, at least in part, why Pentecostal groups were regarded as non-mainstream for so long.

[jeremyp]

Thankfully, that in no way describes Christianity.  If anything, its striding purposefully through life in communion with a living God.

From where I stand, it looks like the crawling description is more accurate.

[floo]

As I've said to Khat, this is untrue.  I would agree that religious leaders down the years have used the Bible to enforce their own power - in much the same way as Jewish religious leaders did with their multitudinous glosses to God's instructions, and in much the same as modern governments seek to add things to legislation until the courts say that they can't.

I appreciate the situation you found yourself in as a child, Floo, and feel very sorry for you.  I suspect that that is, at least in part, why Pentecostal groups were regarded as non-mainstream for so long.

Hope my unfortunate childhood experience of religion has nothing to do with my take on it now. I have read the Bible many times and made up my own mind about it.

[jeremyp]

Language is a living organism, Shaker.  Society changes the meaning of words over time.  Are you suggesting that God ought to have mde sure that language never changes and that we all spoke the same language?

For the wages of sin is death; but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

That very much looks to me like the deal is "follow me or you'll die". It's a threat voiced by Paul. Was he mistaken? Has the language changed over the years or been mistranslated? Or does it say what it seems to say at first sight?

[OH MY WORLD!]

Try reading the Bible Khatru and Floo. God get's nobody to love him. Hell or not, the choice is ours. I have never met a person that became a Christian, decided to love God, because they were scared of Hell. You can't make somebody love you, if God did that, He would have sabotaged His reason for creating us. 

[Shaker]

Try reading the Bible Khatru and Floo. God get's nobody to love him. Hell or not, the choice is ours. I have never met a person that became a Christian, decided to love God, because they were scared of Hell. You can't make somebody love you, if God did that, He would have sabotaged His reason for creating us.

What was/is that reason, according to you?

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Try reading the Bible Khatru and Floo. God get's nobody to love him. Hell or not, the choice is ours. I have never met a person that became a Christian, decided to love God, because they were scared of Hell.

And certainly not the caricature hell beloved of antitheists

[Aruntraveller]

I have never met a person that became a Christian, decided to love God, because they were scared of Hell.

Off topic - but you might want to tell Rose and Sririam that on another thread, because they are trying to argue that fear is the motivator for everything we do.

[Ricky Spanish]

If it turned out that Jesus was Gay/Homosexual would Christians love him the same or less?

Would the swivel-eyed ones become more tolerant of Gays? (Would they insist in capitalising the letter 'g'?)

[Khatru]

Thankfully, that in no way describes Christianity.  If anything, its striding purposefully through life in communion with a living God.

Of course people who worship gods different to yours would say the same thing.

Look at history where it's plain to see that the driving force behind Christianity has been fear: fear of hell, the devil and death. Thankfully, the onset of science has brought an understanding of natural events which has been extremely effective in removing the fear factor from Christianity. Yet having said that, it's plain from reading some believers post in here that the existence of the devil and hell are still fundamental in Christian superstition. 

Not naming names but there are believers in here who unsuccessfully attempt to instil fear in others by telling us how their god is going to torture us after we've died (You know who you are!).  Unfortunately for them, it's easy to see that their threats are born of fear and cowardice and are wholly devoid of reason, logic and evidence.

[Khatru]

Khat, whilst some English language translations seem to suggest this, the words used in those translations didn't generally mean that when the translations were first made.  Furthermore, the original Greek and Hebrew doesn't either.

That's why relying on old translations which are no longer in everyday English (something that they used to be) is a wonderful fallacy when debating.  May I suggest either the Common English Bible, the English Standard Bible or even the Message as more suited to 21st century English.

Whoops!

I forgot to mention that the "translation cop out" as above is one of the items on my lost that Christians use when accusing unbelievers of not understanding.

[Khatru]

Try reading the Bible Khatru and Floo. God get's nobody to love him. Hell or not, the choice is ours. I have never met a person that became a Christian, decided to love God, because they were scared of Hell. You can't make somebody love you, if God did that, He would have sabotaged His reason for creating us.

Despite what you say, the Bible still contains plenty of instructions to fear God.  Clearly this explains why Christians regularly refer to themselves as "God-fearing" 

No doubt their love for their god is not as strong as their fear. It would explain why it gets used so often.

Here's just a small sample of verses instructing believers to fear the god of the Bible..........

"Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the Lord your God."
Leviticus 25:17

"Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name."
Deuteronomy 6:13

"For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan just what he had done to the Red Sea when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God"
Joshua 4:23-24

"Now fear the Lord and serve him with all faithfulness. Throw away the gods your forefathers worshiped beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the Lord."
Joshua 23:14

"If you fear the Lord and serve and obey him and do not rebel against his commands, and if both you and the king who reigns over you follow the Lord your God--good! But if you do not obey the Lord, and if you rebel against his commands, his hand will be against you, as it was against your fathers."
1 Samuel 12:14-15

"But be sure to fear the Lord and serve him faithfully with all your heart; consider what great things he has done for you."
1 Samuel 12:24

"For great is the Lord and most worthy of praise; he is to be feared above all gods. For all the gods of the nations are idols, but the Lord made the heavens."
1 Chronicles 16:25-26

"So I continued, "What you are doing is not right. Shouldn't you walk in the fear of our God to avoid the reproach of our Gentile enemies?""
Nehemiah 5:9

"Serve the Lord with fear and rejoice with trembling."
Psalms 2:11

"The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the Lord are sure and altogether righteous."
Psalms 19:9

"You who fear the Lord, praise him! All you descendants of Jacob, honor him! Revere him, all you descendants of Israel!"
Psalms 22:23

"Who, then, is the man that fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him. He will spend his days in prosperity, and his descendants will inherit the land. The Lord confides in those who fear him; he makes his covenant known to them."
Psalms 25:12-14

"How great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you bestow in the sight of men on those who take refuge in you."
Psalms 31:19

"Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm."
Psalms 33:8-9

" Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man.  For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil."
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14

[Humph Warden Bennett]

Khatru, that is all Old Testament stuff. You might as well try to argue that Handel's Dixit Dominus is Christian.

[Sassy]

Crawling through life on your hands and knees, bent in subservience and fear to an imaginary god.....

I walk with God and Christ.... No crawling just Father, Son and Daughter.
No fear for as we know...

King James Bible
There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.

With every new post to me you are showing I am right and other believers right; when we say you know nothing about God, Christ, the Bible or Christianity.

For God so loved the world... How many times does it take for you to actually listen when the truth is showing you are wrong?

[Sassy]

And yet so many people still manage to stride purposefully through life without imaginary BFFs.

Stride or just making it through each day with health issues and other worries?
You choose...If you have no health issues or worry then fair enough.
But if you have, then you are not striding through are you?

[Sassy]

If it turned out that Jesus was Gay/Homosexual would Christians love him the same or less?

Would the swivel-eyed ones become more tolerant of Gays? (Would they insist in capitalising the letter 'g'?)

Why is being gay not right for Christ or any Christian?
Because it is not the way God created men and women to live.
Every man was to have his own wife.

As Christians do we love the sin or the person.  Is love defined by sexuality or just sin?
If a person says he loves God would he deliberately so the sins he dislikes?
We have a history of wrong and right. Do we love people less as individuals because they turn out to be liars?
If they steal would we love them less? The sins of the individual are between them and God.
We are called to love one another.  Love is not defined by treating people differently from others.
Love is defined by treating everyone the way we wish to be treated.  If I did not like chicken then I would not expect someone to try and force feed it me, because they love it.

Jesus was not Gay. No if's or but's. Christianity is about loving people inspite of the way they behave towards themselves and others...

King James Bible
Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.

I don't have to tell you what they actually did to Christ. But in all his suffering being hated and jeered at. The crowd insulting him and spitting at him, he did not give like for like. There would be adulterer, homosexuals and even high priest in the crowd but he asked for forgiveness. Christ has wisdom and loved others. He did no judge rather he reached out.
Our greatest error today is to think that one type of sin is different from other sins. Yes sexual sin affects the body in a different way but all sin leads to death.

So if Jesus had committed a sin that would be the thing which meant he was not a perfect sacrifice. We can be sure Christ was not gay and without sin. But can we ever get rid of the wrong way of thinking that homosexual sin is any different to heterosexual sin of sex before marriage or adultery.

Christ died for homosexuals, adulterers, perverts and all who sin. But wanting forgiveness and wanting to live differently is up to us.  Can we really see a gay person as being a sinner and it being worse than a theif? >

It is the mind of people who make it what it is. God invites all to be forgiven in Christ and more to the point to become a changed person in mind and spirit.  Jesus was not Gay.

[floo]

Sass, you don't know whether Jesus had sex with men or women or both! To state he wasn't gay, without any evidence to support that statement, is daft!

[Brownie]

All we can say is that there is nothing written about Jesus's sexuality.  My view is that it isn't relevant.  I never think of it except when coming on here or occasionally, in the past, on other forums.  Not an issue for me and certainly not an important one in the scheme of things.  It is far better to concentrate on what we know about him.

[BeRational]

All we can say is that there is nothing written about Jesus's sexuality.  My view is that it isn't relevant.  I never think of it except when coming on here or occasionally, in the past, on other forums.  Not an issue for me and certainly not an important one in the scheme of things.  It is far better to concentrate on what we know about him.

Well, some Christians are very quick to call being gay a sin, and worthy of hell.

Could they maintain that position if they knew Jesus was gay?

[Brownie]

Don't tar us all with the same brush BeR!

If Jesus was gay it would make no difference to me but it is all hypothetical.  The fact that we don't know is quite relevant, I think.  There is no promotion of a sexual orientation.  If we think of Jesus as heterosexual or homosexual we are making assumptions. 

[BeRational]

Don't tar us all with the same brush BeR!

If Jesus was gay it would make no difference to me but it is all hypothetical.  The fact that we don't know is quite relevant, I think.  There is no promotion of a sexual orientation.  If we think of Jesus as heterosexual or homosexual we are making assumptions.

I said SOME.

To those SOME, I think it would be important.

[Brownie]

Yes, although they would probably say it is the practice rather than the orientation.  They expect people to go through life without comfort, affection, partnership which I think is a bit of a cheek being as they probably have all those things themselves.

To me, and to most of us, it really isn't important.  In recent years I've only come across anti-gays on the internet and, of course, read about them in the media and seen the occasional TV programme where that attitude comes to the fore.  I'm glad to say that anti-gay sentiments are dying out and people are generally regarded as people, sexuality coming way down on the list.

[Khatru]

Khatru, that is all Old Testament stuff. You might as well try to argue that Handel's Dixit Dominus is Christian.

You're right, it is OT stuff and by that, it's prior to the time when believers gave their god a personality transplant so that, ostensibly, he didn't appear so nasty.

Certainly, the body count is a lot less and those killed by the new improved deity number only two (I think).  We can contrast that with the old nasty deity where deaths at his hand probably ran into millions.

So yeah, on the face of it, God V.2 seems to be better than God V.1

But wait a minute, what's this? 

I hear that everyone who doesn't worship God V.2 is going to be tortured for all eternity.  Now that's bad and beyond the evil of God V.1

[Aruntraveller]

Christ died for homosexuals, adulterers, perverts and all who sin

Really - can you just stop doing that.

Just once.

I really do object to being bracketed with murderers.

Just stop being an offensive fuckwit.