@thatmax

I would have to say D.. although luckily most adult gay people have come out... at least they should, although some of the posts in this thread (particularly the ones comparing homosexuality and pedophilia) make me wonder whether society has progressed at all.

Sometimes teenagers do go through bisexual phases but most people who are gay, are gay and its not a choice or experimentation.

Alright, I really like talking about the historical formation of the Bible as a text, so here goes.

I did a pretty interesting research paper one time where I looked at flood myths from three cultures, the Sumerian Culture, Greek culture, and early Jewish culture.

The Sumerian (related to the Akkadian myth) flood myth is the first known flood myth, and it is the story which the Jewish flood myth draws from most heavily. The Greek flood myth is pretty much a "me too" kind of myth, and is mostly a superficial addition to an already established mythology. There are other flood myths from around the same time too, but I won't get into those for simplicity's sake.

The Sumerian myth is largely centered around population control. Towards the beginning of the myth, the god Ea/Anu creates seven males and seven females. The humans grow to a much larger number though, and begin to disturb another god's sleep, Ellil. He eventually causes a huge flood to kill off all the humans which last for seven days and seven knights. Another, nicer, god tells one of the humans, named Atrahasis, "exceedingly wise or the thoughtful man", to build a boat. The other god, Ellil, finds out that Enki went behind his back, so in order to ensure that this doesn't happen again, he makes an edict that humans have a much shorter lifespan than before.

The Jewish flood myth borrows a lot of elements from this story. As what I read as a way to show the extreme puissance of the Jewish God, it rains for forty days and forty nights rather than just seven, and God warns Noah seven days beforehand. God also makes a very similar edict to the Sumerian one after the flood occurs, that man’s “days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years” (Gen. 6:3). Everyone born after that event can only live for 120 years, such as Moses, who lives all the way up until that point. Noah lives for over 500 years.

Historical scholars are constantly finding new information about what we call "The Bible." The Dead Sea Scrolls, one of the most authoratative Old Testament collections, wasn't found until this century. These new discoveries change the text of The Bible as we know it (we are still making them today), not to mention the problem of translating it all. Its ironic to me that so many people claim to hold The Bible above any other text, yet they don't bother to learn Hebrew (more understandable, because it is such an outdated language) or Greek (at least has some practical applications). I guess they don't care about what The Bible really says that much...

Even the New Testament is plagued with all kinds of problems. Many of the writers of the New Testament expected the parousia, or the second coming of Christ, to happen within their lifetime, and new texts were written when Jesus did not appear within that time period. The earliest "Christians" didn't even bother to write down most of their teachings because they expected Jesus to come back before they died. This is why the earliest texts in the New Testament are Paul's letters, not any of the gospels. The earliest gospel, Mark, was not written much earlier than 70 A.D. based on almost every scholarly estimate.

The criteria for excluding and including books in the biblical canon can occasionally be very arbitrary too. Revelations, for instance, meets some, but not all the criteria, to be a canonized book in the Bible, yet other texts are excluded even if they meet some of the same criteria. Sometimes the criteria isn't even divine inspiration, but whether or not the text was important in the historical formation of the Church. Hebrews is a great example of this, which Paul supposedly wrote according the early Christian counsels, but which scholars have pretty much undisputedly shown to be false. There are plenty of genuine Paul letters on that note.

You really can't even claim to know very much about the New Testament if you don't know the importance of the failed Jewish Revolt against the Romans from 66-73 in the actual writing of every New Testament book written during and after that point. The entire southern half of Israel around the Judea area was essentially destroyed, and the Jewish Temple was obliterated. The temple was the most important symbol in daily Jewish life, and the destruction of Jerusalem profoundly influenced the direction of Christianity after that, including the writing of Revelations.

I won't even get into how the formation of the Catholic Church from 100-300 A.D. profoundly affected both liturgical practices as well as what was chosen to become a part of the New Testament. This includes, as ssj12 mentioned, the elevation of men within the Church even though many women occupied an extremely important place within the earliest "Christian" (that term wasn't used for awhile) churches, such as Mary Magdalene.

One thing learning about the historical formation of The Bible has taught me is that very few people are actually willing to take the time and understand what went into making The Bible, yet they will still throw around their limited knowledge of The Bible as if it were absolute fact. The Bible has a lot of profound things to say, even if you aren't at all religious, but no one should throw around scripture as fact unless they have really done their homework. It's insulting to Christianity!

Homosexuals. lol. They talk with a lisp and they walk funny. lol.

"Oh be nice".

The b& hammer drops on Rock_on_2008. Takes the edge off the irritation I feel when the stereotypes of lisping and the like are brought up by the ignorant.

Lol, I thought Rock_on got banned for his gay comments for a minute.

I just thought I'd give you some props on that write-up akuma, very well said, and very intelligent. Great post!

wow, I never knew how many bigots were on this site... against christianity.

Never the less, you don't know the impact it can have on a kid. The mom and dad formula has worked well since the dawn of man, if you change it, who knows what can happen. And artificial insemination is not natural. It's something that should be used if you want to have a baby, but can't find a partner etc. Not if you chose to be gay. CHOSE being the key word. It's a choice, and if you choose it, well, you choose to have no kids. And as for people who are bi.... Well, that spreads diseases and shouldn't be done. CHOOSE A LIFESTYLE. Didn't STD's increase exponentially in the 1970's?

Anyway, I rather a person be gay than bi anyday.

I am against it but its complicated…….recently I have heard stories in the news of gay activist forcing legal action against people that due to religious beliefs have denied them service

One instance I can think of is a doctor that refused to artificially inseminate a lesbian couple b/c it is against his religious beliefs…..now I am all for equal right but just being gay should not trump a persons religious beliefs

Another instance I have heard of is a catholic adoption agency loosing state funding due to not adopting to homosexual couples, once again due to religious beliefs

Now I don’t think a person has ground to deny a job or necessary medical attention to another but at the same time I don’t like my religious freedoms being walked on

Really? I haven't noticed bigotry against Christianity, but what I have noticed is that some people here are hiding behind their religion to justify their own bigotry. The major prohibition against homosexuality in the Bible is in Leviticus... There's also another passage which you might find of interest:

leviticus 11:7-8