Old Testament Law part 1

Ok, for today’s (and tomorrow’s and maybe on) post, I’m going to put in a slightly edited version of something I’m going to be posting on the Hyper-stream.org forums soon. It is being written in response to a question about Biblical law and, since someone brought up homosexuality as one example of their question, this post will let the world know my view on that controversial issue as well.

Hope you enjoy! ;)

Before I can delve into a meaningful conversation about the Old Testament and the law, I need to make sure everyone understands the context and isn’t thrown off the scent by pre-conceptions or misunderstandings of what the Bible actually says. Also note that for the sake of this discussion, we are assuming that the God of the Bible exists; it is well outside of the scope of the question to bring up arguments based on the contrary.

According to the Bible, mankind was created as perfect creatures. How God went about the task of creating everything is beyond the scope of this post; in fact, it’s beyond the scope of the Bible, which is not a technical universe-creating handbook. It’s possible that the big bang was part of it. Frankly, in my mind, it doesn’t really matter how he made the world. The fact is irrefutable that the world now exists.

Anyway, mankind was perfect. But how hard is it to be perfect if no one has told you what you can or cannot do? That’s why God put the infamous tree in Eden. Adam and Even had to have a way to exercise free will or they wouldn’t have truly been free; there is no such thing as free will in the absence of choice. So the choice was put before them: eat or don’t eat. Follow God’s rule or don’t. It’s up to you.

As an aside, since this question was brought up earlier as well, this beginning point is the only time when everything in the world was working according to the way God created it to work. God was very specific about Adam and Eve’s sexual roles: they were married and thus it was natural for them to have sex with each other. Every other form of sex is not how God intended the world to be and is, therefore, unnatural. This doesn’t just pertain to homosexuality. It means any sexual relationship outside of marriage is equally unnatural. Sex between non-married hetero couples is just as unnatural as homosexuality or bestiality or any other –ality you care to name.

Note that I say “unnatural”, not “immoral”. Morality is something that is defined by society, and thus may fluctuate depending on the culture. What is immoral to Americans may not be so for an Amazonian tribe, and vice versa. In modern American culture, homosexuality is not immoral, nor (needless to say) is casual sex. Bestiality is both unnatural and immoral, except in certain parts of West Virginia. When I speak of “natural” or “unnatural”, it is simply a comparison to God’s original blueprints. Any sexual relationship outside of hetero marriage is not the way God originally intended things to be.

And what of it? I expect flack for that statement, but in my view, people are so fucked up in everything they do that it hardly matters what else they throw on the fire. If someone hasn’t understood and believed that God loves them no matter what they’ve done and accepted Jesus’ death in lieu of their own guilt, it really doesn’t matter if they’re sleeping with their girlfriend or their same-sex-partner or their goat. Because you don’t have to change anything to come to God. In fact, the whole point of the Bible is that you can’t be good enough to please God. That’s why he had to sacrifice himself; so he could be good enough for himself and you wouldn’t have to be.

to be continued…