Thursday, December 13, 2012

Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve


I saw a flow chart posted by an old friend yesterday.  It starts at the top with "So you still think homosexuality is sinful?  And therefore Gay shouldn't be allowed to marry?"  The graphic goes outlines why the author thinks it is not sinful based on disputing claims people make about what the Bible says.

The graphic goes from their initial statement to a yes or no.  If you choose know they give you a "congratulations on being part of civilized society!"  The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender movement is an example of civilized society.  LGBT is about gathering together as many deviant lifestyles together to gain power.  This was confirmed this morning as I Googled to try to remember the acronym and found that it is being expanded to LGBTQIA to include "Questioning, Intersex, and Asexual".

If you choose to go down the yes side of the initial statement you come to "WHY?"

One of the options under there is "God made Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve!"  Their answer to this is "The earth wasn't populated.  There are now 6.79 billion people.  Breeding clearly isn't an issue any more!"

First of all the earth can sustain another 6.79 billion people, God made it to sustain people.  The problem is that people don't use the resources intelligently or responsibly.  They pack themselves into large cities and let the refuse pile up there.  There are plenty of places for people to live and plenty of places to grow food.

Secondly, pairing a man and a woman wasn't simply a procreation issue.  It was also because men and women are very different.  When they become a family they complete each other.  Yes Adam and Steve have their differences and can grow by overcoming them, but it is very different than the struggles and compliments that the two genders bring together.

As I stated, the author states that the need for Adam and Eve was a temporary situation due to procreation.  They then condemn plural marriage, polygamy, or whatever you want to call it, that is mentioned in the Bible.

I would argue that Adam and Eve were not a temporary necessity, but that plural marriage was.  I believe that God opened that up to a few people for a short period of time or a few different occasions.

Plural marriage allowed for an isolated people to grow in numbers quickly.  This provided security for them in having a work force and an army if it became necessary to defend itself from animals or hostile humans.

I saw someone else post a response to all the points in the graphic that I thought was quite good, so I will repost it here:

Begin quoted material
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1. Jesus said: Mark 10:6-9 "But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."
This is Jesus describing what a man does when he gets married and why. Only a man and a woman does God make one flesh. This is what marriage is.

2. OT: Deuteronomy 4:44 "And this is the law which Moses set before the children of Israel"
The OT says the law was not for everyone, but only for the children of Israel.
Act 15:19-20 "Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them, which from among the Gentiles are turned to God: But that we write unto them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, and fornication, and things strangled, and blood."
I.e. for the non-Jew that turns to God the only OT laws to retain include sexual sin, listed in Leviticus 20.

3. NT: Romans 1:27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet."
Not a word about prostitution or promiscuity only, in that.

4. God made Adam and Eve: is still true.

5. The Bible does not clearly define marriage as one-man, one-woman. It defines marriage as between a man and ideally one woman.
Exodus 21:10 "If he take him another [wife]; her food, her raiment, and her duty of marriage, shall he not diminish."

But the entire starting premise is wrong. It is not that homosexuality is sinful and therefore excluded from marriage. It is that marriage is a man and a woman becoming one flesh by God. Just as Oxygen and Hydrogen become water, while O2 or H2 remain gas. Even if you redefine H2 or O2 as water, it is still a gas. You only lose the meaning of the word water.
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End of quoted material




Born That Way
I hear many using the argument that homosexuality is ok because they were born that way and it is part of who they are.  They site the example of being born blind.

Doesn't a person born with poor eyesight get glasses?  Don't the blind hope that someone develops a cure for blindness?  They do what they can to live with the condition that is holding them back, but they also attempt to find way to make it not so.