u/Natural_Dust_732

Whoah, but this hits so differently reading it at fifty nine than it did at nine.

When I read it as a child, it was a great military action, which I modeled and remodeled in my play. One day, my uncle and I made an entire sand nation at the beach and then destroyed it “Siege of Gondor” style. Of course, the food guys won. The good guys always win.

Now, I realize it’s not a military scene at all. The defence of Gondor is a bloody rout. Faramir is left for dead, the men take 33% losses. Cair Andros falls. Rohan has not come. The southern provinces have not sent enough aid. The siege works go in like clockwork and the lower ring of the city is quickly set ablaze. Dol Amroth and Gandalf are the only sparks of hope, but they can’t be everywhere at once. The Lord of the Nazgul expects Gandalf and fully thinks he can best him, or at least drive him back to Valinor, as the Balrog did. The Dark now knows he’s far from unbeatable.

It’s a tidal wave of despair. Every plan has come to nought and even Gandalf is swearing bullets, thinking the Darl may indeed have captured The Ring.

Denethor has seem ALL of this and Sauron has shown him, probably, Bilbo’s mithril shirt. Denethor isn’t mad: he KNOWS a sexond great dark is coming.

And then a cock crows and Rohan rides out of the north.

The figure of Denethor really speaks to me now, as I look at how everything is failing and authoritarianism is advancing everywhere. I, too, want to just turn away and wait for the end. Nine year old me would have never conceived of this. I now have much, much more sympathy for Denethor: I understand what he’s going through. He’s played every card, even spent his son’s, and it didn’t delay the Dark Lord for a second. Plus, he “knows” there’s no hope.

Listening to the Candace Owens episode, I’m struck by how here voice changes. When she’s talking about herself and aura farming, she’s got a normal woman’s voice. When she starts bullshitting about something she doesn’t understand (and perhaps know she’s caught out — see the bit on Charlie Kirk and CPR) she suddenly starts woth the vocal fry. Could this be a tell for Candace?

Given all the circular logic employed by some Christians posting here (“homosexuality is a sin because god says it is because homosexuality is a sin”), and these self-same Christians’ patent inability to point out how or why homosexuality harms (aside from the above-cited circular logic), let’s go to the stoic philosopher, Marcus Aurelius. After all, stoicism heavily impacted upon early Christian morality:

If there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve thee in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, what is it to me to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of Providence? But in truth they do exist, and they do care for human things, and they have put all the means in man's power to enable him not to fall into real evils. And as to the rest, if there was anything evil, they would have provided for this also, that it should be altogether in a man's power not to fall into it. Now that which does not make a man worse, how can it make a man's life worse?

Now, some of you might argue that, wrt homosexuality, god has put a means in man’s power to avoid it. I would argue that the constant sexual scandals that have rocked every branch of Christianity, without end, for two thousand years now, clearly shows that chastity IS NOT in most people’s power. As Jesus himself pointed out in his comments on eunuchs (and even Paul admitted), this is not a natural state for human beings and should not be treated as such.

One could argue that faithfulness to one spouse is also not a natural state. Hebrew culture would have agreed with you for thousands of years, at least wrt to men. However, most married people DO seem to find faithfulness within reach, at least in the large majority of times. Aside from the mentally ill and compulsive, one doesn’t “burn” to betray oneself. Most people do, indeed, burn for sexual contact.

I have never met someone who was successfully able to “pray away the gay”. I HAVE met many unhappy and unfaithful gay Christians who marry a member of the opposite sex and then cause even more harm, believing that they can pray away the gay. So the argument that god did give us means in our power to pray away sexual desire simply doesn’t wash with me.

No, what I am interested in discussing here — and which every homophobic Christian has studiously avoided discussing, throughout my life — are the two bits in negrito. Let’s begin with the second.

Homosexuality does not make a man worse. After 50 years of struggle, all but the most bigoted and hidebound Christians admit this. No one who is not a lunatic is seriously advocating for the recriminalization of homosexuality. Given this, what harm does homosexuality do to one’s life. Notone’s afterlife, mind: we’ll get to that next.

Now, if it is “no harm at all” — as most Christians seem willing to concede, then why would god care? The first bit in negrito is generally glossed as “if the god is just, don’t worry as he will judge you justly. If he is not, we live in an arbitrary universe and there is nothing you can do to ensure you are properly judged”.

If homosexuality does no harm to one’s life, why would a just and good god send loving, faithful couples to hell for it?

Avoiding a real and sincere answer to this question is what has exposed Christianity as hypocritical and even stupid in many people’s eyes. Resolving this with the same old circular logic — “because god said so” — is a dodge so transparent even a six year old can see through it, let alone a reasonably intelligent adult.

If your faith is thus based on the notion that homosexuality is a sin, it thus becomes incumbent upon you to answer the questions posed by Marcus Aurelius: what harm does it do to a person’s life and, if it does no harm, why would a just and good god send otherwise good people to hell because of it?

This question becomes all the more pressing when the entire world can see that your conservative Christian leaders, pundits, and politicians have huge difficulties even being faithful to their wives, let alone celibate. Your hierophants are literally wearing no clothes, so dogma and the authority of the church cannot help you here — again, given a reasonably intelligent interlocutor.

So again, the question:

“What harm does homosexuality do to a person’s life and, if it does no harm, why would a just and good god send good people to hell because of it?

I can see three ways to weasel out of this question:

1. Old school affirmation that homosexuality DOES cause harm to a person’s life;
2. The ol’ circular logic tango (“god says it’s bad because god says it’s bad”);
3. God is neither just nor particularly good and only woke people believe otherwise.

I’m curious, however, if anyone has anything new to say.

This should be interesting.

Once again, I am just trying to take the temperature of contemporary Christianity to see if any arguments have changed in the last forty years. I’ll give my answer as an edit and, probably, in the comments below.

As expected, it’s an answer that is simple, obvious, and guaranteed to drive modern Pharisees and Sadducees to distraction. ;)

Feel free to be creative in your responses. Snakehandlers, agnostics and bush Christians, this is your moment to shine!

Edit after 12 hours: a couple of people gave the same answer I uphold. God is both male and female, but prefers to use he/him pronouns.

Let me clear away some underbrush here, because the conversations on this sub make it very clear that many Christians can’t think clearly about the bible.

First of all, the bible was not written in English.

Second, homosexuality refers to sexual practices with people of the same sex. Half of homosexuals, at leadt, are women.

Third, the Old Testament and Leviticus in particular is very, very meticulous in its language. It never uses “man” to refer to “men and women”. In fact, this would be a sort of blasphemy in written Hebrew. When it means men, it says “men”. When it means women, it says “women”. When it means both, it says men and women. You can see this quite clearly throughout Leviticus 18 and even in fact, in Lev. 18:23, where it goes to some trouble to say having sexual relations with beasts is prohibited for both men and women.

None of the above is controversial and should be long settled points for any serious Christian scholars, no matter their denomination.

So given that Leviticus 18:22 specifically and only prohibits a certain kind of male-on-male sexual contact, how does this become, in your minds, a ban on all homosexuality?

And yes, I realize that Paul later railed against what might (maybe) considered lesbians. But given that the LAWS are supposedly set out in Leviticus, how do you get to claim that Lev. 18:22 SPECIFICALLY prohibits homosexuality in general?

He’s declared as such in Isaiah 45:1 for letting the Jews return to their himeland and for letting them rebuild the Temple.

Do your pastors and priests even bring this up?