reinterpreting the bibles view of homosexuality

But yeah, back to the point, there's not really a strong case to be made as to its biblical morality, but the bible also doesn't tell you not to take a taser to your genitals, but that doesn't mean you should do it...

Sorry, didn't see this before I made the last post. Like I said, whether it be healthy or not, I'm siding with the liberals, despite being a conservative myself, on the gay issue, at least to a certain extent. Persecuting someone for their personal life is plain wrong, and I can agree with that. Also, I never stated that homosexuals were all universally AIDS infected, schizophrenic substance abusers. Just saying that there is a higher prevalence of those things among gays than any other demographic. Dude, I'm totally cool with you being gay, and I'm glad you've found fulfillment in your life. I'm just merely saying that we shouldn't ignore the statistics, and that's all I've ever claimed from the beginning. Just that we should tell the religious fundies and liberal activists to stay out of it, just for once, so that we can look at the whole thing objectively.

Not cool about your uncle. What Methodist church does he belong to? United Methodists, while not appointing gay ministers, are at least tolerant and often pro-gay, depending on the congregation. He must belong to some fundamentalist branch...

He's with the Elim Church and is pretty fundamental. His side of the family don't invite me or my partner to their family events because I'm gay (he apparently "loves me but not my sin") so I couldn't go to my cousins' weddings. Still, if he wants to be that way, that's fine by me.

Out of interest, what was the point of you mentioning statistically higher rates of "unhealthy behaviour". What did you intend to do about it, or suggest should happen as a result?

As for The Bible's Views on [Lots of Things]:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/29/my-take-the-3-biggest-biblical-misconceptions/

My Take: The 3 biggest biblical misconceptions



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I mentioned in an earlier post that I don't know what should be done. Certainly not criminalize homosexuality or anything, if that's what you were thinking. Really, I don't know. Just saying, it kind of seems like a bad problem to ignore is all I was saying.

I assumed you were from the USA when you mentioned you had a Methodist uncle who had that much of a problem with you. Just sounded American.

Unfortunately, Methodist intolerance seems to be universal...

Taking the viewpoint that something is "unhealthy" usually results in action being taken about that. If that sort of opinion has nothing to back it up other than a few statistics (which, as many of us have said, tell different stories depending on the report), there is a danger of leading into discriminatory behaviour. That's why you get genocide and mass murder occurring as a result of people's prejudices - someone doesn't think a particular group is "normal and healthy" and feels the need to do something extreme about it. I'm not saying that you would do that but for some people it's an alarmingly short distance from your conclusions to that kind of action.

Agreed! Case in point: Darwinism and Social Darwinism

Gotta disagree with the part about Methodist intolerance. Methodists are some of the most tolerant Christians, generally speaking. Your uncle's denomination is an idiosycracy. I'm sure some sickos would take my opinion and use it to justify God knows what, but that doesn't make it less valid. Your uncle and I read the same Bible, but obviously draw very different conclusions. Just because some deranged people would do something bad doesn't lessen the validity of my opinion, though I completely understand where you are coming from.

Mind you, that's just your opinion. A statement that something is "unhealthy" needs to be backed up by relevant and reliable statistics if it is to be accepted as fact. As we have proved, this is not that case. So your statement remains just your opinion. I happen to have a different opinion. neither can be taken as a statement of absolute truth but instead as a statement of our personal interpretation of what we perceive as truth.

And on the subject of Methodism, a quick glance at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homosexuality_and_Methodism shows that there's still a lot of intolerance towards homosexuality in that particular branch of Christianity. Some Methodists are tolerant, some are not. The same is true of many different faiths and sects throughout the world. So I revise my statement to just "intolerance is almost universal".

http://www.cdc.gov/nchhstp/newsroom/docs/fastfacts-msm-final508comp.pdf

http://www.narth.com/docs/whitehead.html

These are two that I knew of off the top of my head. There are a ton more and I will try to make a definitive list (God knows I'll need it, as I keep getting into this argument). When searching, you have to sift through all the sites put up by religious trolls, so it takes a while.