[Aluscia]

Gamb, I will sum my feelings up simply: If God did not make me exactly as I am, homosexuality and all, then I will go to hell because he is not the God I believe in. While I understand your feelings (I've had to listen to my mother's Christian radio shows from the States talking about converting gays from lives of "sin", and being told "I'm glad no one in our family is sick like [the gays]."), I don't share them (obviously). To be lumped in with adulterers as a similar sexual sin is... wrong. Adultery is in the 10 commandments (along with thievery, murder, and a whole bunch of other big list criminalities), while Homosexuality shows up in the same chapter that includes not planting more than one crop in one field (goodbye engineered crops), Not wearing clothing of two different types of material (goodbye cotton blends), and taking slaves of only other nations (goodbye emancipation proclamation). I firmly believe all of these laws were created to save the tribes of Israel from themselves, moving them away from things with dangerous outcomes *or* things that would reduce the number of functioning members in society. So why, given what you said about these laws being in place until the end of this world, do we mix crops and materials? Why do eat non-kosher foods, and do all sorts of things that would make us "unclean" and then go to church? Because we find those laws no longer apply, because they're less important. They're inconvenient. And yet, why should any other law be less important? Is it our place to decide which laws to break and which to follow? That said, I don't really mind that you're against homosexuality. I just don't understand the biblical argument because it just doesn't add up. Even if you use the easiest story from the Bible (Sodom & Gomorrah), the sins for which the cities were destroyed was not predominant homosexuality: It was rape, and thievery, and the fact that they accosted an angel of God sent to determine the cities' legitimacy. If anything, that story was only included to explain why Lot's daughters had to commit incest.

As far as what I said about the 'antiquity' of the bible, you got the right impression. It is outdated for exactly the reasons I listed above.