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Loving your fellow man does not mean that one approves of prohibited behavior. The OP and his supporters clearly point out that Eric Liddell is a devout Presbyterian (I think, though he might be Anglican). Both of those churches held that homosexual activity was a sin. The Bible may possibly be interpreted otherwise, but there is strong evidence within both Old and New Testaments that it does expressly prohibit gay sex. Even many openly gay Christians admit that they know having gay sex is against the Bible's teaching and pray for strength in resisting the urge as well as for forgiveness.

Personally, I am a free thinker. I renounce religion because no religious claim can be tested by scientific means. I am convinced that there are two paths to truth, revealed truth or religion and observed truth or empiricism. The former changes there claims arbitrarily while the latter has grown over more than two millennia ever more accurate and precise. The former has impeded human progress while the latter has enable us to live longer, safer, and healthier lives.

I will always defend the superstitious among us in their right to believe as they choose. We have not problems as long as they refrain from judging me against the Bible rather than by the law.


The best diplomat I know is a fully charged phaser bank.

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When did Jesus ever say anything against gay sex, much less condemn it? He never even MENTIONED it -- which tells us how important he thought it was. (All while he spent his days with other men he was always embracing and kissing, like my gay friends do.) BUT he says a whole LOT to condemn divorce and adultery. Funny how many "Christians" just sidestep all that.

Ignorant and hateful people just put words into his mouth, pretending it's their excuse for what they think themselves. He'd be disgusted with them.

that the Bible explicitly condemns

This again? Oh, please... The Bible also "explicitly condemns" a whole lot of other things that nearly everyone does today. People keep pointing to Leviticus 20:13, which they believe, while they close their eyes and blithely ignore Lev.20:10 that says all adulterers should be put to death, and Lev. 20:9 that says that children who curse their parents should be killed too. Does anyone believe that people who work on the sabbath should be stoned to death? If we followed the Bible, there wouldn't be many people left alive -- and we'd be up to our armpits in all their corpses.

You don't get to treat the Bible like a bloody buffet table, taking snippets here and there that you happen to agree with, while ignoring all the rest of the silly nonsense it says.

he would not have approved of the lifestyle

You mean you assume he'd be an ignorant bigot like you are? Didn't he say love your fellow MAN?

("Lifestyle"? Any time anyone calls it that, it's just a code word for homophobic twit. It never fails.)

Any time I see someone use the term "homophobia", I know he's just another brick-headed social justice warrior who doesn't have an argument.

Saying that Jesus never said anything about homosexuality and so it must be OK is an argument from silence. The Law of Moses is crystal clear in its condemnation of homosexuality, and it wasn't a point of dispute among religious leaders of the day, so why would Jesus have addressed it? You also need to be careful about viewing the practices of another culture through the lens of your own culture. Even Middle Eastern men today greet each other with a kiss without it having any sexual overtones. To assume that everybody else in the world lives according to your Western ideals is classic bigotry.

Whether or not Christians are consistent with which parts of the Bible they adhere to doesn't change what the Bible actually says, although you might be surprised that I agree with you that the modern church is far too cavalier about divorce.

As for the Leviticus passages, this is another favorite refuge of the ignorant who don't understand the Bible. You're confusing how the Bible categorizes certain acts with how we should deal with them. Adultery and cursing one's parents is still a sin even if a different punishment is proscribed for those acts today. During the Old Testament, the nation of Israel was living under the Law in which immediate punishment was meted out with the most grave offenses receiving a death sentence. However, because the death and resurrection of Jesus fulfilled the purpose of the law, we are now living under grace in which we are afforded the opportunity to repent of our sins before God.

And, yes, we are called on to love one another, but the Bible is not talking about romantic love (this is another favorite stupid skeptic trick, to read the Bible as if it was written in your own culture in your own language). The word used in that context is the Greek word agape which means to seek the highest good, and in that sense, I can't think of anything more loving than to tell someone that they're living in sin and need to repent.

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