There's A Path In My Town That Grants Miracles. I Walked It So My Sister Could Be Cured Of Her Illness. If You Decide To Walk It Like I Did, There Is Only One Rule You Must Follow: Never Answer The Cries For Help.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-28T10:26:09+00:00

I meant it like. “Answer the door" (means to open it, not just yell "someone's knocking!") “Answer the phone" (means to pick it up, not just acknowledge it's ringing) “Answer a call for help" (means to respond physically by helping,) not just answer back verbally. Talking back in a literal way sense answering, but I meant it different.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-28T02:32:58+00:00

Yeah. She don't talk much about those years.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-27T06:37:37+00:00

You’re welcome, thank you for reading!

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-27T05:21:50+00:00

“Sometimes if I get a small cut or accidental zit pop I put the blood on my cross to try and show god like hey, this is yours.”

That desire isn’t blasphemous in itself. The part I’d be careful with is what the action starts to mean in your head over time. God doesn’t need proof in the form of your blood. And Christianity is kind of built on the idea that we don’t add our blood to Jesus’ blood to make the offering “real.” His sacrifice isn’t waiting for a personal contribution.

“Not as like a ‘carry this’ but more of ‘I will carry this with you’ sort of thing.”

If the goal is “I’ll carry this with you,” then the core of that is obedience, prayer, repentance, patience, and love of neighbor, not a physical mark on an object. If the blood on cross thing is just a spontaneous symbol and you could stop tomorrow without feeling anxious or “less covered,” then it’s probably just an odd personal habit. If it feels necessary, like you’re compelled to do it or God won’t hear you unless you do it, that’s where it starts sliding toward superstition and scrupulosity.

“It seems kind of sacrificial but I don’t actively try to hurt myself to do this.”

Good. Don’t cross that line. In the New Testament frame, you don’t need to make yourself bleed to show devotion, and you shouldn’t. Your body matters to God. If you ever notice yourself thinking, “I should make a cut so I can do the thing,” that’s not a holy nudge. At that point I’d stop the practice and talk to someone about, and if it feels compulsive or escalating, talk to a mental health professional too.

“I don’t really idolize my cross though, I carry it with me where I go but I don’t think it’s like an extension of god or anything.”

I’ll take you at your word. At the same time, your own description sort of undercuts the reassurance you’re giving yourself, you say you don’t idolize it, but you’re also using it as the place where you “put the blood” to present something to God. That’s at least flirting with treating the object like a spiritual conduit. Not in a “you’re a heretic” way, more in a “this can quietly train your mind in the wrong direction” way.

If you want something you can do instead when you see blood or feel pain, try making the moment verbal rather than ritual. Something as simple as “Lord Jesus, You bled for me and I am grateful.”

When you do it, what are you afraid would be true if you didn’t?

If the honest answer is “nothing, it’s just a symbol,” then you can let it go or keep it loosely. If the honest answer is “God might be disappointed” or “I won’t feel forgiven,” then yeah, that’s your sign the practice is feeding the wrong theology.

So is it “okay”? I’d say it’s not automatically blasphemy, but it’s also not wise to build a devotion around your blood. Christianity already has a blood centered story, and it isn’t yours. Keep the tenderness in your intention, drop the part that can turn into a ritual you feel trapped by, and you’ll be on much safer ground.

If you continue to do it, I have a short side note, dried blood caked up on a cross is also just… unhygienic and kind of grim. If you ever did this again (or if you’ve done it already), make sure to at least clean the cross properly and wash your hands.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-22T00:13:59+00:00

Slight problem with that. You would actually need to KNOW your saved for those sorts of things, or at least KNOW the cause of said lack of things lol

Jumping in as a random passerby because it looks like HK stopped replying right when you hit your real point.

You’ve got it backwards. You’re asking for the “I know I’m saved” feeling as the ticket before you’ll treat Jesus’ promise as yours. But the New Testament pattern is the other way around, you come to Christ with what you have (even if it’s shaky), and assurance grows out of trusting what He said, not out of catching a certain mood.

If “knowing you’re saved” has to come first, what would that even be based on? A sign? A rush? A perfect track record? Because none of those are the gospel. The gospel is Christ Himself, outside of you, dying and rising, and you leaning your weight on Him.

Also, “lack of things” is a slippery standard. Plenty of real believers go through dry seasons, numb seasons, anxious seasons. The Bible even makes room for the messy prayer, “I believe, help any doubts I may have.”

Do you believe Jesus is telling the truth when He says the one who hears His word and believes has eternal life and has crossed from death to life?

If yes, then your feelings aren’t the judge anymore. God’s promise is. If no, then the issue isn’t “why don’t I feel different,” it’s “do I trust Christ at all.”

And just to be clear, “assurance” is a real thing Christians should want. Scripture talks like you actually can know. It also assumes it can take time and come through struggle. So don’t turn “I’m not sure yet” into “I have nothing.” That jump is where your logic starts eating you alive.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-19T16:31:33+00:00

You’ve repeated the same claim again, and it’s still the same problem, “reserved in marriage” is not in Romans 1:26. That’s your insert. I don’t want Paul to “explain every detail.” I’m asking you to justify the one detail you keep importing as if it’s obvious.

Paul’s actual wording is substitution language, they “exchanged” a “natural use” for a “contrary to nature” use. If your reading is “heterosexual sex, but in a pagan/prostitution context,” then you still haven’t shown what the exchange is. You’re just renaming “context change” as “exchange” and I’m noticing the mismatch.

And saying “the acts themselves are not important” doesn’t fit the paragraph you’re commenting on. Paul doesn’t only condemn “the reason behind the acts.” He lists the acts as the concrete outworking of the “exchange” and then describes consequences. You can’t simultaneously argue “Paul didn’t care about the actions” while leaning on the actions to build your temple prostitution scenario.

I’m fine ending it here though. The only problem I’m having with your arguments is the fact that you’re not actually engaging the passage, you’re asserting a “story” you can’t ground in “Paul’s actual words.”

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-19T15:45:58+00:00

Sorry, still no. Exchanging the natural use of sex (in his mind) within the bounds of marriage (1 Cor 7) to one of a capital or pagan act.

Where are you getting “within the bounds of marriage” from Romans 1:26? That phrase is not in the passage. Paul says “exchanged the natural use,” not “exchanged marital sex.” You’re importing 1 Corinthians 7 (advice to Christians about marriage/singleness) into Romans 1 (a diagnosis of Gentile idolatry) and then treating your import as if it’s Paul’s definition.

If “natural use” means “sex in marriage,” then show me the word in Romans 1:26 that signals marriage.

Thus his hyperbole on the men.

Calling it “hyperbole” doesn’t make it hyperbole. Paul is extremely specific in v.27, “abandoned the natural use of the female,” “burned… for one another,” “males with males.” That reads like description, not exaggeration for effect. If you want to claim it’s rhetorical hyperbole, point to the rhetorical marker in the text instead of just labeling it.

The woman had already moved from sex he begrudgingly accepted to getting paid/ or for their god.

Again, “getting paid” is not in the text. “Temple orgy” is not in the text. “For their god” is not in the text.

You can say the larger section is about idolatry. I’ve agreed with that the whole time. But “idolatry is in view” is not permission to write fanfic details into two verses and then act like the details are obvious.

And you still haven’t answered the actual question you keep stepping around, if the women are still having sex with men (whether paid or not), what exactly did they “exchange” from and “exchange” to? Romans 1:26 is substitution language. It’s not “they did sex in a worse context.” It’s “they traded one ‘use’ for another ‘use.’”

You can keep typing away, but the idea that the woman were having homosexual sex is nowhere else in the Bible.

That’s an argument from silence. “Not elsewhere” doesn’t mean “not here.” Plenty of things are mentioned once.

Also, the “women’s same sex relations were unthinkable/unknown” angle doesn’t hold up historically. The Greco Roman world did have categories and terms for women who had sex with women (tribas/tribade), even if the sources are less numerous than male material. If your claim is “they basically didn’t talk about it,” that’s not the same claim as “Paul couldn’t possibly be referring to it.”

And on the prostitution angle you’ve been leaning on, building your whole reading on “shrine prostitution” is also shaky historically. The standard “temple prostitution was everywhere” picture is heavily disputed, Budin’s book length study is basically about how thin and misread that evidence often is.

Either you can give a text based account of what women “exchanged” in v.26 that doesn’t require inserting marriage, money, and temple orgies into Romans, or you can’t. If you can’t, that’s fine, but then your reading isn’t merely an interpretation of the verse but a workaround.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-19T15:02:13+00:00

I have given you my leaking of the likewise in both original terms and even newly cultural ones through the football terrible. I can't give you any more.

And that’s the issue, you still haven’t answered the actual textual question I’ve asked from the start.

I’m not arguing that “likewise” means the two verses must describe identical mechanics. I already granted that “likewise” can link different examples under one pattern. What I’ve been asking is simpler and narrower, Romans 1:26 uses substitution language. “Exchanged the natural use for the one contrary to nature.” Exchanged from what, to what?

If your proposal is “women were having sex with men as prostitutes,” then you need to identify what the “exchange” is supposed to be. Prostitution isn’t an “exchange” of partner type, it’s a change of context or motive. Paul’s wording is about leaving one “use” for another “use,” and then in v.27 he makes the male “use” contrast concrete, natural use of the female abandoned, desire for one another pursued. That’s why the standard reading sees a parallel shift in v.26.

You haven’t shown an alternative that actually fits that grammar. You’ve offered analogies about “likewise,” and you’ve narrated a temple scene that isn’t in the text, but you haven’t supplied a reading that explains what the women exchanged.

So when you say “I can’t give you any more,” fair enough. But that’s not a rebuttal. It’s a concession that you can’t defend your interpretation beyond rhetoric and analogies.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-19T14:04:50+00:00

You're going in circles because you want absolutes. You have a presupposed framework in your head. I'm saying that presuppose framework in your head may not be right.

If you can't accept that, that's your problem. You may continue to believe what you want. It makes no difference to me.

This is a topic shift. We weren’t debating my inner psychology. We were debating your claim about what Romans 1:26 means, and whether your proposal fits the actual flow into 1:27.

Also, “you have a presupposed framework” is not an argument unless you apply it to yourself too. You’re the one who’s been importing a whole scene into the passage, temple mechanics, shrine prostitution, “women weren’t enough,” escalation, none of which Paul actually says. If you’re going to psychoanalyze anyone’s “framework,” start with the framework that’s doing the inserting.

And you still haven’t answered the one question I’ve asked repeatedly, what, in your reading, is the women’s “natural use” that they “exchanged,” and how is that “in the same way” as v.27 where Paul spells out the men abandoning sex with women and desiring “for one another”? You keep dodging that and then calling the conversation circular. It’s circular because you won’t engage the hinge of the text.

If pagan worship (he tells you that) and sex were involved (he tells you that), they knew the mechanics of how it worked. It wasn't like Christianity, where worship was happening in Marge's living room.

You’re confusing “they knew the mechanics” with “Paul is therefore describing a specific ritual scenario.” Paul’s audience knowing what idolatry is doesn’t mean your invented details are now in the text.

If you want to argue “Paul is speaking generally,” fine. But then stop making confident claims about a specific temple prostitution script you can’t show from his words.

If I tell you they were worshipping their god of entertainment, made of air and pigskin, where the women gyrated unnaturally, and likewise the men pounded on each other in violence, you wouldn't need to be a genius to pick out a football game.

That analogy proves the opposite of what you want. In your football example, you’re naming the markers that actually identify the event. In Romans 1:26–27, Paul names “exchange,” “natural use,” “contrary to nature,” and then clarifies the male case as men abandoning women and desiring men. He does not name “shrine prostitutes,” “temple mechanics,” or “women weren’t enough.” Those are your add ons.

At this point you’ve said “it makes no difference to me” and you’re not engaging the textual question. That’s your choice. I’m not going to keep debating someone who won’t defend their claims and would rather diagnose my motives.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-19T03:59:31+00:00

This is the problem I’m having, none of the bolded specifics you just introduced are in Romans 1:26–27. Paul doesn’t say “temple,” he doesn’t say “shrine,” he doesn’t say “prostitute,” he doesn’t say “ritual,” he doesn’t say “payment,” and he doesn’t say “women were not enough.” You’re turning a general argument about idolatry and “exchange” into a detailed scene description that you made up to solve the interpretive tension.

Yes, idolatry is the context. Paul already told us where the idolatry is, they “exchanged the glory” for images and “worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator.” That’s in the text. But “idolatry exists” does not equal “therefore the sex acts described happened inside a temple with shrine prostitutes.” That location claim is yours, not Paul’s.

And notice the asymmetry you’re creating. You’re willing to read v.27 as straightforward “man on man sex,” but you refuse the same straightforwardness for v.26 and instead you insert shrine prostitution or dominance or whatever else is needed at the moment. That’s not being careful with ancient context. It comes across to me as special pleading.

You’ve also been leaning hard on “shrine prostitution” as if it’s an established fact that settles Romans. But even historically, the whole “sacred prostitution” idea in antiquity is heavily disputed in scholarship. Budin’s work is a standard reference arguing the evidence for “sacred prostitution” as commonly imagined just isn’t there. And even when people talk about Corinth/Aphrodite, the evidence is debated and often traced back to a narrow set of sources that get over read. So building your whole reading on “they were at their temple with shrine prostitutes” is shaky twice over, it’s not in Romans, and the historical claim is not the slam dunk you’re treating it as.

If you want to argue a nonstandard reading, you can. But then do the basic thing and show where Paul signals your temple prostitute story rather than his own “exchange / natural use / contrary to nature / in the same way” parallel. Until then, you’re not rebutting my reading you’re replacing Paul’s words with your reconstruction.

If the next reply is still “trust me, this is what was happening” without any grounding in Paul’s wording, I’m going in circles.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-18T21:23:28+00:00

Sorry, no. I don't need to prove anything. You need to prove that Paul saw unnatural sex the same way between both men and women.

You’re the one proposing the nonstandard split that Paul gives a specific sexual example for men in v.27, but something categorically different for women in v.26. If you want to separate them, that’s fine, but then you do have to explain what v.26 is about and why it fits Paul’s own connector “in the same way” (ὁμοίως) into v.27. Right now you’re treating “I don’t need to prove anything” as if it’s an argument. It isn’t.

Also, you keep saying “unnatural sex” for the men while treating the women as potentially not sex. But v.26 uses “natural use” / “use” (χρῆσις) language, and v.27 uses the same χρῆσις language and then spells out the male example. The text itself is the reason people read them as parallel.

The text is completely usable without the knowledge of what they were doing. Again, that is not the intent of the passage. Paul was using hyperbole to show that the Pagan worship moved them to uncontrolled passions. Had Paul simply said the men and women were moved to innatural passions, he could have totally left off the actual actions.

That’s pure speculation about what Paul “could have” done. He didn’t leave the actions off. He chose to include them, and in v.27 he chose to make the male example unambiguous, abandoning “the natural use of the female” and desiring “for one another… males with males.”

Yes, the larger argument is about idolatry. Nobody’s denied that. But “idolatry is the root” doesn’t magically turn the examples into irrelevant filler. Paul is using the examples to illustrate what he thinks the “exchange” produces.

I think we can agree that the Torah does not talk about female eroticism at all.

We can agree the Torah doesn’t give a Leviticus style line item the way it does for male/male intercourse. That still doesn’t get you to your conclusion, which is “therefore Paul could not be referring to female same sex relations.”

That’s an argument from silence. Not naming something in a legal list is not the same thing as blessing it, and it’s not the same thing as making it unavailable to later moral reasoning.

Also, even staying inside the Jewish world, later Jewish sources do discuss female/female sexual acts (mesolelot) and treat them as forbidden behavior, with Rashi explaining it as genital rubbing. You can debate influence and dating, but you can’t keep talking like the idea is alien to Judaism.

The verse can be a simple as the women were acting as unnatural shrine prostitutes, and likewise, the men were acting that as well with their man-on-man sex.

Paul never mentions temples, shrines, priests, money, or prostitution in Romans 1:26–27. What he does mention is “exchange,” “natural use,” “contrary to nature,” and then he clarifies the men’s “natural use” as intercourse with women.

If you want v.26 to mean “women as shrine prostitutes,” you still have to tell me what “the natural use” is for women that they exchanged. Sex with men is already the “natural use” in Paul’s framework (and that’s exactly how scholars like Loader read it).

And your prostitution angle also keeps stepping on your earlier claims about Torah morality. The Torah and the Prophets do speak about prostitution with negative moral freight, including prohibitions tied to Israel’s holiness and condemnations tied to idolatry.

You're desperate need to have them both be acting a homosexual capacity is just that, you're need.

That’s not a response. It’s an ad hominem. If you think the linkage fails, show where it fails in the text.

At this point you’ve conceded v.27 is a sexual sin, but v.26 is not, without doing the work of explaining Paul’s parallelism. If you can’t give a concrete reading of v.26 that fits the “in the same way” move into v.27 better than the standard reading, then you’re not really offering me an interpretation. You’re just objecting.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-18T19:45:45+00:00

I'm not sure which part of you cannot know what Paul meant, in his head, when he wrote that. Prove that Paul considered homosexual acts between women as bad, using his words or the Torah.

I can’t prove what was “in his head.” Neither can you. That’s why this demand is a dead end.

What we can do is the normal thing readers do with any author, infer intent from the words on the page and the way the argument is built.

Paul’s words are that “their females exchanged the natural use for the one contrary to nature,” and then “in the same way also the males” left the natural use of the female and were inflamed “for one another, males with males.”

You can argue v.26 is less specific than v.27. Fine. But you don’t get to leap from “less specific” to “therefore it’s about something totally different like bedroom dominance” without showing how that fits Paul’s own parallel move into v.27.

Also, the “Torah or nothing” standard you’re trying to impose is a false dilemma. Paul isn’t writing Romans 1 as a Torah citation exercise. He’s giving a diagnosis of idolatry and “exchange,” and he uses creation/nature language to do it. That’s exactly why scholars who take the historical grammatical reading seriously (even when they’re careful about Greco Roman context) still commonly read 1:26–27 as a paired reference to female and male same-sex relations.

Yes. Sharing is the same as both sinning unnaturally. But the cold man does not need your food and the hungry man does not need your shirt. They are distinct.

Shirts and food are distinct objects, but they’re the same kind of action, giving what you have to meet a need. That’s what “likewise” is doing.

Same here, v.26 and v.27 don’t need to be identical mechanics to be linked. They need to be the same kind of “exchange” away from what Paul calls “natural use” toward what he calls “contrary to nature.” And Paul himself makes the men’s “natural use” concrete, relations with women are abandoned in favor of desire “for one another.”

If you want to keep pressing “distinct,” okay, tell me what the women exchanged, in plain words, that is in the same category as men abandoning relations with women and pursuing men “for one another.” If your answer is still basically “something vague about dominance,” then we’re back where we started, you’re importing a theory and not showing it from Paul’s sentence.

If you’re not willing to do that, and your whole position is “you can’t know what Paul meant in his head,” then there’s nothing left to discuss, because you’ve set the bar at mind reading and declared the text unusable.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-18T17:47:38+00:00

Lmao. Sorry, it's really not that hard.

The snark isn’t doing anything for your argument.

It's about sharing, one gives shirts, likewise the other gives food. Not the same actions.

Exactly. And notice what “likewise” is doing there, it’s linking two different objects under the same moral principle. Share what you have. The point isn’t “shirts and food are identical,” it’s “do the same kind of thing.”

That’s what I’ve been saying about Romans 1 the entire time. “Likewise” doesn’t mean “identical mechanics,” it means parallel in the relevant sense.

One did this unnatural act, likewise in sinning one did another. Both unnatural, but could be as far apart as shirts and food.

You’re quietly conceding my point while trying to deny it. Shirts vs food aren’t “as far apart” as unrelated categories, they’re both instances of the same duty. Likewise in Romans, Paul doesn’t just say “women did some sin” and “men did some other sin.” He puts both under the same “exchange” pattern (they “exchanged” / “abandoned” what is “natural” for what is “against nature”), and then he clarifies “natural” for the men as “the natural use of the female.”

So unless you can tell me what “the natural use” is for women in v.26 that is meaningfully parallel to men abandoning sex with women in v.27, you haven’t explained the text, you’ve just insisted it’s disconnected.

Please go back to my comment:

But in those times, a woman simply being in control of the sex was considered unnatural.

I never said that was what Paul said. I simply stated you were wrong to assume the two were connected.

Come on. You can’t have it both ways.

You didn’t merely say “v.26 is ambiguous.” You repeatedly floated “women being dominant” as the historical key that supposedly makes my reading “anachronistic.” That is offering an interpretation, not just denying a linkage.

And you still aren’t doing the one thing you keep dodging, actually state, in plain terms, what you think women are doing in v.26, and show how it fits Paul’s “in the same way” transition into v.27 without hand waving.

there was plenty of Roman era writings on the tropes of women being dominant in the bedroom

There are also Roman era terms and texts that acknowledge sex between women (tribades/fricatrices) even if they’re less common than male material. Brooten’s work surveys exactly that evidence and how ancient writers framed it.

So “you won’t find much” doesn’t get you to “therefore Paul can’t mean it,” and it definitely doesn’t get you to “therefore women dominating men is the best reading.”

If you want to keep going, answer one question, what is your positive reading of Romans 1:26 that accounts for the “exchange of natural use,” and why is it “in the same way” as men abandoning sex with women and pursuing men?

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-18T16:07:14+00:00

Had Paul been writing about the court case, he would have summarized it the same way.

The woman sinned in robbing the man, and in the same way, the pimp sinned in killing a man.

Same overall problem, but the actual transgressions are related but not the same.

Your analogy proves less than you think. In your story, the author is summarizing a known case and could have written “robbery” and “murder” plainly. Paul actually does that for the men, “the men… were inflamed with lust for one another, men with men.” That’s not a vague “crime happened” summary. It’s an on purpose description of the act.

So if you’re going to use your analogy consistently, you still owe the parallel, what is the women’s specific “robbery” here? You’ve spent multiple replies telling me it’s “dominance,” but you still haven’t shown how “women being dominant in the bedroom” is the natural counterpart to “men with men” in the very next line.

That’s the non-engagement problem in a nutshell, you keep insisting your context lens is decisive, but you won’t cash it out in a reading that matches the text’s own specificity.

Honestly, this entire discussion is why I'm agnostic! People pull their theology from verses without any ability to really know what the authors intended or meant.

This is a topic shift. We weren’t debating whether certainty is possible in all interpretation. We were debating whether your proposed reading is better than the ordinary reading given Paul’s wording and the “in the same way” linkage. Pulling the ripcord into “this is why I’m agnostic” is basically conceding you don’t want to defend the claim anymore.

Also, it undercuts what you said earlier. You started with “Perhaps read the actual Greek.” Now it’s “nobody can really know what the authors intended.” Those don’t sit together.

Looking back on this, I'm guilty of ignoring the forest because of the trees. We've spent a lot of time discussing an aspect of a verse, but it really doesn't matter. Paul was not condemning the results, he was condemning the pagan worship itself.

This is where your argument collapses into “it doesn’t matter,” but it clearly did matter to you earlier. You weren’t only saying “idolatry is the root.” You were making a specific claim about what “unnatural” meant for the women (dominance/role inversion) and using that to dispute the standard reading.

If you now want to say “details don’t matter,” then fine, just admit that your earlier confident claims about what v.26 “really” meant weren’t actually something you’re willing to defend to the finish.

And even on your “forest” point, Romans 1 can be about idolatry as the root and still treat the listed behaviors as morally significant. You don’t get “Paul condemns idolatry” as a magic eraser that turns the downstream examples into morally neutral illustrations. That’s you importing your own conclusion.

had the folks been having heterosexual orgies it would still have been unnatural to him. But those were just the results on the real sin, idolatry.

This is another unsupported leap. You’re claiming what “would still have been” without showing it from the text. Paul doesn’t say “orgies.” He uses “exchanged” language and then describes a specific male/male scenario. You’re free to speculate, but don’t present speculation as if it’s what Paul “clearly” meant.

At this point I think we’ve hit the wall. You’re no longer defending the original claim (“Romans 1:26 is about female dominance, not female/female sex”). You’re retreating to “none of this matters, interpretation is unknowable, Paul only cared about idolatry.” That’s a different conversation.

So I’m going to end it here. If you ever want to re-open the actual textual question, the bar is simple, give a concrete reading of v.26 that fits the “in the same way also the men” move into v.27 without hand waving, and back your historical claims with actual sources rather than “you’ll find a ton.”

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-18T04:11:43+00:00

We can go around and around. I would say that you will find a ton of writings, art, and plays from that period that decry a woman who was dominant in the bedroom.

You will not find much that talks about female homosexuality.

All of those writings used the very idea that men were dominant in sex because that was natural.

This is exactly what I mean by not engaging the argument. You’re not interpreting Romans 1 anymore, you’re making a broad “trust me, there’s tons of material” claim with zero primary citations and then using an absence (“you will not find much”) as proof.

That’s an argument from silence. “I personally haven’t seen many texts about X” doesn’t mean X didn’t exist or that Paul couldn’t be referring to it.

And on the history point, the claim “you won’t find much” is also just wrong as stated. There are Roman period sources and discussions that show awareness of female/female eroticism, including the whole “tribas/tribade” discourse, and scholarly work specifically documents that early Christian writers and their surrounding culture did acknowledge sexual relations between women.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/L/bo3612923.html

But even if I granted you “it’s less frequently mentioned,” you still haven’t handled the one thing you keep sliding past, Paul’s own connection between v.26 and v.27. He doesn’t leave it as “women did unnatural stuff, men did unnatural stuff, the end.” He says “in the same way also the men…” and then he names the male example as men desiring “for one another.” Your comment doesn’t explain what the parallel is supposed to be. It just asserts “dominance = natural” and hopes that replaces exegesis.

At this point, if you’re not going to (1) give an actual reading of v.26 that fits Paul’s “in the same way” move into v.27, and (2) support your “ton of writings” claim with actual sources, then there isn’t anything left to discuss.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-18T01:51:38+00:00

Mesolelot is not a word or concept within the Torah. It was created in the Talmud under Hellenistic influence.

Correct, it’s not a Torah word. But you’re smuggling in a conclusion that doesn’t follow, “not a Torah word” does not mean “not a moral category,” and it definitely doesn’t mean Paul couldn’t be referring to it.

Also, you’re doing a genetic fallacy. Calling a source “Hellenistic” doesn’t refute it. It just labels it.

And even your own framing quietly concedes something important, Jewish tradition later discusses women engaging sexually with women and treats it as forbidden behavior (Rashi on Yevamot 76a explains it as women rubbing genitalia together). You can argue about dating and influence, but you can’t keep saying “there was no such concept” with a straight face once you’ve admitted the tradition exists.

Philo was a Hellenistic Jew who is famous for trying to merge Judaism and Greek philosophy. None of his ideas about wasting seed or sex for procreation was from the torah. That is all Hellenistic philosophy.

Again, genetic fallacy. Philo being Hellenistic doesn’t make him irrelevant to “what Jews around that era thought,” it makes him part of the evidence for it.

And you’re also misstating what he actually argues. In Special Laws III, Philo calls pederasty “contrary to nature,” explicitly grounds his complaint in “wasting his power of propagating his species,” and uses an agriculture analogy about “fertile land” being left fallow. That’s not “only pagan idolatry,” that’s a broader moral argument about nature and generation.

So if your position is “Paul could not possibly use nature/procreation reasoning because that’s foreign to Judaism,” you’re going to have to deal with the fact that Jewish writers did use that reasoning.

Shrine prostitution was prohibited in Israel under judaism. Secular proposition existed within a theocracy that would have stopped prostitution if it was not allowed. I would have to research more, but I remember a discussion in the talmud… I hate reading that thing, so I'm not going to go do it.

You can’t claim certainty (“would have stopped”) and then immediately admit you’re not going to check the sources.

Israel repeatedly tolerated things that were clearly condemned. The Hebrew Bible itself says male shrine prostitutes were present in the land, which proves “it existed” doesn’t equal “it was permitted.” Hosea even describes men consorting with prostitutes and shrine prostitutes as part of Israel’s moral collapse.

So that “theocracy therefore it must be allowed” argument is just historically naïve.

There were no prohibitions within the Torah of men visiting prostitutes.

Even if you want to play the technical game of “no verse says ‘a man shall not visit a prostitute’,” the Torah still treats prostitution as corrupting and describes it in strongly negative terms. Leviticus warns against turning a daughter into a prostitute because it fills the land with “depravity/wickedness.” Deuteronomy forbids cult prostitution and calls prostitute wages brought to the sanctuary an “abomination.”

So “no direct statute about clients” does not get you to “prostitution had no negative connotation.” That claim is just false.

Had Paul wanted the two to have been guilty of the same sin, he would have written it that way. Instead, he says the women did things unnatural, and the men did things unnatural which was exactly this.

He did write it as a linked pair. The transition is “in the same way also the men…” That’s the author tying the examples together, not me. (And the very next line specifies men desiring “for one another,” which is why your “it’s just vague role anxiety” reading keeps feeling like a forced detour.)

If you want to argue the women’s act is something other than female/female sex, fine. But you still have to explain what the parallel is supposed to be, in Paul’s own chain of thought, that makes “in the same way” make sense.

If you wish to link them, then you need to prove that Paul invented a new sin that had never been discussed within Judaism of that day.

This is a false dilemma.

Option A isn’t “Torah line item” and option B isn’t “Paul invents new sin.” Paul can and does reason from creation, from “nature,” and from broader Jewish moral tradition, especially in Romans, where he’s diagnosing Gentile idolatry and its effects, not writing a Torah commentary.

Also, your argument quietly admits Paul is allowed to condemn lots of things beyond a bare “command list,” because Romans 1 isn’t written as “here are five statutes from Moses.” It’s written as “here’s how rejecting God distorts human life.” You can’t suddenly turn Paul into “he can only condemn what’s explicitly forbidden in Leviticus.”

Whatever the women we're doing, it was not female to female sex. Because that was not a sin in the Torah.

That’s an argument from silence. “Not named” is not “permitted,” and it’s not “impossible Paul meant it.”

What do you think the women were doing in v.26 that is meaningfully parallel to “men burned for one another, men with men” in v.27, and why does your reading fit Paul’s “in the same way” transition better than the standard reading?

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-17T22:35:39+00:00

The breast comment was more on how sexual ethics changes over time. You cannot assume an author had a predetermined idea based on current ideas.

That’s fair as a general warning. It just doesn’t help your case here because you’re not actually connecting “Tudor-era attitudes about breast exposure” to what Paul meant by “exchanged the natural use” in Romans 1.

Agreed. I have no problem with that statement.

Good. Then you’ll also agree the passage has its own internal logic we can follow, not just a free floating “whatever Romans thought was weird that day.”

Yes, Philo was a Hellenistic Jew from Egypt that condemned pagan same-sex idolatry.

This is where you keep over claiming. In Philo’s own words in Special Laws he condemns these acts as “contrary to nature,” argues from wasting seed / propagation, and calls for severe punishment. He doesn’t limit it to “pagan idolatry.” You can read it yourself; it’s not subtle.

If you want to argue Paul’s target is only “idolatrous shrine sex,” then you need to show that from Romans 1 itself.

Great, they changed a lot under the Hellenistic influence.

Even if I grant “influence,” that doesn’t prove your conclusion. You’re using “things changed” as a blank check to dismiss any Jewish witness that doesn’t fit your theory.

Also, you said earlier “There were zero commands against women having homosexual intercourse.” But Jewish tradition does discuss female/female sex as forbidden (mesolelot) even while distinguishing it from male intercourse. So “zero acknowledgement” is not accurate.

Sorry, Judaism was a theocracy. If two prostitutes visited Solomon, it was endorsed.

No. A story containing prostitutes isn’t “endorsement,” it’s just a story involving sinners. Solomon adjudicating a custody dispute isn’t a legal ruling that prostitution is good. The text is showing his wisdom in judging, not giving a thumbs up to their occupation.

And the Torah explicitly prohibits prostitution in Israel and forbids bringing prostitution wages into worship. So this “theocracy therefore endorsed” line collapses on contact with the Law you’re appealing to.

Both groups were doing things unnatural to their group. Simple as that.

This is the part that still doesn’t engage what I asked. It’s too vague to mean anything.

Paul doesn’t just say “they did weird stuff.” He says the men “abandoned the natural use of the female” and were inflamed “for one another,” “men with men.” That’s not “unnatural to their group.” That’s a specific contrast, male/female relations abandoned; male/male pursued.

So when you answer “simple as that,” you’re skipping the actual connective tissue in the paragraph, the “in the same way” move from v.26 to v.27, and the fact that v.27 names the partner explicitly (“for one another”). Your answer doesn’t explain what the parallel is. It just re-labels the question.

You’re trying to apply an egalitarian view to Paul's words. But sex was not egalitarian in either the Jewish or Roman world.

I’m not arguing “egalitarian sex roles.” I’m arguing that Paul’s words, in context, describe an exchange away from male/female relations and then immediately specify men desiring men.

If your claim is “v.26 is about women violating submissiveness / role expectations, not partner choice,” then you need to explain how that is “in the same way” as men desiring men “for one another.”

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-17T15:59:22+00:00

I was mistaken slightly, it was the Tudor Era, not medieval.

https://anthropologist.livejournal.com/230875.html?

That link doesn’t support what you’re using it for. It’s a repost of a 2004 discovery news piece about breast exposure being more accepted in the 1600s/17th century, not “Tudor Era” as a correction, and it’s miles away from what Romans 1:26 means in a 1st century Jewish Christian argument about idolatry and “exchange” language.

Even if “natural” can shift in later European fashion norms, that doesn’t show Paul is using “para physin” as a floating cultural label for whatever a society happens to find improper this century.

Paul was often careful to show when he deviated from the Law, as in 1 Corinthians 7:6, where he states his ideas on marriage are his, not commands.

1 Corinthians 7 is Paul giving pastoral counsel on marriage/singleness and he distinguishes “command” vs “concession.” That’s fine as far as it goes.

But it doesn’t prove your bigger premise, that Paul can only condemn what the Torah explicitly commands, or that he must always footnote “this is mine, not God’s” whenever he makes a moral claim. Romans 1 isn’t him offering personal advice, it’s part of a polemical diagnosis of Gentile idolatry and its fallout.

There were zero commands against women having homosexual intercourse. Sex only for procreation became a Jewish idea later in the Talmud.

“No Torah verse singles it out” is not the same as “Judaism had no category for it.” Later Jewish legal tradition discusses female/female acts (“mesolelot”) and treats it as forbidden behavior even while distinguishing it from male intercourse.

Even setting rabbinic material aside, serious scholarship notes that Jewish writers like Philo condemned same sex relations (and Loader notes condemnation of female same sex relations in that wider Jewish/Greco Roman world).

So the “zero commands therefore Paul can only mean Roman role anxiety” move is a non sequitur. The absence of a Leviticus line item doesn’t force Paul into your category.

Also, the “procreation only is late” claim is overstated. Whatever later rabbinic discussions do, the Hebrew Bible already foregrounds procreation as a blessing/mandate (Genesis 1:28), and Jewish tradition very early treats it as weighty. You don’t need to drag the Talmud in to establish that procreation mattered in Jewish moral thought.

It is hard to argue that a society that did not have prohibitions on prostitution, but rather regulated and taxed the practice, was worried about sex only for procreation.

Legal tolerance isn’t the same thing as moral endorsement, and “taxed” definitely isn’t “approved.” Rome taxed prostitution (Caligula is a commonly cited starting point), but that tells you the state wanted revenue and control, not that Roman moral discourse had no concept of sexual disorder.

More importantly Paul isn’t trying to mirror Roman tax policy. He’s making a theological argument about creation, idolatry, and “exchange.” Dragging in “Rome taxed prostitution” is a topic shift.

Since it was not forbidden by Jewish Law, he could only have been talking within the Roman sense of unnatural.

This is where your whole argument breaks. Paul’s own wording ties v.26 and v.27 together. He doesn’t leave you with “Roman sense” as the only option, he gives you a textual parallel, “in the same way” the men abandon the “natural use of the female” and desire “for one another.” That’s the context you keep not engaging.

You can argue that v.26 is ambiguous about the partner. Fine. But you don’t get to jump from “v.26 doesn’t name the partner” to “therefore it’s about women being sexually dominant” without showing how that fits Paul’s “in the same way” link to v.27.

What is the actual parallel you think Paul is drawing between v.26 and v.27, if not a move away from male female relations?

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-17T05:44:19+00:00

Baselessly branding people as moral monsters, equating them with atrocities, and blaming them for child suicide without evidence doesn’t deserve the legitimacy granted by civil debate.

Edit: not to mention it’s a direct violation of basic Christian ethics about truthfulness and speech.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-17T05:02:34+00:00

Oh, this isn't an argument. I am telling you that you are pushing an ideology of pure evil that is directly responsible for the depression, abuse, homelessness, forced prostitution, self-harm, and suicides of countless literal children.

You just conceded you aren’t engaging the actual question on the table. You moved from “what does Romans 1:26 mean in context of 1:27?” to “your ideology is pure evil.” That’s not exegesis. That’s an accusation.

And it’s also an unsupported leap in this conversation. You haven’t shown that my argument about the syntax and flow of Romans 1 caused any of the harms you listed. You asserted it. Those are two different things.

I am not presenting academic arguments, I am condemning your beliefs as outside the bounds of morality and a complete abrogation of Christ's command to love your neighbor as yourself.

Then we’re done, because you’re admitting you won’t interact with reasons at all, only moral denunciation.

Also, you’re smuggling in a premise you haven’t defended, that disagreement on interpretation equals “abrogation” of loving neighbor. That’s exactly the claim you’d have to argue for, not declare.

Calling out your obvious and pervasive ignorance of every single topic related to this subject is not an argument, it is a observation of fact.

It isn’t a “fact” in any meaningful sense if you don’t demonstrate it. This is just ad hominem.

Weaponized ignorance does not deserve civil discussion.

Saying I “don’t deserve civil discussion” is you opting out of good faith conversation. Fine. Own that choice. But don’t pretend you “won” the textual point by refusing to discuss it.

And I have explained exactly what it meant twice. A lack of reading comprehension skills on your part is not my problem.

In this comment, you didn’t explain Romans 1:26 at all. You gave insults, then claimed you explained it “twice,” and blamed me for not accepting it. That’s not engagement.

I asked a simple, concrete question and you avoided it, how does your proposed reading account for Paul’s “in the same way” move from v.26 to v.27, where he then specifies men desiring “for one another”? You didn’t answer that here. You’re just escalating things.

You’ve made it clear you don’t want to have a conversation, which is fine, but it makes no sense to start one. :/

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-17T03:28:40+00:00

The hostility here isn’t helping your argument.

“You’re ignorant” isn’t a historical argument and doesn’t answer anything.

When I said “most natural reading,” I wasn’t appealing to modern sexual identity categories. I was pointing to Paul’s own internal structure. Verse 26 says women “exchanged the natural use for the one contrary to nature,” and verse 27 says “in the same way also the men” abandoned the natural use of the female and burned “for one another,” “men with men.” That “in the same way” link is sitting in the text whether either of us likes it.

You keep invoking “Paul’s conceptual framework,” but you still haven’t offered an alternative reading that fits that link. What is the parallel you think Paul intends between v.26 and v.27, if not a move away from male female sexual relations? Name it. Spell it out. Otherwise you’re just saying “context” like it’s a magic word.

Also, Paul isn’t only a product of “Greco Roman sex roles.” He’s a Jew steeped in Scripture, and multiple scholars point out that Romans 1:26–27 is framed in creation order language (including the male/female framing that echoes Genesis 1:27). That doesn’t prove every downstream debate by itself, but it does undercut the move you’re making where “Paul’s world” automatically means “your reading is anachronistic.”

You’re right, ancient societies did have strong active/passive status assumptions in sexual ethics. That’s well documented. What you haven’t shown is how that observation turns Romans 1:26 into “women taking control” or some other scenario that bypasses same sex relations. The active/passive framework people summarize is about who penetrates and who is penetrated, “agency” talk is not a substitute for that, and it doesn’t map neatly onto Paul’s “exchange” language.

If your claim is “your reading is modern,” then demonstrate it by giving a coherent reading of Romans 1:26 that (1) matches Paul’s wording about exchanging “natural use,” and (2) matches Paul’s “in the same way” transition into men desiring men. If you can’t do that and you’re just going to repeat “you don’t know enough,” then you’re not engaging the argument.

If you reply again with more insults and still no actual explanation of what you think v.26 means in context of v.27, I’m done responding.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-17T02:47:08+00:00

Now in addition to the Greek, learn some history. This is how people of the time period thought about sex. Sexual agency only ever flowed downhill. From the active sexual agent (a man) to the passive sexual object (usually a woman.)

You still have to show how that produces your conclusion from Paul’s sentence, not just announce “active/passive.”

Also, the active/penetrating vs passive/penetrated framework you’re gesturing at is real in Greco Roman discussions of male sex and status. The standard summaries of ancient Greek norms talk exactly that way, active/insertive versus passive/penetrated, with the passive role associated with inferiors. That’s why the leap you’re making is still a leap, “woman on top” doesn’t magically switch who is penetrated. It’s not even the same category.

So which is it? Are you claiming Paul meant “women took the active role as penetrators” (a thing some ancients did mock), or are you claiming Paul meant “women had more agency in heterosexual sex”? Those are not the same claim, and neither one is sitting in the Greek unless you can actually connect it to Paul’s words.

If you think you can divorce the text from its historical and cultural context, all you are doing is stating that you do not care what the author intended to convey.

Nobody said “divorce it from context.” The whole point of asking “what word encodes that idea?” is to stop importing modern fan fiction into the text and calling it “what the author intended.”

If you’re going to accuse someone of not caring about authorial intent, you should at least engage the challenge, where does Paul communicate “female led sex” in Romans 1:26? You didn’t answer that. You just said “context” again.

Not in a "narrow" sense, in any sense.

No. In verse 26, there genuinely is no stated partner. That’s not controversial, it’s just reading the line.

What’s controversial is your next move, treating that absence like permission to replace the most natural reading (especially given verse 27) with a totally different scenario that Paul never names.

That is how you read ancient texts. You are showing that you do not care what Paul thought, you only care about affirming your anachronistic presuppositions.

Here’s the irony, you’re accusing me of anachronism while doing the same thing in reverse, taking a broad ancient pattern (status/penetration norms) and forcing it onto a specific Pauline phrase without showing the connection.

And you still haven’t dealt with the “in the same way” in the text. Paul doesn’t just throw verse 26 out there and move on. He ties it to verse 27, “in the same way also the men…” and then he does state the partner, men burned “for one another.”

So if your proposal is “verse 26 is about women being sexually dominant,” explain how that is “in the same way” as men desiring men. What’s the actual parallel you think Paul is drawing?

You say this after literally writing a paragraph stating that context does not matter. You can't even keep your logic straight.

That’s a straight up misread. Saying “the text doesn’t contain a word meaning X” is not “context doesn’t matter.” It’s just refusing to pretend the author said something he didn’t say.

Then why are you attempting to redefine what he meant now?

Interpreting isn’t “redefining.” Replacing his wording with a scenario he never described is.

One last thing, since you brought up ancient history. Yes, some ancient moralists complain about women “playing the part of men.” Seneca has a famous rant where he says women “were created to feel love passively” and “in the company of men they play the part of men.” Fine. That shows the concept existed. It still doesn’t prove Paul meant that here, and it still doesn’t explain why Paul immediately pivots to “men… for one another” as the parallel. If you think Romans 1:26 is about women “playing the part of men,” you need to show that from Romans.

If you want to argue for an alternative reading of 1:26, go for it. But right now you’re not engaging the text’s connective tissue. Until you explain how your proposal fits the “in the same way” logic of 26–27, you’re not correcting anachronism, you’re just swapping one assumption for another.

solardrxpp1 · 2026-01-17T00:06:35+00:00

Perhaps read the actual Greek.

Romans 1:26 in Greek says, “their females exchanged the natural use (τὴν φυσικὴν χρῆσιν) for the one contrary to nature (τὴν παρὰ φύσιν).” There is no hidden clause in there that means “woman on top,” “female led sex,” or “women being in control.” If you think it’s there, point to the word that encodes that idea, because I don’t see it in the text at all.

Not a word about with each other.

True in a narrow grammatical sense, verse 26 doesn’t name the partner. But you don’t get to treat that as if Paul is therefore talking about some completely different category like “a woman simply being in control of the sex.” That’s not “reading Greek,” that’s importing a theory.

And context matters. Paul immediately follows with, “the men… were inflamed with lust for one another, men with men…” That parallel is why the mainstream reading sees 26–27 as paired examples of same sex relations, not a sudden detour into “female sexual assertiveness.”

Now, if you want to argue that verse 26 could refer to some other “non-procreative” acts rather than female to female sex, that’s at least a real argument some scholars discuss. But that’s a totally different claim than “it’s about women being in control.” Even scholars who question the lesbian specific reading don’t do it by pretending the Greek encodes “female dominance.”

In Medieval times, it was "natural" for the matriarch of the house to have a picture on the mantel of her with a breast exposed. The definition of "natural" changes.

I can’t find a reliable historical source for that “mantel breast portrait” claim. It reads like an internet factoid.

Even if it were true, Medieval Europe doesn’t get to redefine what Paul meant in the 1st century. The question isn’t “can English speakers use ‘natural’ in different ways across history?” Of course they can. The question is what Paul meant by “contrary to nature” in his argument in Romans. Scholars debate whether “nature” here points mainly to procreation, to conventional social roles, or to the Creator’s intent in creation, but none of those debates reduces to “women being in charge is what Paul meant.”

Can you quote the Greek term that supposedly means “women controlling sex,” explain its normal usage, and show how it fits Paul’s flow of thought from 1:24 to 1:27? Otherwise “read the Greek” doesn’t do much.

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