Homosexuality Is An Indicator Of Lack Of Divine Participation In The Creation Of Scripture

My presumption about the bible is that if it is to be called divinely inspired, then there must be some quality of divinity about it. I presume that if there were a holy spirit, and it can inhabit and influence all people who believe, then that spirit would be able to provide Quality Assurance to the writings that make up the Bible. This Quality Assurance about the internal consistency of the content of the Bible would be an indicator of aspects of its divinity.

And now, at the risk of "Political Incorrectness" I present my presumptions about homosexuality. I presume that it is like my heterosexuality. I presume that they didn't have any more choice about their sexual preference than I did. I presume that since most people are heterosexual, homosexuality is a deviation from the norm.

With these presumptions I intend to show that the treatment of Homosexuality in the bible most likely does not have any divine aspects about it. The following are some important passages regarding homosexuality in the Bible.

* Leviticus 18:22 (New American Standard Bible)
22 You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination.

* Leviticus 20:13 (New American Standard Bible)
13 If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltiness is upon them.

* 1 Corinthians 6:9 (New American Standard Bible)
9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals,

In summary, it is an abomination, it is detestable and they shall be put to death, and they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But research into human sexuality casts doubt on the 'Righteousness' of biblical principles regarding homosexuality. In the recent edition of Scientific American (June 2007) there is an article called "Going Beyond X and Y" by Sally Lehrman. Dr. Eric Vilain researches the phenomena of babies born with mixed sex organs. He has discovered new information that modifies traditional thinking about how developing babies sex is determined. He has discovered that it has genetic factors that are more complicated than previously thought. I am paraphrasing but he is researching the likelihood of competing genes that affect the organs, genitalia and brain development. He says that the gender effects in the brain happen before the organ effects. 1 in 4500 babies wind up with mixed sex organs. When this happens, the doctor makes a best guess on what the sex of the infant should be and performs surgery to facilitate it. Dr. Vilain has proposed that it be classified as DSD (Disorder of Sexual Development). In America, out of 300 million people, that comes out to be 66,666 people. It is a predictable rate. God is very consistent or he has nothing to do with it. Because of rushed gender assignment surgery to the infant, you will have cases where a woman is "trapped" in a mans body or vice versa.

Homosexuals shouldn't be considered an abomination, detestable or punishable by death and assignment to hell. Furthermore, we should be able to assume that some of that complex process will get mixed up to a lesser degree and result in a mans sexuality in a womans body and vice versa to include bi-sexuality.

Dr. Vilain recommends waiting on the sex assignment surgery, carrying out psychological counseling and classifying this as a clinical disorder. That seems pretty compassionate of him. He could just kill the baby in accordance with Leviticus if it weren't illegal by secular law, thank god [ ;-) ]

Does God do it on purpose or does it happen naturally? If he does it on purpose, then to what purpose? What value does it add? As a christian my justification that Homosexuality was an abomination was because logically, it would mean the end of the human race. But it doesn't happen enough to make this facet significant. As it stands, according to The Bible, it happens either naturally or divinely and then the subject should be killed or at least detested. If it happens naturally and God doesn't have anything to do with it, what is the principle by which Homosexuals are condemned? What is the principle in either case? Am I missing something? Where is the sense?

But homosexual behavior is exhibited in nature in other species. This means that it is not a specifically human trait. It spans species. This is the type of thing that is predicted by evolution. There is a museum exhibit in Norway that details the 1500 species that homosexual behavior has been observed in. I observed two camels doing something homosexual the last time I went to the zoo. One camel evidently was a cunning linguist. [ ;-) ]

I assert that the fact that there are biological determinants to human sexuality discredit the christian presumption that Homosexuality is a sin. It may be a disorder, but evil?
Is color blindness evil? Is dwarfism evil? Is a curved spine evil? Are they an abomination, detestable, punishable by death and assignment to hell?
No to all of the above. And neither is Homosexuality.

The attitude in the bible is simply an example of Bias against those that don't fit the standards for the group. It is human fear. Human Homophobia. Otherizing. It is obviously not very divine.

Note: Otherizing is
"(s)tereotyping…is part of the maintenance of social and symbolic order. It sets up a symbolic frontier between the ‘normal’ and the ‘deviant’, the ‘normal’ and the ‘pathological’, the ‘acceptable’ and the ‘unacceptable’, what ‘belongs’ and what does not or is “Other”, between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’, Us and Them. It facilitates the ‘binding’ or bonding together of all of Us who are ‘normal’ into one ‘imagined community’; and it sends into symbolic exile all of Them —“the Others’—who are in some way different--- ‘beyond the pale” (Hall, 1997, 258).

Since Alfred C. Kinsey published his seminal research, Research into Human Sexuality has suffered setbacks due to the influence of the religious right. "Kinsey's research polarized a segment of society. Many in the Christian Right found their religious and socially conservative views in conflict with Kinsey's methods and underlying principles. They saw his supporters as dissolute libertines and his work as morally corrupting. Even today, Kinsey's name can elicit partisan rancor." Many of Kinseys general conclusions have been verified by other research and are now considered valid by the scientific community. (Wikipedia, Alfred Kinsey)

Further Reading/References:

This paper discusses problems in Education regarding "Otherizing".

Hall, Stuart. ed.(1997). Representation : Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. London: Open University.

Here is a link to a story of one families effort to force a son to be a girl after a circumcision tragedy. It didn't turn out too well. He didn't seem to be able to willfully change his sexuality.

Here is a link to more information on Homosexuality
Alfred C. Kinsey
Some other DC articles that discuss Homosexuality:
Was Jesus Left Handed?
Homosexuality Bible vs Nature
Homosexuality and the Christian

Non-Atheistic Recommended Reading

As a contributor to DC, obviously, I am agnostic and, additionally, a former Bible study teacher and Born Again Evangelical Christian. I didn't get that way by reading content on sites like this. In fact, I didn't have any interest in anything atheists had to say until I stood alone with a lack of belief in a god that I acquired after a couple years of truth seeking. Not "God Truth", but "Practical Truth". The kind of truth you need to find before you purchase health products, or make decisions at work. When I applied that to my Christian beliefs, they didn't stand up very well...

At that point I wanted to see what 'the other side' had to say so I subscribed to the Infidel Guy and spent a year downloading and listening to debates and interviews. I also listened to a years worth of Robert Price's Bible Geek show. Then I listened to a Sam Harris Lecture promoting his book "The End of Faith" and got motivated to do something to help make the world a better place. A year ago I started a blog that was a last ditch effort to get God to participate in this relationship we were supposed to have and intervene. All I got was a madman posting a bunch of crap on it. Thats when I decided to Join DC and be part of a team and leave the moderation of loons up to someone else. My point in this increasingly blathering document is that applying the type of practical reasoning that people must necessarily use in every day life will in some cases weaken the perceived validity of the content of the Bible.

Along with the Atheistic books you see posted for sale on this blog, I recommend some books on the topic of reasoning and innoculation to persuasion. I am no teacher but I am a compulsive self-learner and I have read some text books that I want my children to read and I recommend to you. They are High School Senior level and above. I am sure there are better ones out there, and I have some of them unread on my shelf, but until I get to them, this is the best I can do. Maybe some of you out there are Educators and can suggest some others. In any case, reading these books will help you in other areas of your life such as dealing with the boss, coworkers, subordinates, your teens, tweens, kids, sales people and the news.

They fall into two categories; Reasoning and Persuasion. Some associated topics are Argumentation and Rhetoric, and while I am interested in both those topics, I won't recommend any of those books here because they fall outside the scope of this article. I include persuasion because people need to be aware of how people are 'hard-wired' to trust and believe things without much thought.

On the topic of Reasoning.
* Introduction to Reasoning by Stephen Toulmin, Richard Reike, Allan Janik
* How We Know What Isn't So by Thomas Gilgovich
* How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age by Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn
* Logical Self-defense by Ralph H. & J. Anthony Blair Johnson
* Informal Logic by Douglas Walton.
* Practical Reasoning by Douglas Walton.
* Abductive Reasoning by Douglas Walton.

A word about Douglas Walton. He is a philosophy professor and researcher that is heavily involved in research for artificial intelligence and is helping to derive algorithms for use in computers to simulate human reasoning.

On the topic of Persuasion.
* Influence. Science and Practice by Robert Cialdini.
* Persuasion by Daniel J. O'Keefe.
* The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi

Study In "Journal of Religion and Society" Finds Societies Worse Off With Religion.

More morality news (albeit from Sep. 2005!), thanks to recent commenter "The Alpha".
"Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'" from the online edition of The Times.
The original study is here. Thanks Prup!.

Enjoy.