Monday, December 5, 2011

What's God's Word on homosexual relations?

JMJ
Pax


What does the Bible say about homosexuality?


Important: temptation is not a sin. Accepting it, is. There is a big difference between spotting a cliff and jumping into it. Same sex attraction is not a sin, in a similar way it is not a sin to feel attracted to someone of the opposite sex.


Any homosexual consented sexual desire and activity is a mortal sin: if someone dies without repenting, he/she goes to hell, forever, forever, forever.


Humble prayer, Repentance, determination to avoid occasions of sin, self-mortification, and above all, the frequent use of the Holy Sacraments, will prevent you from falling into temptation.


Either if you don't believe in the Word of God or because you believe, please read:


Homosexuality under reason and natural law (not God)



The Scientific Proof of Religion:
http://prove-religion.blogspot.com/2011/12/scientific-proof-of-religion.html


The cause of homosexuality


Romans 1
24Therefore, God handed them over to impurity through the lusts of their hearts* for the mutual degradation of their bodies.v25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and revered and worshiped the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.w26Therefore, God handed them over to degrading passions. Their females exchanged natural relations for unnatural,27and the males likewise gave up natural relations with females and burned with lust for one another. Males did shameful things with males and thus received in their own persons the due penalty for their perversity.x28And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God handed them over to their undiscerning mind to do what is improper.29y They are filled with every form of wickedness, evil, greed, and malice; full of envy, murder, rivalry, treachery, and spite. They are gossips30and scandalmongers and they hate God. They are insolent, haughty, boastful, ingenious in their wickedness, and rebellious toward their parents.31They are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless.32Although they know the just decree of God that all who practice such things deserve death, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.


About homosexual child adoption and not doing anything about it

Mathew 18

6 “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.

7 Woe to the world because of things that cause sin! Such things must come, but woe to the one through whom they come!

Mathew 25



40 And the king will say to them in reply, ‘Amen, I say to you, whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.’


41 Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you accursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.



45 He will answer them, ‘Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me.’


46 And these will go off to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”

Saint Augustine said "Love the sinner and hate the sin":


If we don't correct the sinner, then we love sin and hate the sinner. If we tolerate or love sin, we love Satan and hate God


Jesus paid for all future sins through his Crucifixion: supra-temporally, more sin means more pain for Him. Less sin, less pain. If we love Jesus, we fight against sin. God is Love. If we love mortal sin, we are incapable of loving, in fact, we hate, because sin harms our neighbors, whether we acknowledge it or not.



What about Old Testament prescriptions like stoning homosexuals?

Just like violating a red light brings a fine, sin brings an intergenerational curse up to the 4th generation. Before Adam's sin God took the "seed" of the Immaculate Conception from him and reinserted it after sinning (when the gates of Heaven were shut). This Eucharistic sacrament was passed from generation to generation by a special blessing: Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, following Christ's geneology until it reached the hatching point: the fire of love of Saint Anne (and St. Joachim). You see, God is 100% perfection and thus 100% incompatible with sin, so with the Creation set of rules, He wouldn't be able to incarnate and save us. That’s why mankind needed the genetical and spiritual purity of the Jews, by not mixing with sin and pagan sinners (even if it meant killing the homosexuals or neighboring people). If not, we would never be able to enter Heaven, not even the Just ones. After the incarnation all those non-mixing rules (which survive in Orthodox Jews and even in Indian casts) were unnecessary: baptism erases the inter-generational curse and that's why we baptize children as soon as they are born. All this explains the apparent inconsistency that if God is Love and that if you love someone, you want to be next to the loved one, God didn’t incarnate as grandson of Adam.

Homosexuality in Scripture


Gen. 1 & 2 - we see from the beginning that the complimentarity of the sexes reflects God's inner unity and His creative power and Fatherhood. God created man and woman to become one flesh which is consummated in the act of marital love.
Gen. 2:18 – throughout the creation story, God says “it is good” seven times. But when God pointed out that man was alone, God says “it is not good.” God then created woman. Man and woman therefore belong together by God’s design, according to His natural and supernatural law.
Gen. 2:24 – God created man and woman so that they could share communion. This communion is consummated in the marital act (which must be between a man and a woman). This communion is also a reflection of the eternal communion of the Blessed Trinity, who created man in His own image and likeness.
Gen. 19:24-28 - the Lord rained fire and brimstone on Sodom and Gomorrah as punishment for the sin of homosexuality. Homosexuality perverts God’s covenant with humanity.
Gen 13:13; 18:20: while homosexuals argue that the sin in Genesis 19 was the sin of “inhospitality,” these verses show that the Sodomites were evil and wicked people before the alleged sin of inhospitality. That is because the Sodomites were guilty of homosexuality, not inhospitality. In fact, 2 Pet 2:6:8 says that Lot witnessed their evil sexual practices “day after day.” The Sodomites’ sin was daily and pervasive.
Gen 19:5: this confirms that the Sodomites’ sin is homosexuality. Here, the Sodomites mistaken the two angels for men and, surrounding Lot’s house, ask to have sex with them. When the yell to Lot “bring them out that we may know them,” the Hebrew for “to know” (yadah) in Gen 19:5 means having sexual relations. See, for example, Gen 4:25 where “yadah” refers to sexual relations between Adam and Eve.
2 Pet 2:6-10: Peter also proves that the Sodomites were guilty of homosexuality. He says God condemned them for “licentiousness” and “lust of defiling passion,” which is where we get the title “Sodomite” for a homosexual. The Greek “aselgeia anastrophes” for lustful behavior is also found in Rom 13:13; Gal 5:19; Eph 4:19 and Jude 4.
Jude 7: Jude also confirms the Sodomites’ sin is homosexuality. Jude says they “indulged in unnatural lust” (Greek, ekporneusasai) and went after “strange flesh” (Greek, sarkos heteras) in reference to their homosexual sins.
2 Peter 2:4-6: Peter also reveals that the Sodomites are suffering in hell for their sins by comparing the Sodomites’ punishment to the eternal punishment of the evil angels. Just as God did not spare the angels when they sinned but cast them into hell, so He did the same with the Sodomites when He “condemned them to extinction and made them an example to those who were to be ungodly.”
Jude 5-7: Like Peter, Jude confirms that the Sodomites are in hell by saying that they had the same fate as the evil angels. Jude says just as the evil angels were condemned to hell, the Sodomites “likewise” (Greek, hos) acted immorally and are undergoing a punishment of eternal fire. “Undergoing” (Greek, upechousai) is a present participle which means their suffering is ongoing. See also the clear polarity between those who are saved (v.5) and those who are condemned (vv. 6-7,11,13).
Lev. 18:22, 29 - God commands a man never to lie with a male as with a female, or he will be cut off. This refers to supernatural death which is eternal separation from God. While the Old Covenant laws have been abrogated by the New Covenant, the Church has adopted their moral principles. Thus, the moral prohibitions on homosexuality still apply in the New Covenant, as Peter, Paul and Jude demonstrate.
Lev. 20:13 - God says that if a man lies with another man, he shall be put to death. From the very beginning, God has revealed that homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered, unhealthy, and mortally sinful.
Deut. 22:5 - cross-dressing is also considered an abomination before God.
Matt. 19:6 - after referring to God's divine plan for man and woman, Jesus says a husband and wife become one flesh, which ultimately reflects God's union with humanity through the Church. Homosexual unions pervert this divine truth of God’s love for and union with the human race.
Rom. 1:26 - also, when a woman lies with another women (lesbianism), this is unnatural and a perversion. God wants His children to be pure and holy as He is holy. Paul condemns all homosexual acts, whether committed by men or women.
Rom. 1:27 – Paul calls the practice of homosexuality shameless, unnatural and a perversity. It is contrary to the natural law, as it eviscerates the life-giving aspect of human sexuality and reduces it to a selfish, pleasure-seeking end.
1 Cor 6:9: Paul teaches that sodomites will not enter into the kingdom of God. The Greek word for “sodomite” (arsenokoites) literally means “male copulation” or “male sexual relations.” The Greek “arsen” means “male” and “koites” means “coitus” or “sexual relations.” Paul uses the same word in 1 Tim 1:10.
1 Tim. 1:10 - sodomites are called ungodly and sinners, unholy and profane, lawless and disobedient. They are called by God to chastity. It is important to note that homosexual attractions and inclinations, while disordered and dangerous, are not by themselves sinful per se. It is the acting out on homosexual attraction that is sinful. Those with homosexual desires can still live a life worthy of Christ by remaining chaste and pure as they abstain from acting out on their desires.


Tradition / Church Fathers

"You shall not commit fornication; you shall not commit adultery; you shall not be a corrupter of youth." Letter of Barnabas 10 (A.D. 74).
"You shall not be a corrupter of boys, nor like unto such." Letter of Barnabas 10 (A.D. 74).
"You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born." Didache 2:2 (A.D. 90).
"[W]e have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do anyone harm and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm. And any one who uses such persons, besides the godless and infamous and impure intercourse, may possibly be having intercourse with his own child, or relative, or brother. And there are some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods." Justin Martyr, First Apology 27 (A.D. 151).
"All honor to that king of the Scythians, whoever Anacharsis was, who shot with an arrow one of his subjects who imitated among the Scythians the mystery of the mother of the gods . . . condemning him as having become effeminate among the Greeks, and a teacher of the disease of effeminacy to the rest of the Scythians." Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2 (A.D. 190).
"[According to Greek myth] Baubo [a female native of Elusis] having received [the goddess] Demeter hospitably, reached to her a refreshing draught; and on her refusing it, not having any inclination to drink (for she was very sad), and Baubo having become annoyed, thinking herself slighted, uncovered her shame, and exhibited her nudity to the goddess. Demeter is delighted with the sight--pleased, I repeat, at the spectacle. These are the secret mysteries of the Athenians; these Orpheus records." Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2 (A.D. 190).
"It is not, then, without reason that the poets call him [Hercules] a cruel wretch and a nefarious scoundrel. It were tedious to recount his adulteries of all sorts, and debauching of boys. For your gods did not even abstain from boys, one having loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another Pelops, another Chrysippus, another Ganymede. Let such gods as these be worshipped by your wives, and let them pray that their husbands be such as these--so temperate; that, emulating them in the same practices, they may be like the gods. Such gods let your boys be trained to worship, that they may grow up to be men with the accursed likeness of fornication on them received from the gods." Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 2 (A.D. 190).
"[A]ll other frenzies of the lusts which exceed the laws of nature, and are impious toward both [human] bodies and the sexes, we banish, not only from the threshold but also from all shelter of the Church, for they are not sins so much as monstrosities." Tertullian, Modesty 4 (A.D. 220).
"[God forbid the Jews to eat certain foods for symbolic reasons:] For that in fishes the roughness of scales is regarded as constituting their cleanness; rough, and rugged, and unpolished, and substantial, and grave manners are approved in men; while those that are without scales are unclean, because trifling, and fickle, and faithless, and effeminate manners are disapproved. Moreover, what does the Law mean when it…forbids the swine to be taken for food? It assuredly reproves a life filthy and dirty, and delighting in the garbage of vice…Or when it forbids the hare? It rebukes men deformed into women." Novatian, The Jewish Foods 3 (A.D. 250).
"[T]urn your looks to the abominations, not less to be deplored, of another kind of spectacle…Men are emasculated, and all the pride and vigor of their sex is effeminated in the disgrace of their enervated body; and he is more pleasing there who has most completely broken down the man into the woman. He grows into praise by virtue of his crime; and the more he is degraded, the more skillful he is considered to be. Such a one is looked upon--oh shame!--and looked upon with pleasure…nor is there wanting authority for the enticing abomination…that Jupiter of theirs [is] not more supreme in dominion than in vice, inflamed with earthly love in the midst of his own thunders…now breaking forth by the help of birds to violate the purity of boys. And now put the question: Can he who looks upon such things be healthy-minded or modest? Men imitate the gods whom they adore, and to such miserable beings their crimes become their religion." Cyprian of Carthage, Letters 1:8 (A.D. 253).
"Oh, if placed on that lofty watch-tower, you could gaze into the secret places--if you could open the closed doors of sleeping chambers and recall their dark recesses to the perception of sight--you would behold things done by immodest persons which no chaste eye could look upon; you would see what even to see is a crime; you would see what people embruted with the madness of vice deny that they have done, and yet hasten to do--men with frenzied lusts rushing upon men, doing things which afford no gratification even to those who do them." Cyprian of Carthage, Letters 1:9 (A.D. 253).
"[T]he mother of the gods loved [the boy Attis] exceedingly, because he was of most surpassing beauty; and Acdestis [the son of Jupiter] who was his companion, as he grew up fondling him, and bound to him by wicked compliance with his lust…Afterwards, under the influence of wine, he [Attis] admits that he is…loved by Acdestis…Then Midas, king of Pessinus, wishing to withdraw the youth from so disgraceful an intimacy, resolves to give him his own daughter in marriage…Acdestis, bursting with rage because of the boy's being torn from himself and brought to seek a wife, fills all the guests with frenzied madness; the Phrygians shriek, panic-stricken at the appearance of the gods . . . [Attis] too, now filled with furious passion, raving frantically and tossed about, throws himself down at last, and under a pine tree mutilates himself, saying, `Take these, Acdestis, for which you have stirred up so great and terribly perilous commotions.'" Arnobius, Against the Pagans 5:6-7 (A.D. 305).
"[H]aving forbidden all unlawful marriage, and all unseemly practice, and the union of women with women and men with men, he [God] adds: `Do not defile yourselves with any of these things; for in all these things the nations were defiled, which I will drive out before you. And the land was polluted, and I have recompensed [their] iniquity upon it, and the land is grieved with them that dwell upon it' [Lev. 18:24-25]." Eusebius of Caesarea, Proof of the Gospel 4:10 (A.D. 319).
"He who is guilty of unseemliness with males will be under discipline for the same time as adulterers." Basil the Great, Letters 217:62 (A.D. 367).
"If you [O, monk] are young in either body or mind, shun the companionship of other young men and avoid them as you would a flame. For through them the enemy has kindled the desires of many and then handed them over to eternal fire, hurling them into the vile pit of the five cities under the pretense of spiritual love. At meals take a seat far from other young men. In lying down to sleep let not their clothes be near yours, but rather have an old man between you. When a young man converses with you, or sings psalms facing you, answer him with eyes cast down, lest perhaps by gazing at his face you receive a seed of desire sown by the enemy and reap sheaves of corruption and ruin. Whether in the house or in a place where there is no one to see your actions, be not found in his company under the pretense either of studying the divine oracles or of any other business whatsoever, however necessary." Basil the Great, The Renunciation of the World (A.D. 373).
"[The pagans] were addicted to the love of boys, and one of their wise men made a law that pederasty…should not be allowed to slaves, as if it was an honorable thing; and they had houses for this purpose, in which it was openly practiced. And if all that was done among them was related, it would be seen that they openly outraged nature, and there was none to restrain them… As for their passion for boys, whom they called their 'paedica,' it is not fit to be named." John Chrysostom, Homilies on Titus 5 (A.D. 390]).
"[Certain men in church] come in gazing about at the beauty of women; others curious about the blooming youth of boys. After this, do you not marvel that [lightning] bolts are not launched [from heaven], and all these things are not plucked up from their foundations? For worthy both of thunderbolts and hell are the things that are done; but God, who is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forbears awhile his wrath, calling you to repentance and amendment." John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew 3:3 (A.D. 391).
"All of these affections [in Rom. 1:26-27]… were vile, but chiefly the mad lust after males; for the soul is more the sufferer in sins, and more dishonored than the body in diseases." John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).
"[The men] have done an insult to nature itself. And a yet more disgraceful thing than these is it, when even the women seek after these intercourses, who ought to have more shame than men." John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).
"And sundry other books of the philosophers one may see full of this disease. But we do not therefore say that the thing was made lawful, but that they who received this law were pitiable, and objects for many tears. For these are treated in the same way as women that play the whore. Or rather their plight is more miserable. For in the case of the one the intercourse, even if lawless, is yet according to nature; but this is contrary both to law and nature. For even if there were no hell, and no punishment had been threatened, this would be worse than any punishment." John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans 4 (A.D. 391).
"[T]hose shameful acts against nature, such as were committed in Sodom, ought everywhere and always to be detested and punished. If all nations were to do such things, they would be held guilty of the same crime by the law of God, which has not made men so that they should use one another in this way." Augustine, Confessions 3:8:15 (A.D. 400).
"[Christians] abhor all unlawful mixtures, and that which is practiced by some contrary to nature, as wicked and impious." Apostolic Constitutions 6:11 (A.D. 400).

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