Help debating a homophobic simpleton

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Dread Not
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Help debating a homophobic simpleton

Post by Dread Not »

So I'm currently debating a clueless Christian fundie idiot on the subject of homosexuality. She has made the bullshit claim that Christians who are accepting of homosexuality are not Christians. I already predicted that she would pull a No true Scotsman fallacy, but that certainly didn't stop the little pinhead.

Any suggestions on how to best respond to this would be greatly appreciated. While I'm happy to hear any suggestions probably the most obvious tactic is to point out other nonsense in the Bible that she most likely doesn't believe. This could be difficult since she's demonstrating colossal ignorance about the real world. For example, she believes that all animals were herbivorous before original sin.

She will likely dismiss anything from the Old Testament, though I plan on mentioning Jesus fully supporting Old Testament law. I know of lots of verses I can potentially use concerning slavery, the status of women etc. but I'd really like the juiciest stuff anyone can think of that will be hardest to handwave away. Many thanks.
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Mr Bean
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Re: Help debating a homophobic simpleton

Post by Mr Bean »

Point out Jesus never says anything about Homosexuality and that twelve guys living by themselves in the wilderness and forsaking all women is something all strait men do. Also point out that the only place you can find most of the anti-homosexual language is the old testament. You have to look far and wide in the New Testament to find references Condeming homosexuality but even there Luke mentions gay couples still getting raptured (But only the virtuous ones).

So New testament you have mentions of homosexuality is a bad thing and will keep you out of heaven but there is no punishment mentioned, but adultery is mentioned far more often and yet churches could care less about oppressing adulterers and hate homosexuals.

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Dread Not
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Re: Help debating a homophobic simpleton

Post by Dread Not »

Sorry, I should have mentioned that she's already brought up men abandoning the "natural role of the woman" in Romans and descending into wickedness. Paul saying it is evidently good enough for her. This has lead to all sorts of idiocy since neither she nor Paul has the slightest understanding of nature or what natural actually means. She's been continuously dismissing the examples of homosexuality in other animals as "unnatural" due to being caused by original sin. :roll: My brain is starting to hurt.

She likely puts adultery on a similar or considerably worse level to homosexuality regardless of what the churches emphasize, so I doubt your line of reasoning will work. She's a "hate the sin, love the sinner" type.
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Mr Bean
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Re: Help debating a homophobic simpleton

Post by Mr Bean »

Ask to explain how exactly Antarctic Penguins well know for being the animal kingdom version of Caligula as they engage in homosexuality, necrophilia, child murder and molestation and polygamy could be allowed by God given that he must permit this sort of thing to exist unless she wants to argue that the fucked up lives of Penguins is Satan's fault and if so what exactly the Prince of Lies hopes to gain out of making Penguins such perverts.

If she tries to change the subject or fobs you off with bullshit then offer to have her flown to the South Pole so she may preach the gospel at the heathen Penguins, you'll pay for her ticket, a few spare bibles to hand out to them and a nice coat and a audiobook copy on how to make a igloo.

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Dread Not
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Re: Help debating a homophobic simpleton

Post by Dread Not »

Mr Bean wrote:Ask to explain how exactly Antarctic Penguins well know for being the animal kingdom version of Caligula as they engage in homosexuality, necrophilia, child murder and molestation and polygamy could be allowed by God given that he must permit this sort of thing to exist unless she wants to argue that the fucked up lives of Penguins is Satan's fault and if so what exactly the Prince of Lies hopes to gain out of making Penguins such perverts.

If she tries to change the subject or fobs you off with bullshit then offer to have her flown to the South Pole so she may preach the gospel at the heathen Penguins, you'll pay for her ticket, a few spare bibles to hand out to them and a nice coat and a audiobook copy on how to make a igloo.
She would argue that such animal behavior is due to original sin corrupting the world, hence why she won't accept homosexual animal behavior as evidence of it being a natural occurrence. Of course the point she fails to grasp is that natural means "not human made." It seems anything about the real world that doesn't conform to her creation myth = original sin/Satan/some combination therein.

From what I can tell she's an incredibly naive (and sexually confused) teenager that has learned very little about the world outside of church teachings. Most of her arguments are dead easy to tear through. What I really need is just what I said: Absurdities or injustices etc. in the New Testament that any person in civilized society is unlikely to believe in. Some I'm considering so far are:

1 Peter 2:18 "Servants, be subject to your masters with all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also to the froward."

1 Corinthians 11:14-15 "Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering."

1 Timothy 2:9 "Women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array."

I'm just rusty on my Bible study, so I want to ensure I'm not misinterpreting any passages or using damning verses that can be easily weaseled out of.
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madd0ct0r
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Re: Help debating a homophobic simpleton

Post by madd0ct0r »

vegetarians are unbelievers?

Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils ... commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth. -- 1 Timothy 4:1-3
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Alyrium Denryle
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Re: Help debating a homophobic simpleton

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Sorry, I should have mentioned that she's already brought up men abandoning the "natural role of the woman" in Romans and descending into wickedness. Paul saying it is evidently good enough for her
Unnatural FOR THEM. Tell her to actually read the surrounding text. God made them have a bisexual orgy against their will, because he pissed them off.

As for the rest...

Romans 1:26-27: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 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 [sic] of their error which was meet.”

God… raped them by proxy. This is not a prohibition against homosexuality. It is God deliberately twisting the minds of human beings in violation of free will in order to punish them. There is no way around this. This also backs up my above interpretation of Leviticus

I Corinthians 6:9-10
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

This is massively massively mistranslated. First off, effeminate in the original greek does not mean what we would consider effeminate in english. The original word is malakoi, which is a sort of “softness” characterized by lack of pain tolerance, cowardice, and hedonism. The greeks hated women, and so did their language. All negative traits were associated with effeminacy. The second word is Arsenkoites, which did not exist in ancient or attic greek. Paul made it up. You can dissect the root words and it literally translates to "man-bedders" but this was probably an idiom. Why? Because the greeks had a lot of different words for homosexual. This one does not become anything even remotely resembling homosexual until the 15th century when John Wycliff called it the Synn of Sodom in Late Middle English. Earlier 5th century latin vulgate translations translate it to masculorum concubitore, which means Male Concubine. If you take that--a somewhat more direct translation from ancient hebrew--as a basis, and notice that the same word is used in Leviticus in greek, you realize that the bible condemns those who keep male concubines. To take someone into your bed, as far as I can tell from greek and latin is more closely tied to taking someone into The Bed, the marriage bed. So while female concubines were acceptable, male concubines were not.
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Alyrium Denryle
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Re: Help debating a homophobic simpleton

Post by Alyrium Denryle »

Sorry, I should have mentioned that she's already brought up men abandoning the "natural role of the woman" in Romans and descending into wickedness. Paul saying it is evidently good enough for her
Unnatural FOR THEM. Tell her to actually read the surrounding text. God made them have a bisexual orgy against their will, because he pissed them off.

As for the rest...

Romans 1:26-27: “For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 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 [sic] of their error which was meet.”

God… raped them by proxy. This is not a prohibition against homosexuality. It is God deliberately twisting the minds of human beings in violation of free will in order to punish them. There is no way around this.

I Corinthians 6:9-10
“Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”

This is massively massively mistranslated. First off, effeminate in the original greek does not mean what we would consider effeminate in english. The original word is malakoi, which is a sort of “softness” characterized by lack of pain tolerance, cowardice, and hedonism. The greeks hated women, and so did their language. All negative traits were associated with effeminacy. The second word is Arsenkoites, which did not exist in ancient or attic greek. Paul made it up. You can dissect the root words and it literally translates to "man-bedders" but this was probably an idiom. Why? Because the greeks had a lot of different words for homosexual. This one does not become anything even remotely resembling homosexual until the 15th century when John Wycliff called it the Synn of Sodom in Late Middle English. Earlier 5th century latin vulgate translations translate it to masculorum concubitore, which means Male Concubine. If you take that--a somewhat more direct translation from ancient hebrew--as a basis, and notice that the same word is used in Leviticus in greek, you realize that the bible condemns those who keep male concubines. To take someone into your bed, as far as I can tell from greek and latin is more closely tied to taking someone into The Bed, the marriage bed. So while female concubines were acceptable, male concubines were not.
GALE Force Biological Agent/
BOTM/Great Dolphin Conspiracy/
Entomology and Evolutionary Biology Subdirector:SD.net Dept. of Biological Sciences


There is Grandeur in the View of Life; it fills me with a Deep Wonder, and Intense Cynicism.

Factio republicanum delenda est
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