Marriage—Designed for Procreation?

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The most popular argument against same-sex marriage from Christians that I see is that the purpose of marriage is procreation. (It makes me wonder if the only advice they would give a couple considering marriage would be about sex positions and lubricating oils.)

Where did this idea come from? My guess is that a couple of Christian strategists had a conversation something like this.

First Guy: We’ve got to find some way to differentiate same-sex marriage from straight marriage.

Other Guy: Yeah—some significant difference.

First Guy: So what would a gay marriage not be able to do that a straight marriage can?

Other Guy: Let’s see—they can love each other, they can support each other through difficult times …

First Guy: They can provide sexual satisfaction, they’ll have two incomes in many cases …

Other Guy: Hey, wait a minute—they can’t make babies!

First Guy: Sure, that’s it! Let’s just spin it to imagine that that’s the sole purpose of marriage!

Other Guy: The sole purpose? But what about all that other stuff?

First Guy: Whatever—the argument just has to be plausible at first glance. It doesn’t have to actually make sense.

Seriously? Is that all you get out of the marriage vows? “I promise to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, in joy as well as in sorrow,” doesn’t sound like “Make babies!” to me.

The real sin: infertility in straight couples

And what would these Christian whiners do with marriages that don’t produce children? Some couples don’t want children and others can’t have them. More than 10% of couples have a fertility problem. In other words, if every single homosexual person paired up and got married tomorrow, they would still be far exceeded in number by the straight couples simply unable to make babies. As anti-gay-marriage advocates lie awake at night and worry about other people’s happiness, I wonder if this fact troubles them as well.

And what about couples beyond child-bearing age? My wife and I are too old for more babies, for example. Does that make our marriage invalid or inferior?

It’s easy to smoke out these Christians’ true opinions on the subject. Ask these opponents to same-sex marriage why a straight couple should get married instead of living together, and the procreation argument goes out the window, replaced with profound thoughts about love and commitment—precisely the reason same-sex couples want to get married.

The marriage-creates-babies idea is clung to like a life preserver, but the simple fact is that marriage doesn’t make babies, it’s sex. And, as I’ve said in a previous post, let’s remember that the apostle Paul was against sex and made clear that the best marriage was no marriage at all.

What if the options were same-sex couple vs. single parent?

A variant of this argument is that a straight couple provides a better environment for a child than a same-sex couple. I’ve heard evidence on each side of this question, but I’m in no position to evaluate it. What seems certain to me is that other factors in life—having enough money, no domestic violence, no drug use, a safe neighborhood, and so on—can overshadow the parents’ gender.

But this argument is irrelevant in those situations when two biological parents simply aren’t an option. For example, imagine a lesbian woman, divorced with a child. The mother could live alone, she could live with a woman partner, or the two women could get married. What’s the best situation for the child? Mom and Dad isn’t an option; they’re divorced. Mom and Stepdad aren’t an option; Mom’s a lesbian. Seems to me that there’s room in this situation to allow for Mom’s happiness, and that could provide another adult to help with the parenting. Where’s the problem? We probably agree that single-parent households aren’t best for raising children, and opposing same-sex marriage only stands in the way.

“But we don’t discriminate!”

A final element of the Christian position is a rearguard action. Concerned about the charge of bias, they argue that their position does not discriminate against homosexuals. After all, they say, the restriction that someone can only marry someone of the opposite sex applies to everyone equally.

I’m sure this absurd argument was as foul-smelling when it was applied to those in love with someone of a different race in 1967 when mixed-race marriages were still prohibited in 17 states. “There’s no discrimination here. You can marry anyone you want … as long as that person is of the same race as you.”

Christians, you’re being led around by Chicken Little politicians. Think for yourself. Same-sex marriage doesn’t affect your marriage or mine one bit.

Read this series from the beginning: “Does the Old Testament Condemn Homosexuality?”

Christians don’t need to be born again.
They need to grow up.
— John Shelby Spong

 

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 3/23/12.)

Book Review of “Cross Examined”

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Ed Suominen, author with Robert M. Price of Evolving Out of Eden: Christian Responses to Evolution, recently wrote a nice review of my Cross Examined: An Unconventional Spiritual Journey, which he titled “Dismantling Design with Fact and Fiction.”

He illustrated the post with his own photos of San Francisco, which brings to mind the setting and inciting incident of the book, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

Not only does Ed’s book give a great analysis of evolution from a Christian viewpoint, but I was delighted to find a bit of my own book quoted in it (page 201 in Evolving out of Eden, where Jim critiques Paley’s watch argument).

Ed concludes his review, “It’s fiction with focus, and well done. Highly recommended.”

You can find Cross Examined on Amazon as paperback or e-book, or read more about my books here.

A fascinating novel of ideas …
puts a whole new light on apologetics.
— Dr. Robert M. Price, about Cross Examined

Scholarly Consensus for the Resurrection?

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Jesus resurrectionTheologian Gary Habermas has for almost 15 years cataloged articles debating the empty tomb of Jesus and the resurrection. From the thousands he has collected in the last few decades, he concludes:

75% of scholars today say that resurrection or something like it occurred.

(He also cites the same percentage in favor of the empty tomb, but the resurrection is the more sensational claim.)

It would seem that scholars are heavily in favor of the resurrection conclusion. However, a closer look (informed in large part by an excellent recent article by Richard Carrier) shows a very different conclusion.

This is not peer-reviewed scholarship

Habermas admitted in 2012, “Most of this material is unpublished.” With his data secret, his conclusions are uncheckable. Carrier says that Habermas has denied repeated requests to review his data.

Habermas cites the ever-growing list of articles in his database (3400 at last count), but what does the 75% refer to? Is it 75% of the database articles? If so, how does he deal with multiple articles from one author? Or is it 75% of authors? If so, are professors and street preachers weighed the same? If it’s 75% of scholars, are experts in the fields of theology and philosophy given equal weight with experts in history? What journals and other sources does he search?

Habermas assures us that he is careful to include scholars both friendly and unfriendly to the resurrection idea, but how do we know without seeing the data?

Who’s motivated to publish?

Suppose someone has an opinion on the resurrection and is considering writing an article, pro or con. Are those defending the resurrection more motivated to write an article than those who reject the idea? Are resurrection defenders more likely to find a publisher?

Carrier gives Atlantis as a possible parallel. Even though belief in Atlantis is a fringe idea, there may be more published articles defending the idea of Atlantis simply because defenders are more motivated, and those who reject Atlantis may feel that this is uninteresting or that the few articles out there already address the issue.

That Habermas’s database can’t correct for motivation and hasn’t been peer reviewed makes his conclusions useless, but there’s more.

A Christian bias

What fraction of the pro-resurrection 75% are Christians? Not having the data, we don’t know, but I’ll guess 99%. I’ll grant that Christians are as smart as anyone else, but does their religion bias their conclusions?

Here’s why I ask: consider polling a group of Muslim scholars. They have no bias against the supernatural, and they understand the Jesus story. But ask them about the resurrection, and they will universally reject it.

The Christian might respond that Muslims are biased by their religious beliefs to dismiss the resurrection. And that’s true, but then why are Christians, who are biased to accept the resurrection, allowed to weigh in on this issue?

Is 75% a big deal?

Habermas admits that 25% in his database reject the resurrection claim. Even if we were inclined toward Habermas’s conclusion, is this the foundation on which to build the conclusion that Jesus rose from the dead? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. “Most” of some scholars accepting the resurrection ain’t it.

It’s like an Olympic figure skating event where just 75% of the judges picked the winner. That’s not a reliable route to validate such a fundamental truth claim.

Or maybe that 75% is compelling!

William Lane Craig defends Habermas’s conclusion this way:

[Ask those who reject Habermas] what source of information they have that leads them to disagree with over 75% of the trained scholars who have studied this question. How did they come by such insight? How would they refute the evidence of the resurrection which has led so many scholars to the contrary conclusion?

Habermas is happy to reject the conclusion of 99% of the experts who understand evolution (see his attitude toward evolution here, here, and here). Ditto for William Lane Craig. Neither is in a position to object to anyone rejecting the 75% conclusion about the resurrection.

There is no grounds by which a layman like Habermas can reject a consensus in science. This problem doesn’t exist within religion because there is no consensus! (I explore that more with the example of the Map of World Religions.)

Habermas ignores the all-important “excluded middle”

Habermas counts votes in only two categories. To see the mistake behind this, consider a 1979 ad for the Bic razor that claimed, “In our test, 58 percent found the Bic shave equal to or better than the Trac II shave.” Notice that the 58% is composed of two subsets: those who found the Bic better (it was the cheaper razor, so I’m guessing this was quite small) plus those who had no opinion. We can only guess, but suppose the fractions were 8% for Bic better, 50% couldn’t tell, and 42% for the Trac II. With this, the message is suddenly quite different.

That’s the problem with Habermas. He counts two categories of authors who cared enough to write a paper and succeeded in getting it published, (1) those in favor of the resurrection hypothesis and (2) those not. But don’t forget category 3, “Other,” composed of scholars who have no opinion or who couldn’t be bothered.

Historians may be the only category of scholar qualified to have a relevant opinion on the historicity of the resurrection (though Habermas doubtless includes many philosophers and theologians). Few historians of pre-Roman Britain or ancient Egypt or Ming dynasty China will have written about the resurrection, but the consensus of historians universally scrubs supernatural stories out of history. Historians are an enormous silent majority that Habermas doesn’t count and that would discard his conclusion if he did count them. Relevant scholars who reject or have no opinion on his hypothesis doubtless overwhelm those who accept it.

What biblical scholar can speak freely?

How many of the scholars in Habermas’s database signed a statement of faith at their place of employment? That is, how many are not free to follow the facts where they lead but have their jobs and even careers on the line if they stray?

Consider what happened to Mike Licona when he wrote a 700-page book in 2010 containing a single conclusion objectionable to fundamentalists. He lost two jobs and was out on the street. Christian scholars in such positions are unable to be objective, and every scholarly conclusion of theirs is suspect. Their statements of faith hang like a Sword of Damocles over their heads.

This includes Gary Habermas himself. The statement of faith at his Liberty University says, in part, “We affirm that the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, though written by men, was supernaturally inspired by God so that all its words are the written true revelation of God; it is therefore inerrant in the originals and authoritative in all matters.”

Dr. Habermas, about that conclusion of yours: is that you or your faith statement talking?

Recommendation to Habermas

Habermas says about his database, “The result of all these years of study is a private manuscript of more than 600 pages.” That’s an impressive project, and yet his argument crumbles under scrutiny. This frequently-cited database is no proxy for a simple poll.

A poll would have been far less work, and it actually would’ve provided useful information—just not the information that Habermas would like to see.

For a critique of Gary Habermas’s minimal facts for the resurrection, continue here.

If Christ has not been raised,
our preaching is useless and so is your faith.
— 1 Corinthians 15:14

Photo credit: Secret Stash

The Irrelevant Wisdom of the Ten Commandments

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Ten CommandmentsFew Christians can list the Ten Commandments in order, but almost all are familiar with them:

  1. Have no other gods before me
  2. No graven images
  3. Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain
  4. Keep the Sabbath day
  5. Honor your mother and father
  6. Don’t kill
  7. No adultery
  8. Don’t steal
  9. Don’t lie
  10. Don’t covet

These are the well-known Ten Commandments from Exodus 20. What could be ambiguous about this list? Stay tuned as we run through the story.

It takes 11 more chapters for God to finish giving all his secondary commandments, first rules for how the people should conduct themselves and then rules for the temple and priests.

After weeks of waiting for Moses to return from Mt. Sinai, the anxious Israelites make a golden calf in chapter 32. Moses is furious when he returns. He smashes the tablets, has the calf ground up and force-fed to the faithless people, and orders the Levites to slaughter thousands of their fellow tribesmen.

Then follows an indeterminate amount of time during which God descended on Moses’ tent as a pillar of smoke and “the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face, just as a man speaks to his friend.”

As a side note, it’s interesting that this appearance of God to Moses (Ex. 33:11) as well as that to Abraham (Gen. 18:1–2) is denied in other parts of the Bible. We’re later told, “No one has seen God at any time” (John 1:18) and “No man has seen or can see [God]” (1 Tim. 6:16).

Back to our story: Moses goes up Sinai a second time in Exodus 34. God says, “I will write on the tablets the words that were on the former tablets which you shattered,” so we know that this nothing new, just a replacement set of commandments. But the contents are very different:

  1. Make no covenant with the Canaanite tribes
  2. Destroy their altars
  3. Make no idols (“molten gods”)
  4. Observe the Feast of Unleavened Bread
  5. “The first offspring from every womb belongs to me”
  6. Rest on the seventh day
  7. Celebrate the Feast of Weeks
  8. No leavened bread during Passover
  9. Bring the first fruits of the soil to the Lord
  10. “You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk”

The chapter ends with these words: “And [Moses] wrote on the tablets the words of the covenant, the Ten Commandments.” This is the first time this label is used in the Bible.

You want to display the Ten Commandments in public? Go for it, but put up this list. It’s the official list, after all. These are the ten that wound up in the Ark of the Covenant.

Contrast this with the story of the first tablets, which concludes at the end of chapter 31, “[God] gave Moses the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written by the finger of God.” There is no mention of a “ten commandments,” and these stone tablets presumably contain all of the rules given in chapters 20 through 31.

Another detour: chapter 34 has this savage claim, “[God] will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations” (Ex. 34:7). And yet, three books later, we get this contradiction: “Fathers shall not be put to death for their children, nor children put to death for their fathers; each is to die for his own sin” (Deut. 24:16).

I’ve heard this rationalized this way: Deut. 24 is talking about what man must do. Man needs to treat people fairly and punish only the wrongdoers. Ex. 34 is talking about what God will do. God has a long memory and will hold a grudge against you to punish your descendants. It’s odd that Christians would imagine that God does something that is clearly immoral in our eyes. Anyway, God figures it out later: “The one who sins is the one who will die” (Ezekiel 18:4).

Speaking of punishments, the Ten Commandments list crimes without giving punishments. For you traditionalists who like the “thou shalt not” set of commandments, Positive Atheism has handy list of the corresponding punishments. God has a pretty limited imagination, and you can guess what they are: “He who sacrifices to any god, other than to the LORD alone, shall be utterly destroyed” (Ex. 22:20), “the one who blasphemes the name of the LORD shall surely be put to death” (Lev. 24:16), and so on.

Display the Ten Commandments in public, just put up the correct ten. Let’s finally put a stop to the abomination that is young goat cooked in goat milk.

Say what you will about the Ten Commandments, 
you must always come back to the pleasant fact 
that there are only ten of them. 
— H. L. Mencken

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 3/19/12.)

Photo credit: Wikimedia

 

Darwin Day Response to Creationist Chick Tract

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Darwin Day CreationismI recently saw the trailer for the upcoming “God’s Not Dead” movie. A Christian college student discovers that his philosophy class is taught by a dictatorial atheist who demands that all students declare that God is dead. He refuses and is forced into public debates with his professor.

Until I’m able to review that movie, and in honor of Darwin Day, I’d like to critique a Chick tract that closely parallels that plot. These arguments are pretty weak, but with the Ham on Nye debate last week, it’s clear that weak evolution-denial arguments are popular in some circles.

Chick tracts are tiny comics handed out to spread the gospel. “Big Daddy?” opens in a biology classroom with a portrait of an ape titled “Our Father.” (As the story progresses, I’ll give my rebuttals in parentheses. Read along, and see if your favorite Creationist claim makes an appearance.)

The professor asks how many of the students believe in evolution. All but one student is on board, and the professor is furious at the holdout. He’s about to expel him from the class but thinks better of it. Destroying the Christian argument will make a good demonstration for the class.

You can’t mention the Bible in school

The student begins by using the word “Bible,” and the professor declares that that is illegal. Here we have the first of many footnotes referencing Kent “Dr. Dino” Hovind. While our nutty professor is wrong that mentioning the Bible is illegal, the footnote is wrong when it says, “it has never been against the law to teach the Bible or creation in public schools.” Teaching the Bible in a comparative religions class is fine, but it’s not legal to evangelize from the Bible or teach Christian creation as science.

Hovind is a poor authority. His doctorate is from a diploma mill, and he’s now serving a ten-year sentence in prison for federal tax evasion.

Does science prove anything?

The professor declares that science proves evolution. (No—mathematics proves things, not science. Science is always provisional. I would say: evolution is the scientific consensus.) He points to carbon-14. (A biologist would likelier point to the entire field of radioisotope dating, not just C-14, which can take us back only about 40,000 years.)

The many flavors of “evolution”

The Christian student argues that there are six kinds of evolution—cosmic evolution, chemical evolution, stellar evolution, organic evolution, macroevolution, and microevolution. Don’t worry about the distinction—it’s not much clearer in the comic. Creationists sometimes argue that “evolution” is ambiguous to justify their use of the word “Darwinism,” but I’ll stick with the term used by biologists.

The student says that all but microevolution are believed by faith. (Science is accepted because of evidence, not faith.)

Piltdown Man was a hoax

Next, he attacks fossil dating by stating that Richard Leakey found a modern skull under 212-million-year-old rock. (Nope. That skull was an early hominid dated to 1.9 million years.) Our precocious student then declares that Lucy was just a chimpanzee, not an early hominid. (I saw Lucy when it toured the U.S. in 2009. Our student is wrong again—the consensus is clear that Lucy is an Australopithecus.)

Next, we see a chart listing various hominid fossils, with comments dismissing each of them. But no biologist would include Piltdown Man (a hoax) and Nebraska Man (an error) on such a list. Other fossils are dismissed as irrelevant, but again, that’s Dr. Dino talking.

Note also that hominid fossils alone provide little evidence for evolution. Only given the overwhelming evidence for evolution from DNA evidence and the enormous variety of other fossils can we make sense of the hominid evidence.

Fossil dating uses circular reasoning.

Oh dear—Professor Frantic is losing this debate. He changes the subject to the old dates of fossils, and the student charges him with circular reasoning—we know that a layer is old because it has trilobites in it, but we know that trilobites are old because of the age of the surrounding layers. (Which is nonsense. Radioisotope dating is reliable only for igneous rock like basalt or granite. Fossils in a sedimentary layer can be dated by nearby layers of basalt laid down as lava, for example. If there isn’t any convenient igneous layer, new fossils can be dated by using other, known fossils if those fossils were reliably dated at some other site.)

The quick-witted student next brings up what Creationists call polystrate fossils—fossilized trees that intrude through many layers. If layers deposit very slowly, is a dead tree going to sit there, unchanging, for millions of years while the layers of sediment slowly accumulate around it? (The error, of course, is that layers are sometimes laid down very quickly. For example, land can subside during an earthquake. When that land is next to the ocean, many feet of sand can be deposited within hours.)

Embryology errors

The professor tries again and says that human embryos have gills, which proves that they evolved from fish. The student points out that Haeckel’s embryos are discredited. (Haeckel made a mistake—get over it.)

But here’s something I don’t get. I realize that Haeckel’s “ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” has been discarded, but why do human embryos have gill-like features and then repurpose them? Why do they get a tail but then reabsorb it? Isn’t repurposing rather than building something in its final form clues to our earlier ancestors? Point me to something on this if you can.

Vestigiality?

The professor points to the human tail bone and the pelvis in some whales as vestigial structures. Mr. Smart Ass replies that both bones are useful because they anchor muscles and so aren’t vestigial. (Wrong again. “Vestigial” refers to something no longer used for its ancestral function. Wings on an ostrich are vestigial, not because they’re useless [they’re not] but because they aren’t used for flying. Similarly, the whale’s pelvis isn’t used for providing support for legs, which is what pelvises do.)

The student says, “Even if there were ‘vestigial’ organs, isn’t losing something the opposite of evolution?” (Dude—read a textbook on evolution! Animals evolve by becoming better suited to their environment. We might call that a loss [loss of eyesight in a cave fish or loss of walking for a sea mammal] but that perspective is pointless. By being selected by evolution, these animals have become fitter.)

And we have a winner!

After a bizarre turn where the student rejects the idea of gluons, our bedraggled atheist hero is ready to hear from the Bible. A beaten man at the end, he takes his ape portrait and resigns. The Christian victor wraps it up for his fellow students: evolution is a lie and Jesus saves.

Back in the real world

This is embarrassingly bad science. Creationists, study up on evolution before you try to attack it.

Believers, think about all the things you would do if you were God.
Then contemplate the fact that you worship a God who hasn’t.
— Tiger C. Lewis (paraphrased)

Photo credit: Chick Publications

What Does the New Testament Say about Homosexuality?

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new testament bible homosexuality same-sex marriageThere are two primary places in the New Testament where homosexuality is a condemned practice.

Source #1: First Corinthians

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God (1 Cor. 6:9–10).

The early Christians built their religion on Scripture—what we call the Old Testament. As I noted in the last post on this subject, Leviticus categorizes homosexuality as a ritual abomination—that is, something that’s bad by definition, not by its nature. Leviticus puts gay sex in the same category as eating a ham sandwich or sowing a field with two different crops.

Christians have rejected all of the Old Testament’s ritual abominations (animal sacrifices, kosher laws, and so on), and they can’t now come back to retrieve a few that they’re nostalgic for.

And it’s not even clear what Paul was referring to. The word translated “men who have sex with men” is the Greek word arsenokoitai, and it’s not certain what it means. Different Bible versions have translate it differently. One source notes:

“Arsenokoitai” is a Greek word that appears to have been created by Paul when he was writing 1 Corinthians 6:9-10. No record remains of any writer having using the term before Paul.

The word is a hapax legomenon, a word used so infrequently that its meaning is unclear. (Another example is the Hebrew reem, guessed to mean “unicorn” in the King James Bible but in later versions as “ox.”)

Source #2: First Timothy

We also know that the law is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious, for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for the sexually immoral, for those practicing homosexuality, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine (1 Tim. 1:9–10).

Here again, ritual abominations like homosexuality are mixed in this list with actual crimes such as murder.

As an aside, it may be worth wondering who wrote this book. Though its first line says that it’s from Paul, this book is widely considered to be pseudepigraphical (that is, written by someone claiming to be an important figure). So we have a book of unknown authorship with a wide range of possible dates of authorship. It’s part of the canon, but not much of an authority.

But that’s not all these books say …

If we’re to find moral advice in these two books, let’s look at a few other things they say.

Women should remain silent in the churches. They are not allowed to speak, but must be in submission, as the law says. If they want to inquire about something, they should ask their own husbands at home; for it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in the church (1 Cor. 14:34–5).

For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man (1 Cor. 11:8–9).

A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. For Adam was formed first, then Eve. And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner (1 Tim. 2:11–14).

(Yeah, it’s about time we got some old-fashioned Bible values back in society! Let’s correct society’s lax approach toward women.)

Note 1 Timothy’s reference to Genesis. The Garden of Eden story makes clear to this author that women are inferior to men. That doesn’t put Genesis in a good light. But Genesis is where many Christians go for their definition of marriage: “a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh” (Gen. 2:24). (That they skip over all the places where God has no problem with polygamy reveals the agenda.)

Let me suggest another source of advice. Romans 14 recommends that we be flexible about others’ ways. If someone has more or fewer restriction about what he eats, for example, just let it slide. As Ambrose noted, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Maybe Christians can apply this laissez-faire thinking to homosexuality as well.

Sympathy for homosexuals?

I’ve heard some Christians say that we should treat homosexuals with sympathy. This sounds like giving sympathy to those pathetic individuals cursed with left-handedness in society.

The Catholic Church held for over a thousand years that being left handed made you a servant of the Devil and that anything left-handed was evil. (Source)

Sympathy might have been the best response in a world that saw lefties as evil or demon possessed, but society has gone beyond that. Left-handedness is irrelevant. No one cares. We don’t give sympathy because none is necessary. Shouldn’t that be the goal with homosexuals, another of society’s minorities?

While I know this sympathy is meant as a generous sentiment, it doesn’t come across that way. “Hate the sin; love the sinner” may be as distasteful for the homosexual as “I love you, but you’re going to hell” aimed at the atheist. In either situation, being told that you deserve an eternity of torture in hell for living your life in a way that is honest to who you are and that hurts no one else is simply offensive.

Pointless rules

Remember the parable of the Good Samaritan? The Pharisee and the Levite in the story were ritually clean as they walked past the beaten man lying in the dirt. They avoided him because touching blood or a dead person caused ritual uncleanness. But the Torah didn’t forbid touching such things; it simply stated that you were ritually unclean after doing so and had to cleanse yourself. No, the moral of the story isn’t to help people in need. According to the Secret Diary of Steve Jobs, “Jesus, your big hero, was saying that if you have some rule or conventional wisdom that causes you to do harm to people, violate the goddamn rule.”

Jesus broke lots of rules—going postal on the money changers, harvesting grain and healing on the Sabbath. Remember “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath”? The prohibition against homosexuality is another that the Christian needs to break.

You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image
when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.
— Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

(This is an update of a post that originally appeared 3/16/12.)