The fine-tuning argument for God's existence

[Tigranes]

If God was real, why would he create homosexuals?

It is sad to see people throwing things around without any meaningful investigation of the issue. If you are really interested in truth and not just scoffing -- you ought to look deeper into the subject matter. The more you know, the more things you know you don't know about and you get more and more humbling anticipation of things you don't even know you don't know about. The more superficially one approaches to the things -- the easier it is to adopt this silly "checkmate" attitude, like we are in the business of "winning" the debate . Why bother with discussions then? Let's just laugh at each other! You are not the only one who can be "adorable", you know?

Homosexuality exists. So what? Heterosexuality also exist. Does it mean God is not real? Which logical chain brought you there?

You did not offer one, so I will do it for you. Revelation tells God is real. Revelation also says homosexuality is a sin. You think homosexuality is natural and therefore not a sin, in any meaning of that word. Which means Revelation is false, including it's main tenet that Personal Holy God is real. Please tell me, if I did your homework for you accurately?

If you concede that I did, here is preliminary, not directly related thought: there are eunuchs who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are eunuchs who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also eunuchs who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it. (Matt. 19:12).

"Born that way". Familiar theme, eh? It's not a Lady Gaga, it's Jesus, man! Let's talk about it for a moment (some people may misunderstand what "Born that way" means for eunuchs). Go back 2000 years. Hippocrates describes a particular ethnic group afflicted with high rates of erectile dysfunction as "the most eunuchoid of all nations". According to Aristotle in Generation of Animals, male or female gender is defined by the function played in procreation and consists of two elements: the faculty to procreate and the anatomical parts needed to put that faculty in practice. Any man who either lacked the faculty of procreation from birth, even with a full set of genitals, or was eventually deprived of the anatomical parts necessary for procreation met the definition of a eunuch. Hence, the term "eunuch" was applied not only to castrated men, but also to a wide range of men who were unable to procreate. The broad sense of the term "eunuch" is reflected in the compendium of ancient Roman laws collected by Justinian I in the 6th century known as the Digest or Pandects. Those texts distinguish between the general category of eunuchs (spadones, denoting "one who has no generative power, an impotent person, whether by nature or by castration") and the more specific subset of castrati (castrated males, physically incapable of procreation). In these Roman legal texts, spadones are eligible to marry women, institute posthumous heirs, and adopt children, unless they are castrati.

Having understood the preliminary Biblical passage on one aspect of such a complex subject as human sexuality (broadly defined) let's paraphrase
the passage, armed with the context of the entire Revelation, in a following way: there are homosexuals who were born that way from their mother's womb; and there are homosexuals who were made eunuchs by men; and there are also homosexuals who made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. He who is able to accept this, let him accept it.

Why go in lengths debating if homosexuality is natural and if yes it is not a sin? What is natural after all? For men to like women? Everyone who looks at a woman with lust for her has already committed adultery with her in his heart. We are all born with "natural" propensity to sin. News flash -- human nature is fallen nature. Following your logic: God created sinners, therefore He is not real! Why single out homosexuals then? They did not even make it into Ten Commandments, but cheating spouses did. So what's this preoccupation with gays?

The whole point of the Revelation is that limited man needs Unlimited God. If you think you are a "good person" by any standards defined by your own self -- pick any positive natural number describing your self assessment -- according to your own standards there are people who will "score" higher than you and "lower" than you. Now Revelation teaches you that the only number that meets standards of Holy God is infinity. People just like me and you, who heard it said, "Then who can be saved?" But Living Word of God said, "The things that are impossible with people are possible with God." Different people have different "natural", "born that way" less-than-perfect urges. Children tend to lie before they even reach puberty. Every man is born with his initial conditions and expected to grow. If you senses are limited, you try to improve them with glasses. If your reason is limited you try to improve them with education. The "true" way seem to be a way from more limited state to less limited, with infinity being the limit.

What do you do to improve your heart? You either play god by defining your own subjective moral laws, or, armed with the spirit of holiness, you develop faith. This brings you into contact with loving Unlimited Father, who teaches you, that there are material laws and there are spiritual laws. You may not agree with Law of Gravitation, but if you "naturally", miss the mark, while walking on the roof, you will fall and die. Now sin is "missing the mark" in the light of spiritual laws, one of which reads that If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. You don't have to object this if you don't even believe in God, but if you do and you claim to be "born that way" homosexual -- you realize you still have a choice between trusting God or trusting world. World teaching you -- everything that happens between two consenting adults is ok! If it feels right -- it is right! This is countered by -- really? If Eve agrees with Adolf to commit suicide together would it be "right"?

God teaches you -- I love you, I know you, I know which objective spiritual laws are likely to be your main stumbling blocks. What you got there -- wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, gluttony? Let us work on those. We have to start somewhere. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline; therefore be zealous and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne.

 

[Arakhor]

Revelation tells God is real.

What makes the visions of John of Patmos more authoritative than any other time God appears in the Bible? Moreover, what with ten-headed dragons, the Whore of Babylon, Michael and his angels, vast gem-studded city walls and whatnot, I've completely forgotten if God does indeed actually make an appearance.

 

[Borachio]

But is he referring to the Book of Revelation, or merely revelation more generally?

 

[Tigranes]

What makes the visions of John of Patmos more authoritative than any other time God appears in the Bible? Moreover, what with ten-headed dragons, the Whore of Babylon, Michael and his angels, vast gem-studded city walls and whatnot, I've completely forgotten if God does indeed actually make an appearance.

Arakhor, Revelation is used here the broadest possible sense. As a source of information.

Every piece of information available to you as human being can be boiled down to 3 different sources: your senses (empirical observation), your reason (theoretical derivation), your heart (trusting the oral or written account, while using your senses and reason).

 

[Borachio]

Well, I wouldn't have described revelation as anything to do with how you feel in you heart, myself. I'd have said it's more to do with empathy than revelation.

 

[Arakhor]

So "revelation" tells you that homosexuality is a sin. Which is it telling you that for you - your heart, your brain or your wishful thinking?

 

[El_Machinae]

They did not even make it into Ten Commandments, but cheating spouses did. So what's this preoccupation with gays?

Well, for hundreds or thousands of years, people were told that God wanted believers to murder homosexuals with a forceful application of high-velocity rocks. You keep pimping revelation, but both my senses and my reason indicate that the revelation commanded Evil on many occasions.

 

[Tigranes]

Well, for hundreds or thousands of years, people were told that God wanted believers to murder homosexuals with a forceful application of high-velocity rocks. You keep pimping revelation, but both my senses and my reason indicate that the revelation commanded Evil on many occasions.

Again, why single out gays? Rocks were in picture for heterosexual cheaters as well. When God visited his own "believers", who ended up killing Him by torture, He explained how real believers had to understand stoning. Let the person among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.

For the 21st century man, enjoying later day stages of mankind's moral evolution your objections are reasonable. But, before you elevate depraved humanity to "love your enemy" level, people have to be taught an eye for an eye, in the age when 10 eyes were claimed for an eye.

 

[Domen]

If God was real, why would he create homosexuals?

"Love your neighbor as yourself whether gay or nay" - said Jeezas.

 

[El_Machinae]

Again, why single out gays? Rocks were in picture for heterosexual cheaters as well. When God visited his own "believers", who ended up killing Him by torture, He explained how real believers had to understand stoning. Let the person among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.

For the 21st century man, enjoying later day stages of mankind's moral evolution your objections are reasonable. But, before you elevate depraved humanity to "love your enemy" level, people have to be taught an eye for an eye, in the age when 10 eyes were claimed for an eye.

How much evil will you justify? Does executing heterosexual cheaters somehow make it 'okay' to torture homosexuals to death? How many atrocities does a faith need to have in order to disbelieve they have insight into Perfect Good?

You keep quoting Jesus. He's the guy who suggested that we love and worship the god that demanded the agonizing murder of gay people? Aren't you worried you worship false gods, if the god you worship had commanded such things?

edit: it is totally counter-intuitive, given that this is a 'we believe in science' thread. There's vastly more evidence that Moses didn't exist than he did exist. The amount of evidence that the Judaic Law was 'from God' is basically zero. But, rather than pursue the idea of liberating your god from libel, you double-down. You accuse him very obvious wickedness while having basically no evidence.

 

[bhavv]

LMFAO at Tigranes wall of text response. Do my homework? Please, I've heard more than enough on all the lolstuff you wrote about, I have no desire to take yours or anyone else theological arguments into consideration anymore.

The revelation is real? The bible is the truth? How do you know? Should gay people believe in God? What about other religions? How do you know yours is the correct one and theirs are false?

Why would God create people who were predestined by his design to become sinners under his own rules?

 

[Tigranes]

How much evil will you justify? Does executing heterosexual cheaters somehow make it 'okay' to torture homosexuals to death? How many atrocities does a faith need to have in order to disbelieve they have insight into Perfect Good?

You keep quoting Jesus. He's the guy who suggested that we love and worship the god that demanded the agonizing murder of gay people? Aren't you worried you worship false gods, if the god you worship had commanded such things?

I think we are going in circles again I just explained you how the true faith works. If you are a true believer, you drop your rock, because you see a sinner in your own self. Atrocities are committed by people who worship false gods, and one of them called "no god", the one you worship and justify so fervently, the most atrocious false belief of any ever existed in human history. According to WHO, every year in the world there are an estimated 40-50 million abortions. This corresponds to approximately 125,000 abortions per day.

Here, in the USA, where nearly half of pregnancies are unintended and four in 10 of these are terminated by abortion, there are over 3,000 abortions per day. Twenty-two percent of all pregnancies in the USA (excluding miscarriages) end in abortion. By the way, are you from USA or Canada, so I can appeal to evidences more directly connected with your environment?

 

[Tigranes]

LMFAO at Tigranes wall of text response.

Wall was a sign of respect, so you can never ever say -- I ask questions and no one answers. Don't contradict your attitude with more questions. If you don't care -- no need to ask. Your frivolous manners not only don't contribute to the discussion, they fail even to entertain. I challenge you to produce some sensible counterargument with the time you got on your hands.

 

[El_Machinae]

There are no circles. You're justifying evil, provably so. You seem to think that other people making moral errors justifies your own faith's errors. It doesn't work that way.

You and I both believe in Objective Morality. You also believe that it has a Source that's Revealed. It's pressingly easy to show that this contention is incorrect, because I only need to show that your 'Revealed Source' made errors.

I don't need to create a system that perfectly predicts the stock market to show that astrology is not a viable method. I don't need to perfectly predict the weather to show that the shaman dance is not an effect way of modifying it.

Now, if you'd not given your claims some type of super-magic attributes, then we can just know that we're all muddling along together, trying to perceive an Objective Morality in our own fallible ways. But you didn't do that, you claimed to have some magical insight. Well, your magical insight is provably in error.

The rabbi told us to love God. You cannot do this and love the false god of the Bible at the same time.

edit: oop, Canadian

 

[Tigranes]

So "revelation" tells you that homosexuality is a sin. Which is it telling you that for you - your heart, your brain or your wishful thinking?

Not sure if you made yourself clear here. I have accepted the Revelation as whole, and then recognized, mind you, not the homosexuality but the homosexual act as a sin. There is no room for wishful thinking.

Almost all people by nature are able to respond sexually to both sexes, although most people choose, or are conditioned, to limit themselves to the opposite sex. Thus, for almost all so-called "straight" people, their sexual identity is defined by their behavior, and is subject to influence or change, in principle. In fact, in the ancient world, many people were involved with both sexes at different times in their lives. The willingness to engage in homosexual activity (particularly intergenerationally) was widespread among men in the ancient Mediterranean region. Women and boys were considered equally tempting sex objects for ordinary men. Therefore, homosexual activity could not have provided a means of distinguishing a minority of men as "gay" the way we do in the modern world. However, the ancients did differentiate based on an unwillingness or incapacity for heterosexual sex. Certain men were known to fundamentally lack arousal for sex with women, and men of this kind were distinguished from the majority of ordinary men on that basis.

I hope you understand what I am trying to explain you with this. Homosexuality is not a sin, it is a human condition. Homosexual act, however, is human choice (if you are not being raped). And this worldview has nothing to do with homophobia. For example, if you are so interested in complexities of human sexuality in this modern day and age, and how real twisted homophobia works, please read an example from A Gentleman's Guide To Sex In Prison:

Those inside for sex crimes are fair game to the booty bandits, and everyone knows that. In the through-the-looking-glass moral universe of incarceration, the bugarons are applauded for teaching the rapos a lesson, never mind the fact that they too are rapists.

The butt pirates—another actual, commonplace term—do not consider themselves gay in the least; sometimes they have wives and children, who may become victims themselves, if there are any diseases to be passed on. (AIDS testing is suggested but not mandatory in prison, and, statistically, the incarcerated population has a much higher rate of infection.) In any case, it is only the receiver in the act who is considered gay.

 

[Tigranes]

You and I both believe in Objective Morality. You also believe that it has a Source that's Revealed. It's pressingly easy to show that this contention is incorrect, because I only need to show that your 'Revealed Source' made errors.

I have spent last 20 years of my life struggling to live my faith, not just reading it, I have felt the touch of the Holy Spirit in the way you probably never did, so when I say it is real -- you will never be able to understand. I fall and rise every day, I have been ice cold, and iron hot and everything in between. Right now I am in a pretty bad spiritual shape, but I always have hope, and you don't. True faith is the unique relationship with the God above you, with you, and in you. I've been in desperate circumstances, but never felt abandoned. Every single error you see and we don't has a simple explanation. He was saying to them, "To you has been given the mystery of the kingdom of God, but those who are outside get everything in parables, so that WHILE SEEING, THEY MAY SEE AND NOT PERCEIVE, AND WHILE HEARING, THEY MAY HEAR AND NOT UNDERSTAND, OTHERWISE THEY MIGHT RETURN AND BE FORGIVEN.

You have chosen to be outside. We can spend days looking into every single error you may come up with. We can open a special thread if you like. But we will go in circles like we do now. You are not willing to be open minded, you refuse to get in, you look at Kingdom from outside and it feels "magic". It is not. I am sorry about your angst. I am sorry about your rebellion. Unintentionally very often in my life I ended up befriending people with mental health conditions, first day in elementary school my mother, medical doctor, found me with one such boy, whom I was already calling friend. I do not want to exchange harsh words with you, we can agree to disagree for right now. But if you ever want to consider stepping inside -- my PM is always open. I am mostly here for history, my big passion, debates are not my thing.

 

[Borachio]

So, Mr Tigranes, you have chosen to be on the Inside - by your own lights - and everyone who you deem disagrees with you has chosen to be on the Outside?

But I've chosen to regard everyone, irrespective of their beliefs, to be on the Inside. (Because such is the bent of my nature; so maybe it's not much of a choice.)

Where does that place me? I'm really quite curious.

Isn't yours the politics of "otherness" and exclusion, even though you think of the others as excluding themselves?

 

[El_Machinae]

I have felt the touch of the Holy Spirit in the way you probably never did

This is very much incorrect! You'll just have to trust me, but I was fully a true believer. I just eventually recognized that the Holy Spirit was a self-deception. It caused ignorance and moral errors.

I don't find the "the Holy Spirit gives me peace" argument all that impressive. It gave me peace too, but the peace was a lie. I had to believe false things in order to maintain my peace. I had to embrace cognitive fallacies. I had to justify moral errors.

Now, don't get me wrong, I like Christianity. It makes many people nicer than they might otherwise be. It makes them happier too. Sure, like any faith, people twist it for self-benefit but ehn, that'll happen. The main problem with it is that it very much claims to want iterative improvement towards an Objective Truth, but doesn't do so. To paraphrase Paul, too often they worship the Creation (the Bible) more than the Creator. They love the Bible as they love themselves, instead of loving their neighbours as themselves.

 

[Plotinus]

I'd point out that the belief that you can tell whether you have the Holy Spirit or not by whether you can feel it is the Messalian heresy - but hasn't this got unhelpfully off-topic enough as it is?

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

I like to step in to say that there are definitely things to be felt and seen beyond the ordinary human experience which perhaps most of humans are only dimly aware or perhaps not at all. The fact that its not mainstream human experience doesnt make it less true. But also its important to be aware that although one can come across unusal phenomena its impossible to do proper evaluation of it unless one studies it properly to its full extent. Until then it can be missunderstood or rejected on false grounds.