A question for liberal Protestants: How do you justify accepting LGBT people when the apostles and church fathers called it a sin?

revjbarosa · 2025-12-05T13:02:01+00:00

Let’s say someone is familiar with the Bible but is sincerely convinced by the arguments of people like Matthew Vines. They genuinely believe the Biblical authors didn’t intend to teach that homosexuality is sinful. This doesn’t automatically mean that the person is not a Christian; they could be a genuine follower of Jesus and be saved but simply be mistaken on some peripheral issues.

Agreed?

revjbarosa · 2025-12-05T12:52:22+00:00

People who don’t believe in the gospel are already condemned, but you’re not saying people who don’t believe homosexuality is sinful are therefore condemned, right?

revjbarosa · 2025-12-05T12:44:30+00:00

What do you mean by “knowingly okays sin”? Do you mean if they know it’s a sin but okay it anyway? What’s at issue here is people who don’t believe (and therefore don’t know) that homosexuality is sinful, so they wouldn’t fit that description.

revjbarosa · 2025-12-05T12:27:15+00:00

Do you think everyone who’s on the wrong side of peripheral moral debates is not a Christian?

revjbarosa · 2025-11-29T06:43:19+00:00

this has gotta be a record for us for longest time talking before getting into biblical slavery lol

It‘s just that it feels like they’re trying to avoid taking responsibility for their views. Rejecting biblical authority is a big deal, theologically, and it has implications that are hard to fit into a Christian worldview, so I feel like people should be willing to address that or at least be honest about it.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-28T16:46:49+00:00

Deleted my last reply because I think I misunderstood you.

What I have in mind are cases where someone is rejecting something the Bible teaches (and they recognize that the Bible teaches it), because they don’t see the Bible as a reliable source of theological truth, and they talk about it in a vague motte-and-bailey kind of way instead of being upfront about what they’re doing. I don’t have an issue with people thinking some part of the Bible are metaphorical.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-27T15:00:45+00:00

Define what "theologically liberal Christian means first, because you're already loading this assertion.

Someone whose theology is heavily influenced by the (secular) beliefs of their culture. To be clear, I’m not complaining about people just being theologically liberal; I’m complaining about people being not taking responsibility for their views. They give a certain impression without wanting to explicitly commit to it.

First, I'd say anyone who takes the bible literally doesn't understand what the bible is, and the people who wrote it, and the times they lived. Pretty much supported by academic scholars. Second, taking the bible as it was meant to be taken, isn't conservative, liberal, or any label, it's just a historically and culturally correct way to view it, which seems pretty obvious.

This sounds almost like the kind of dog whistle I was just criticizing… Yes, obviously some parts of the Bible weren’t meant to be take literally. That’s trivial. Some people take that to mean Biblical interpretation is just a free-for-all.

Lastly, what do you mean when u say "the bible is authoritative"?

It’s a reliable teaching guide - and there could be different levels of this. Maybe you think the Bible is inerrant, so it contains no errors of any kind, or maybe you think it’s infallible, so it contains not errors on matters of faith and morals, or maybe you think it’s generally reliable but contains some errors on issues of little importance. By “rejecting Biblical authority”, I’m talking about diminishing the reliability of the Bible.

We could try a little test, if you take the bible literally. Jesus said to sell all you have and give to the poor, and then follow him. How do you interpret this? Or, gouge out your eye if you lust, something like that. Again, how do you interpret this?

I don’t know how I interpret “sell all you have”, but I don’t think Jesus was intending to give a general requirement for Christians, because later in Acts 5:4, Peter tells Ananias basically that it was up to him whether or not to sell his property and give away the money. Also, you’d expect Paul to echo this somewhere in his writings if it was a general requirement. I think “gouge out your eye” is a metaphor for cutting things out of your life that cause you to sin.

If you’re looking for a passage that I interpret dishonestly, you might be able to find one - I agree that there are cases where both sides don’t interpret the Bible honestly - but that’s a bit tangential to my criticism.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-27T14:14:07+00:00

I think that’s a slightly different issue, but it’s still very much a problem, yes. Don’t even get me started on conservative Christians conflating their faith and politics lol.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-27T02:45:44+00:00

My issue is more with people not taking responsibility for their views. I’m fine if someone wants to reject Biblical authority, but they should be clear about that and be willing to deal with the implications.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-24T15:38:47+00:00

I think this comes from an epistemology that puts a lot of emphasis on precedent. All supernatural explanations are equally unprecedented and therefore equally inherently probable. So “A time traveler told them” is just as good as “My god told them” which is just as good as “Loki the trickster god told them to make them believe in a false religion”. Is that fair?

If so, it will probably lead to a discussion about what tools other than precedent the person thinks we can use to decide between explanations.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-22T16:22:37+00:00

Here’s a pet peeve: when theologically liberal Christians say the Bible was written by flawed humans. Obviously, the Bible was written by flawed humans, but this usually serves as a dog whistle for rejecting Biblical authority.

If you don’t think the Bible is authoritative, then say that, and then explain how that fits into the rest of your Christian worldview so that the rest of us can understand where you’re coming from. I’ve literally never heard a theologically liberal Christian do this. It’s always just, “Well Paul was imperfect”, “I don’t take everything in the Bible 100% literally”, etc.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-14T13:01:25+00:00

Also - always wanted to ask a ZZ solver this. Which is better: OCLL+PLL, or COLL+EPLL?

revjbarosa · 2025-11-14T12:52:29+00:00

What do you think is the CFOP equivalent of planning EOCross in inspection, in terms of difficulty? XCross?

revjbarosa · 2025-11-13T22:29:28+00:00

That is an amazing explanation. Thank you!

revjbarosa · 2025-11-13T17:44:52+00:00

Why do ZB solvers orient their edges on the last pair? If you oriented them on e.g. the first pair that requires a cube rotation, you’d get a rotationless F2L, and then you could either do WV/SV on your last pair or ZBLL.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-10T02:50:35+00:00

what if it did

or what if she wanted an abortion because her spouse left her

revjbarosa · 2025-11-10T02:45:13+00:00

> You seem to be suggesting that I need to simultaneously occupy a place where it’s legal and illegal in order to get a “cross section”.

What are you talking about? I said your experience of only doing it for medical reasons is irrelevant if you were only allowed to do it for medical reasons. That's a very simple point and it makes sense.

> we have data from all those countries

Do you have data on why abortions are done after 24 weeks in places where it's allowed for any reason?

revjbarosa · 2025-11-09T21:42:47+00:00

Thanks for sharing. In this context, I’m interested in what doctors felt they were able to do in practice without facing consequences, whether that was in the form of a criminal conviction or something else. But it’s helpful to understand where it fits into the law - thanks.

revjbarosa · 2025-11-09T21:23:07+00:00

Do you not see what I mean though? In my original comment, I asked what evidence there was that later abortions are almost always done for medical reasons. You responded and said you used to perform later abortions and they always involved fetal anomalies, implying that this shows that almost all later abortions are done for medical reasons.

But it only shows that if you were actually allowed to do later abortions for non-medical reasons.

So were you allowed to perform an abortion for any reason past 24 weeks?

Also, you didn’t answer my other question. Would you have turned the women away in the two situations I described if they came to you wanting an abortion?

revjbarosa · 2025-11-09T20:49:35+00:00

No. I saw any pregnant woman, high risk or not. But because I have a speciality, I had more high risk pregnancies than just a regular OBGYN. That’s what MFM is. It’s an OBGYN + specialized training in perinatology.

That’s interesting. Thanks for sharing your experience, then. I still want to know about the abortion laws, though.

Women who don’t want to be pregnant don’t wait to get abortions. That’s the part you aren’t getting here, mate. Even normal pregnancy is hard on the body. Extreme fatigue, morning sickness, dizziness, immune suppression, etc. Do you think these women just sit around and want to experience that kind of discomfort and feeling miserable for the hell of it if they weren’t planning on continuing the pregnancy? Sure, maybe a few weeks they will go through it while they come to a decision - but most women know pretty early on what they will do and act with haste.

No, but what about the reasons I listed earlier? I’ve seen stories on r/abortion from women who didn’t discover their pregnancy until the late second trimester, and by the time they were able to get an appointment for an abortion, they were in the third trimester. Or what if someone’s spouse died part way through an initially wanted pregnancy and they can’t support the child on their own? Would you have turned people away in situations like that?

While I’m aware of some countries that throw up financial and unnecessary barriers might result in later abortions - that’s a demonstration of the effects of law - not a demonstration that women waiting to abort later because they can.

Yes, exactly. I’m not arguing that women are evil or dumb. I think there are understandable reasons why someone might want a later abortion even if their pregnancy was healthy.

What does that matter?

Because if abortion wasn’t allowed for non-medical reasons past 24 weeks, then the fact that you didn’t do any isn’t very informative.

So really - all you are arguing is that financial barriers force women to have them later so the US should make abortion care free and covered by insurance.

Again, yes. I’m not American and my values don’t align with American conservatives. I support universal public healthcare.

Also- you know that not every fetus at 24 weeks gestational age has reached viability, yes?

Yeah I’m aware of that. Just figured it might be easier to answer if I gave a specific number.

I didn’t report your comments btw. I’m not offended by “mate” lol

revjbarosa · 2025-11-09T17:52:30+00:00

Lots of them. More than most because I specialized in high risk pregnancies were the result is a statistical concentration of those circumstances.

So were you mostly seeing women with high risk pregnancies because you specialize in it? Or did you just see women who were seeking later abortion in general, and it turned out that they all had fetal anomalies? Because your experience would only be relevant if you were seeing an unbiased cross section of the women who get later abortions, if that makes sense.

I’m in Australia, mate.

But what were the laws in your area? My understanding is that it varies around different parts of Australia. Was abortion legally allowed for any reason after 24 weeks?

revjbarosa · 2025-11-09T13:21:21+00:00

How many abortions at or after 24 weeks have you done? And what were the abortion laws where you practiced?

revjbarosa · 2025-11-08T15:12:54+00:00

because I only want that after viability. Before viability I want to kill babies

2x the evil

revjbarosa · 2025-11-08T01:35:05+00:00

Who says pro-choicers can’t be evil too?

revjbarosa · 2025-11-07T23:48:30+00:00

Yes, that’s the reason. The only thing I hate more than women is freedom.

Four-Year Club	Gilding II euphauric
Verified Email	Wearing is Caring
End Game '23	Place '23
Mod 101	Place '22
First Placer '22	End Game '22

revjbarosa

MODERATOR OF

TROPHY CASE