Homosexuality

About homosexuality, the Bible says:

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You are not to sleep with a man as with a woman; it is detestable.
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Leviticus 18:22

and:

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If a man sleeps with a man as with a woman, they have both committed a detestable thing. They must be put to death; their blood is on their own hands.
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Leviticus 20:13

That's it.  There is nothing else in the Bible specifically about homosexuality.

Some claim that the story of Sodom and Gomorrah is about homosexuality.  I suggest you read the story in Genesis 19 and judge for yourself.  The story mentions homosexuality but isn't specifically about homosexuality.  Clearly the issue here is rape, not homosexuality.

The Hebrew Bible is a long book.  My copy is 621 pages.  Violations of the Ten Commandments are repeatedly discussed throughout the book.  The Bible ends with various prophets complaining bitterly about how the Israelites no longer obey the commandments of God.  Examples mentioned include adultery, robbery, dishonesty, lack of charity, and sabbath violations.  Not once is homosexuality mentioned.  In Deuteronomy, most of the laws discussed in earlier books are repeated.  The laws against homosexuality are not repeated here.

There are two views about how the Bible was written.  One view is the literalistic view that the Bible was directly dictated by God and that the entire Torah (first 5 books) was written by Moses.  Someone who holds this view had better follow every detail of the Torah.  But in fact no one does this.  Even the Orthodox Jews have invented various loopholes to avoid following every detail.  The other view is based on the historical evidence that we have including the Dead Sea Scrolls.  This shows that the Bible has changed over time and is not perfect.  It was copied in sections by scribes who may have made mistakes or may have added their own ideas.

The Bible is quite repetitious.  If it were infallible, why bother with the repetition?  As a computer programmer, I know that one reason for repetition is error detection.  If the same data is consistently repeated, then you can assume that it was stored properly.  If God was transmitting His message through fallible humans, then it would make perfect sense that He would repeat the transmission through multiple people.

If the Bible isn't infallible, how are we to judge it?  I suggest three ways of judging each commandment.  First, how often is it repeated in the Bible.  Second, is it consistent with history, namely does violation of this commandment correlate to declining cultures.  And third, does this commandment make logical sense to you the reader.  In my personal opinion, the commandment against homosexuality is the only commandment that fails this test.  I invite anyone to suggest any other commandment that they think fails this test and I will respond.

Now I would like to examine the two quotes against homosexuality.  One should note that the prohibition is against male homosexuality.  There is absolutely nothing in the Bible against female homosexuality.  The two quotes are both from Leviticus.  The wording is very similar in each passage, so there is little doubt that both passages were written by the same person.  In other words, the prohibition against homosexuality comes from just one person.  His criticism of homosexuality is simply that it is "detestable".  Given this, I can easily see how one scribe who found homosexuality detestable to him would have slipped this into the Bible.  And since his view was never supported by any other authors of the Bible, it deserves some skepticism.

Of the three ways of judging commandments, I covered the first, how often it is repeated in the Bible.  The law against homosexuality badly fails the second test since there were many successful cultures where homosexuality was accepted.  And it fails the third test because I cannot see the logic behind the law.  Homosexuality doesn't harm anyone.

I should add my personal view on the question.  I find the issue of homosexuality almost irrelevant.  I am just using it to make some points and because it seems important to others.  There seem to be some who support homosexuality and think it is just fine, while others find it disgusting and "detestable" and oppose it.  I don't fit into either category.  My personal emotional reaction is that it is ridiculous and absurd.  I can't see anything sexual about a man and the idea of sex with a man just strikes me as ridiculous.  So the law against homosexuality doesn't affect me personally.  But I don't think something should be illegal just because it is ridiculous.  And even for those who find homosexuality disgusting and detestable, I think they need more reasons than just this to justify a law against it.

On the question of homosexuality, this is my conclusion:  The Bible can be interpreted either way.  If your interpretation is that the Bible is not infallible and that the law against homosexuality is an example of possible fallibility, then homosexuality can be tolerated.  Anyone who follows the Ten Commandments and follows most of the rest of the Bible is doing much better than most other people, even if they are homosexual.

Sexual relations between two men is prohibited and adherents are condemned to death. Does this apply to sexual intercourse between two females?  

yeriyah wolf wrote

Sexual relations between two men is prohibited and adherents are condemned to death. Does this apply to sexual intercourse between two females?

No.

It violates be fruitful & multiply command i think.  Since men are natural leaders and creators of tribe & nation, having two men together reduces the chances of creating more of their tribe.

As you so alluded to genetic blessings by God, how would men acquire this blessing if they were to shack up with each other?

I know the counter argument is what about the chicks?  women are hypergamous and thus have no incentive to build society, tribe, or nation.  so two chicks shacking up subtracts some amount but its bot a devastating blow.

You have 2 arguments, reproduction and leadership.  Total reproduction of the tribe is determined by the number of heterosexual women, not men.  An imbalance of too many heterosexual women, if this really happened, could be solved with polygamy.  As for leadership, I don't see the connection.

The fruitful & multiply command is up to each person to choose whether or not to follow.  For society to prevent men from reproducing, as feminist society does, is a sin of that culture.  But if an individual chooses not to reproduce, that is his problem.  Note that based on this, celibacy is as bad as homosexuality.

Of course the real test is to study the correlation of homosexuality with rising and declining cultures.  Since I have no real interest in homosexuality, I haven't done this, so I can't really come to a strong conclusion.

Doing a cursory read of the relevant Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_homosexuality (excuse me for my laziness), it seems like homosexuality gradually became more acceptable starting around the end of the 18th century, although the biggest change happened from the 1970s onward. So one could argue that the gradual increase in the acceptability of homosexuality mirrors the decline of modern culture, but I think that it actually predates the decline of modern culture (assuming, as you argued in another post, that modern culture started declining toward the end of the 19th century). Also, homosexuality was acceptable in many other cultures during their peak, such as in ancient Greece and Rome, and even in medieval Islamic cultures. Therefore, I would argue that there is no correlation between homosexuality and declining civilizations.

Also, just out of curiosity, what are your thoughts on birth control and abortion? One could argue that they are bad because they encourage premarital sex, but I think that cultural values have a greater effect on whether people have premarital sex or not. And if birth control was not available, then overpopulation would become an even greater problem.

I have no issue with birth control or abortion.  Contrary to what many religious people say, I see nothing in the Bible against either of these things.  In fact Exodus 21:22 implies that abortion is not a crime.  In English I see "When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman’s husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment."  But I looked at the Hebrew and the translation is wrong.  Instead of "her children are born prematurely" the Hebrew says "her children go out" meaning it makes no difference if they go out dead or alive.  So the Bible explicitly says that abortion is not murder

Well, these factors are out of the woman's control. Men involved are still fined. What if it's the case that the woman intentionally kill the fetus?

On Friday, February 26, 2016, fschmidt [via Mikraite] <[hidden email]> wrote:

I have no issue with birth control or abortion.  Contrary to what many religious people say, I see nothing in the Bible against either of these things.  In fact Exodus 21:22 implies that abortion is not a crime.  In English I see "When men get in a fight and hit a pregnant woman so that her children are born prematurely but there is no injury, the one who hit her must be fined as the woman’s husband demands from him, and he must pay according to judicial assessment."  But I looked at the Hebrew and the translation is wrong.  Instead of "her children are born prematurely" the Hebrew says "her children go out" meaning it makes no difference if they go out dead or alive.  So the Bible explicitly says that abortion is not murder

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Peter wrote

Well, these factors are out of the woman's control. Men involved are still
fined. What if it's the case that the woman intentionally kill the fetus?

The point of Exodus 21:22 is that abortion isn't murder, and everything follows from that.  I googled this today and found this good explanation:

http://dailymull.com/1448/What-the-Bible-Says-about-Abortion-Conclusion

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Another question that I just thought of: should there be standards of sexual morality for lesbian women who have no sexual interest in men? Should they try to remain virgins until marriage, or is it okay for them to have sex with other women as much as they want?

Pure homosexuality results in a reproductive and thus, an evolutionary and genetic dead end, no matter how much it is accepted, tolerated or even celebrated. I personally refer from condemning it, it's just an unfortunate situation (especially for the otherwise altruistic individual), at least from the above point of view. It might be an automatic balancing response from the non-linear dynamic system we call Nature as a whole, that such tendencies seem to be advertised lately, along with the masculinization of women and the feminization of men.

Yeah, that's definitely a negative think about homosexuality. Although homosexual men can still reproduce if they find a surrogate, and homosexual women can still reproduce if they find a sperm donor. Do technically homosexuality isn't a reproductive dead end.

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Although homosexuality may be associated with hedonism, promiscuity, and drug use today, I don't think this is inherently true. Back in ancient Greece and Rome, homosexuality was considered socially acceptable, and it didn't have any negative effect on society as far as I can tell. The problem is that today, a lot of homosexuals have embraced the hedonism of modern culture.

They are being used for mass manipulation, as usual. Same happens with women and feminism, among other things. Most of these are really just people without a clue, regardless of their sexuality.

It seems I am wrong here, and I underestimated the Old Testament.

http://www.beneimiqra.com/topic/8-does-the-torah-condemn-homosexuality/

So the English is just a mistranslation, and the actual rule is that 2 men shouldn't have sex with 1 woman.  Once again, the Old Testament makes sense.