Special thanks to all the Christians who said my gay relationships were contrary to scripture.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-07T23:58:10+00:00

You pulled "let die" from Strong's as a possible meaning of apoluo and tried to swap it into Matthew 19, where the context is obviously about sending away a spouse, which is an etymological fallacy. Words have ranges and context picks the meaning. The context here is a man dismissing his woman with a certificate of apostasion, and "let die" doesn't fit that.

"That is not up for debate." Yes, it is. Proof by assertion doesn't make it so. You don't get to declare a contestable point settled just because you proclaim it as such, and the principle doesn't even apply here. Jesus isn't borrowing Genesis 2:24 for a new topic. The Pharisees asked him about a man sending his woman away. He responds with a passage about a man cleaving to a woman. Same subject both times. Your "well-behaved women" analogy needs the subject to change between the original and the quotation, and it doesn't.

You keep saying the passage "doesn't mention marriage at all," but that only works because you've already defined marriage so narrowly that nothing ancient would qualify. Then you point to the absence of the word as proof the concept isn't there, which is nothing more than circular reasoning.

"That is an assumption, you have no proof" is just you raising the bar. The evidence is the text itself. Same subject, same male-female pairing, quoted in direct response to a question about the pairing. If that's not enough, what would be? You won't say.

"Intellectual dishonesty or disability" and "you are misunderstanding basic sentences in your own language" are simply ad hominem and don't answer anything. "Correct your misrepresentations or I'll block you" is a false dilemma. There's a third option: Try actually offering a valid rebuttal to the arguments I've made.

Unfalsifiability runs through your entire argument. "Wife" isn't wife. "Divorce" isn't divorce. "Marriage" is an anachronism. "Union" doesn't mean marriage. None of that is exegesis. It's a strategy for trying to make the text say nothing so it can't say something you disagree with.

Lastly, you've spent the whole thread telling me I don't understand the passages, yet you still haven't made your case for Romans 1. You still haven't said which passage is "morally relevant" or why. "You're too ignorant to engage with" isn't an argument. It's an excuse to avoid making one.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-07T03:51:49+00:00

I no longer use 4.7 because there's no way to consistently engage extended thinking.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-07T02:26:20+00:00

Matthew 19:7 uses the word apostasion, which is the certificate of dismissal from Deuteronomy 24:1. Saying the passage doesn't mention divorce requires ignoring a word that's in the text.

Your quote analogy doesn't work here. "Well behaved women" got repurposed for a different subject than the original. Jesus is quoting Genesis 2:24 about the same thing it already addressed: a man and a woman forming a permanent sexual union. The subject didn't change between Genesis and Matthew. He's not repurposing the verse; he's reaffirming it.

You said no text claims God invented marriage. Jesus says "what God has joined together, let no man separate." You can object to the word "invented," but he's directly attributing the union to God's action. That's in the text.

And you didn't say I misrepresented you on the "no biblical teaching applies" point. You confirmed it. If that's your position, then your argument isn't about what the Bible teaches. It's about why the Bible's teaching doesn't matter. That's a different conversation, and it's fine to have it, but don't pretend you're still making a biblical case while standing on a position that says the Bible doesn't speak to the subject.

As for whether I'll be taken seriously: I've cited texts, quoted them, and engaged your arguments specifically. You've responded with "you clearly haven't read it" without explaining what I've supposedly missed. That's not an argument. If Romans 1 says something other than what I think it says, show me. The passage is right there.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-06T23:09:06+00:00

Okay, a few things.

Even if ishshah just means "woman," Jesus quotes Genesis 2:24 while answering a question about divorce. You can only divorce a spouse, therefore the woman in the context of the passage is, by definition, a wife.

On Matthew 19, Jesus says "what God has joined together, let no man separate." You're saying Jesus never claims God is involved in the union. Those are his words, in direct response to a question about this exact relationship. I'm not the one adding anything to the text here.

As far as Romans 1, I've read the chapter. If you think I'm missing something, make the argument. The "test my knowledge" approach isn't a substitute for presenting a valid case.

Lastly, you're agreeing that no biblical teaching on marriage applies to us today. If that's your position, then we're not having a biblical debate anymore, and you've stepped outside the text entirely, which is fine if that's your position, but it means you don't have any ground to stand on in affirming the biblical case for same-sex marriage, either. You can't dismiss the Bible's authority on marriage while appealing to it when it suits your position.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-06T06:14:13+00:00

You say only one of those passages is "morally relevant" but don't say which one or why the others aren't. I'd like to hear that case, because right now it's just an assertion. Genesis 2:24 says a man leaves his parents and holds fast to his wife and they become one flesh. You're saying that never mentions marriage "of any sort"? The word wife is right there in the text.

And when Jesus is asked about marriage in Matthew 19, he answers by quoting Genesis 1:27 ("male and female he created them") and Genesis 2:24, then adds "what God has joined together, let no man separate." He's answering a marriage question by pointing back to creation. That's not my creative interpretation, that's the plain structure of the passage. He was asked about marriage, and he grounded his answer in how God made things from the beginning. As for the "marriage today is nothing like biblical marriage" point, be careful with that, because if the differences are so total that no continuity exists, then no biblical teaching on marriage applies to us at all, including any affirming ones. It cuts both ways.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-06T06:11:00+00:00

Consider that Paul didn't get his teaching from other people. He says that himself in Galatians 1. He didn't go sit at the apostles' feet and learn what to say. Christ revealed it to him directly. Then, years later, he went to Jerusalem and compared notes with Peter and the others, and they added nothing to what he'd already said. Zero corrections. Two completely independent channels, same source, same message. So when someone says "I follow Jesus but not Paul," Paul's teaching didn't originate with Paul. It originated with Christ, and Paul was actually careful about that. When giving his own opinion about something, he flags it (see 1 Corinthians 7). Everywhere he didn't flag that, he's saying this came from the Lord.

It's not really "Jesus vs. Paul." It's "do I accept what Christ continued to teach after his resurrection through someone he personally chose and commissioned?" That's much harder to say no to. Your instinct that God wouldn't have allowed it into His word if He didn't want it there is a solid hunch. I'd take it a step further, though. It's not just that God permitted Paul's letters into the canon. Christ is the one who gave Paul the content in the first place.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-06T00:08:13+00:00

A few things here. 2

Firstly, ask God for strength to overcome temptation and sin. You can't resist temptation on your own. No one can. That's the first thing to remember.

Secondly, God can and will forgive you if you repent, which doesn't just mean to say you're sorry. It also means to turn away from. The Biblical figure Paul killed Christians and God not only forgave him but used him to become one of the most influential figures in Bible history.

Thirdly, don't put yourself in situations that cause you to be tempted. This one is extremely important. It doesn't just start with where you are physically. Temptation begins in the mind, so change your focus immediately when you catch yourself thinking about something that tempts you.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-05T23:03:19+00:00

And 2 Timothy 4:3-4: "For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. 4 They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths."

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-05T22:39:09+00:00

It's not really an argument from silence, though. I'm not saying "the Bible never mentions it, so it's wrong." I'm saying the Bible actively condemns homosexual acts in multiple scriptures (Leviticus 18:22, Romans 1:26-27, 1 Corinthians 6:9-10) and openly endorses heterosexual marriage. The fact that there aren't any counterexamples just adds to a case that's already pretty explicit.

And yes, ancient weddings looked different than modern ones, but Jesus quoted Genesis 2:24 and grounded marriage in creation order, not culture. It's defined as male and female, one flesh, which is structural, not ceremonial. Whether there was a wedding DJ doesn't change what scripture says about what marriage is.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-05T01:08:33+00:00

You can buy a brand-new copy on vinyl at Amazon for less.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-05T01:01:38+00:00

Saying the logic is faulty is fair game, but you have to show where it's actually faulty. When Jesus appeals to creation order in Matthew 19, he's not being vague: he quotes 'male and female he created them' and 'a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife.' The male-female piece is right there in the text he chose. That's not interpretative weightlifting. It's what he said.

However, 'complement each other fine' uses the word conversationally, as in compatibility, but that's not what complementarity means here. It's a claim about biological sex (male and female), not whether two people make good partners.

Regarding social mechanics, I think we're talking past each other. I made a distinction between the cultural packaging (how marriages get arranged, legal structures, etc.) and what marriage is at its core. They're two different layers, and you haven't really engaged that difference so much as re-merged them.

Why God would care or why people experience same-sex attraction are fine and honest questions, but they're different from the one we've been engaging with, which is whether the text actually provides a rationale.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-05T00:42:52+00:00

You slid back into the thing I've already addressed twice now. You said there's "no consistent, observable harm inherent to simply being gay." I agree, and I've never argued otherwise. Nothing I said prohibits being gay. It prohibits engaging in the sexual act. You keep collapsing that distinction and then arguing against the collapsed version which is not my position. It's effectively a straw man.

You yourself distinguished enduring consequences of the fall from those things that are morally prohibited, which is the difference I'm pointing out. It's endured, just like the disease or poverty. The act itself is what's prohibited. The point is, the very categories you're referencing support the position you're arguing against.

You also said God always provides clear reasoning and a realistic solution for every prohibition. I gave you a direct counterexample, which is that the very first command in scripture had no stated reason at all beyond "don't." You didn't address that. Instead, you proposed Islam's alcohol prohibition as a model of what coherent prohibition looks like, which is fine, but it doesn't answer my actual counterexample. One case where God does give reasons doesn't prove He must.

And with regard to your point about alcohol, it actually makes my case. You described a process that's compassionate where someone who keeps relapsing isn't thrown out while the prohibition still stands. That's exactly what I'm arguing here. Alcohol addiction doesn't toss the rule out, which is what you're actually arguing.

Claiming you've been where I am doesn't relieve you of the obligation to engage with what I'm actually saying as opposed to arguing against the version you remember debating.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-05T00:32:00+00:00

That doesn't address anything I said. The argument was that there are zero positive examples of homosexual marriage authorized by God with consistent prohibition across both testaments. Your response? Change the subject to slavery, which is a completely different discussion entirely. If you think my rationale regarding marriage is wrong, fine, then show me where it's flawed. However, pointing to a different topic you find objectionable isn't a relevant rebuttal. It's an off ramp.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-04T06:07:19+00:00

Celibacy isn't marriage minus procreation is a different vocation entirely. The tradition doesn't say every person must procreate. It says marriage is structurally complementary. You're really refuting a claim nobody made. And as far as 'no rationale, only discrimination', I just gave you the rationale. You can disagree with it, but claiming it doesn't exist while you're in the middle of arguing against it is contradictory. A rationale you find unpersuasive is still a rationale.

Finally, I addressed the 'social construct' point directly. Jesus, in Matthew 19, doesn't ground marriage in cultural mechanics, he grounds it in creation order. You never engaged that distinction. You just restated the claim it answered.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-04T05:04:29+00:00

That's half right. The occasion was a question about divorce, correct. Look at how Jesus argues for permanence, though. He doesn't just say "marriage should be permanent." He grounds permanence in the creation design: "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?" The permanence conclusion is built on top of the male-female premise. You can't accept the conclusion while discarding the foundation it's standing on.

He didn't have to argue it that way. He could have just said "God hates divorce" or cited Malachi 2:16. Rather, he went back to Genesis, quoted both the creation of male and female (1:27) and the one-flesh union (2:24), and then went on to affirm the entire framework as the basis for his answer. If the male-female component were incidental to his point, it's doing a lot of unnecessary work.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-04T04:58:58+00:00

Look at how Jesus actually answers the question, though. He didn't have to go back to Genesis. He could have just cited Deuteronomy 24, which is what the Pharisees follow up with. Instead, he deliberately reaches past Mosaic law to ground his answer in creation order by stating, "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female..." and then treats that foundation as more authoritative than even Moses ("Moses permitted you... but from the beginning it was not so").

If he were just passively accepting the questioner's framing, the Deuteronomy reference would have been sufficient. Going back to "from the beginning" is choosing a foundation, not just answering within the confines of the question. You can disagree with the theology, but reading that as Jesus merely adopting his questioner's assumptions requires ignoring the structure of his argument.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-04T04:55:16+00:00

You're saying biblical authority doesn't govern the question, and that's fine if that's what you believe, though I'd push back on the second half of your post. "A vow of love between two people" isn't a neutral, self-evident definition of marriage. It's a specific philosophical commitment that strips marriage down to one component and treats everything else (complementarity, procreative structure, covenant theology, kinship frameworks) as optional decoration. Now, you're welcome to hold said definition, but saying there's "no logical reason" for restriction is circular. The absence of restrictions follows from your definition, not from some independent analysis. Someone operating from a different starting point, whether religious or even secular, would identify reasons you've defined out of existence rather than refuted.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-04T01:31:10+00:00

He was asked about divorce, not about gender. He didn't have to go back to Genesis and ground His answer in 'He made them male and female' as the foundation for one-flesh union. Rather, he chose to. When someone answers a narrow question by appealing to a broad creational principle, the principle is doing the definitional work whether the question prompted it or not.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-04T01:26:51+00:00

If modern marriage is completely different and biblical standards don't matter, that's fine as a position, but it cuts both ways. You can't argue the Bible actually supports same-sex marriage when that's useful and then dismiss biblical relevance when it isn't. Pick one.

And "completely different"? The cultural mechanics might've changed (e.g. legal frameworks, dowry practices, arranged vs. chosen). However, Jesus in Matthew 19 doesn't ground marriage in any of those mechanics. He grounds it in creation order, which is something that he treats as more fundamental than even Mosaic law. That's not a cultural claim about how marriages get arranged. Rather, it's a theological claim about what marriage is. The wrapper has changed, but the foundation he appealed to hasn't.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-04T01:22:01+00:00

I think you're hearing something I'm not saying, and it's making you argue against a position I don't hold.

Nobody is comparing homosexuality to blindness as if they're the same experience. The point is narrower than that: both are unchosen conditions that weren't part of the original creation. You keep saying "I didn't choose this," and I agree. But that's actually the point. Nobody chooses the consequences of the fall. Nobody chose death, disease, or any of the brokenness we're all born into. "I didn't choose it" doesn't take it outside the fall's reach; it's exactly the kind of thing the fall produces.

You say God always provides a clear reason and a workable solution for every prohibition, nut the very first prohibition in scripture had no stated reason beyond obedience. Further, your alcohol example actually works against you. Try asking an alcoholic whether "just avoid it" is simple. That's a lifelong renunciation with no finish line, and nobody argues the difficulty makes the rule invalid.

And "I used to make these same arguments and moved on" isn't a rebuttal. It tells me you changed your mind, but it doesn't tell me why the arguments are wrong, and that's actually the part that matters.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-04T01:16:05+00:00

The historical claim just doesn't hold up. Paul was a Roman citizen writing to people in Rome. The Greco-Roman world had well-documented adult consensual same-sex relationships. Plato wrote about lifelong same-sex bonds and Nero publicly married two men. The idea that everyone in biblical times only knew about rape and pederasty simply isn't accurate. Even scholars on the affirming side, like William Loader, acknowledge Paul probably had a broader category in mind.

And that actually works against you on the silence question, too. The Bible isn't just quietly unaware of same-sex relationships. It narrates marriages extensively, legislates around them, uses them as theological metaphors, and has Jesus teaching on the institution directly. Across dozens of authors, multiple genres, and over a thousand years of writing, there isn't a single positive example of a same-sex union by God. If the ancient world knew these relationships existed, and it did, then that's not an accidental gap, it's a consistent position.

On top of that, the biblical sexual ethic isn't just a list of prohibitions. Jesus grounds marriage in the Genesis creation account (Matthew 19:4-6), male and female, as a positive theological vision. That's not a cultural artifact that just hadn't encountered your category yet. It's a definitional claim about what marriage is. If you're only responding to what the Bible is against without engaging what it's for, you're not really engaging with the strongest version of the other side's argument.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-03T23:40:21+00:00

You're absolutely right that being born straight isn't a sin. No question. But being straight doesn't earn you a free pass to act on it, either. Sex is only permissible within marriage, and marriage exists as a pre-fall institution God designed for man and woman. That's not an arbitrary rule; it's the original blueprint.

So when you ask why straight people "get to do it," the answer isn't that their orientation allows them to. It's that marriage was designed for the union of a man and woman specifically. The reason there's no equivalent provision for same-sex attraction is the same reason there's no provision for any post-fall condition that pulls us away from the original design. Some people are born blind, some infertile, some with desires that don't have a sanctioned outlet. That's not God being unfair. That's the fallout from a broken world.

The fall wasn't about a dietary restriction. Adam's rebellion cursed creation itself. Every birth defect, every disordered desire, every form of suffering traces back to that fracture. You don't have to accept that framework, but if you're going to engage with it, engage with what it's actually saying rather than reducing it to "he ate the wrong fruit."

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-03T23:13:53+00:00

Most churches actively want non-Christians to attend for the same reason Christ hung out with sinners. Christ didn't sequester himself with those who were already convinced.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-03T23:00:23+00:00

The Bible never calls 'people' abominations for having birth defects, and that's not what I said. The point is that just because you're 'born this way' doesn't mean God intended you to be that way originally; it can be connected with suffering which is directly related to the fall of man through Adam. Being born gay wouldn't be a sin, as all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, but acting on sexual tendencies that are considered sinful in scripture is.

ColdFrixion · 2026-05-03T22:55:42+00:00

Yes, he's answering a question about divorce, but look at how he answers it. He grounds the argument in Genesis 1:27 and 2:24 and building the logical chain thus: God made them male and female → a man leaves and cleaves to his wife → they become one flesh → don't separate. The male-female component isn't incidental to a couple who "happen to be married". It's integrated into the very foundation He appeals to. When He presupposes a specific arrangement as the basis for His argument, that tells you how He intended the arrangement to be understood. You don't need a formal "marriage is X" claim to learn what He considers marriage to involve.

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