SecretMethod70

Well, I made no effort to hide the fact I haven't bothered to read most of the links you provided, due to their nature. (The quote, "decent, scholarly, and well-received doesn't exist anywhere in this thread btw. The only thing I've said which comes close is me asking, in the previous post, for a "decent, scholarly, and secular" resource, not me describing anything you've provided in such a manner.) As I pointed out earlier, the burden of proof is on you. If you're trying to convince someone of something, it goes a very long way to make an attempt to provide the least biased resources which you can. I've been mentioning this for awhile, so I'm not sure why it was so difficult until now to make an attempt to provide resources which don't have the significant bias I've been mentioning. In an ideal world, we'd all read everything you link to, and check out the works cited too in an effort to dispel any apparent bias, but the reality is people just generally don't have the time for that. Changing my mind regarding homosexuality and the bible is pretty low on my things-to-do list. So, instead, I have to be picky about what I do and do not read, and when I open a page that is clearly written to advance the evangelical perspective, for example, I already know what I'll be getting, and I also know they likely did not make any good faith effort to consider sources contrary to their own beliefs.

Which, of course, brings me to a fact which is obvious to us all, and which I tried to touch upon in my previous post. While I am willing to put far more weight on the opinions of the three authors you initially mentioned in the above post, there are equally respectable authors with opposing opinions. I'm glad to see the sites you linked to utilized sources which are not totally unreasonable. Of course, I wouldn't expect them to use any equally reasonable sources which oppose their viewpoint any more than I would expect a pro-homosexuality site to use the sources you mention alongside the ones which support theirs.

I could do the same thing, going through the sources utilized by the biased sites which I mentioned, looking for all the ones which are relatively scholarly. Both sites are bound to make use of some scholarly resources, and both are bound to ignore the points of the other. This is why this whole discussion is pointless, as I've been wasting my time trying to point out: there is no way, whatsoever, that you're going to convince Gilda, myself, or the majority of people here of your viewpoint, regardless of whether or not your sources are based on any reasonable scholarship, because we can just as easily point to scholarly sources which say otherwise. Likewise, I've also been saying I don't see the point in this discussion because I know that regardless of whatever scholarly sources Gilda or I provide, you will find one which disagrees and choose to believe that one over ours.

As a perfect example, I've actually already read a couple of the sources you mentioned after your edit.* I've chosen to accept the arguments of the scholars who disagree with them.

I apparently did not emphasize this point enough:That last point was the original intent of this thread: It was going quite well until it degenerated into citing bible passages as if they are absolutely clear on the subject and as if there is no room for debate. You'll notice the tone changed dramatically somewhere around early October. The rest of us are not without fault of course: we should have simply ignored the change and continued having the friendly discourse which was already occuring. Instead, we bit the bait.

The fact is, there is scholarship on both sides of the debate. This is a point I've been trying to make not so much to convince anyone of one opinion over the other, but to demonstrate that the issue is not clear-cut like you say it is.

Faced with the fact there are scholarly sources on both sides of the issue, we are left with needing to use some other method to decide what is right, spiritually speaking. I've made this point before: while I find the debate over the intent of the biblical authors interesting, I don't find it particularly crucial to deciding what is spiritually appropriate for Christians today (or any other religion for that matter). Such knowledge is a guide, but not an answer.

Common sense brought by a different understanding of the nature of existence is of primary importance to deciding such matters. Setting aside the scientific advances in understanding the nature of homosexuality, there is a more modern understanding of the importance of individual dignity to consider. Not to mention the recognition that many things which we once thought were of vital importance are really pretty irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Similar realities exist in other areas of spirituality. Christian teaching in the bible focuses on charity, and rightfully so, but it is not very vocal at all about addressing the root causes of poverty. The teachings were written at a time when poverty was considered part of the natural order. Now, we recognize the impermanence of structures and realize that we can address the structural causes of poverty in an effort to do more beyond just charity. Charity is important to focus on the here-and-now, other work is important in attempting to change the future of poverty in our world.

Thus, I come to the opinion which I've already stated before in this thread. Perhaps the writings of the bible intend to condemn homosexuality - perhaps they don't (an opinion which I tend to believe) - but regardless of their intention, it is the overarching themes of the biblical narrative which are important, not the minutiae of the passages. That message of love, compassion, and charity, combined with the modern worldview, in my opinion, makes it quite clear that our focus should be on more important things than debating whether or not homosexual persons can marry. In fact, it should be on making sure that such persons are granted the dignity deserved by all people and allowed to declare their love for one another when they so choose, regardless of our own opinions regarding how they live their life.



*Off-topic, but I'd encourage anyone who has access to journal databases to take full advantage of the great resource that they are. I'm not looking forward to the day I can no longer access EBSCOHost or JSTOR from the comfort of my own computer!

EDIT:
Zyr hit the nail on the head.

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