Homosexual Marriage

The Normalization and Legalization of Sin of Homosexuality does not make it not a sin.Just like abortion is sin and has been legalized . Just as lying is sin but is not normally considered criminal, homosexuality is also a sin, which even when legalized or criminalized remains a sin.

    A person may have a homosexual orientation, but it is not the orientation which is the sin, but the act itself when done or even longed after or the allowing of the desire for homosexuality to lead to it's action. Now when it comes to two people of the same sex marrying, it is not permitted by God but by particular states. Well, if the states permit it, the people who accept it are free to marry, but trying to obtaining religious sanction from a religion which opposes it or trying to change the teaching of the religion to fit thier sexual orientation is wrong. If they want to follow a particular religion, they can follow it. If they want to reject a particular religion, they can. But they cannot alter it to fit their sexual orientation nor can they force the pastor or priest to conduct a homosexual marriage. He is free to follow his conscience.

   Christians  are to love and accept homosexuals, even if do not agree with their homosexual promiscuity, just like you have heterosexually promiscuous friends, lying friends and Christians themselves may have some pet sins or habitual sins in which you are struggling. It is their country which has given them the right to practise it or to even marry in a homosexual way. As Christians let us focus on presenting Christ to everyone, homosexual or not and let God convict them and transform them in accordance with his word and power.

This does not mean we accept homosexual acts as normal or NOT sin anymore. We may have habitual sins, but we still consider them sins; we try to avoid them and when we end up falling sometimes, we seek God's forgiveness and not his sanction exactly because we still consider them as sins.

But when it comes to homosexuality, what a homosexual is claiming is not repentance but sanction. He is not willing to accept it is a sin as sin, therefore is at odds with God. All he has to do is accept it as sin and then repent and ask God to forgive him and he will be forgiven for Christ's sake. Then God will deliver him and keep him from committing homosexual acts even if he has the desire or the temptation. Even if he falls, and if he seeks forgiveness, Jesus will forgive him and give him clean conscience so that he can learn not to commit that sin again. Most of the time it is a process of learning to resist a particular sin, in this case homosexuality, which God graciously will teach. Some cases sudden immediate deliverances so happen. God decides how he wants to go about delivering someone. Sure it is a hard discipline to start with like any discipline. But with God's grace any person including a homosexual can be transformed. God loves the homosexual too, even if he hates that particular sin.

Homosexual marriage, the big fuzz nowadays is a state sanctioned marriage, not a religion sanctioned one. Homosexuals are free in countries where they are allowed to marry to have civil union. Let them have it. It is definitely a mistake on the state's part to have allowed it, but they will answer for it, for God will surely judge them.

I still wonder why anyone would label themselves as homosexual. It is a private individual choice, a private sin at worst. But homosexual marriage is the consequence of passage of society in secular mode. When the Roman empire was pagan, homosexuality was normal; so was pedophilia ;so was temple prostitution; so was slavery. When Christianity came it changed, for the better. All the above mentioned were criminalized to protect the weak and innocent, especially children from being exploited. Even when Roman Catholic priests were charged with sexual abuse, they did not sanction it or make it part of the Catholic faith. It was an error, a sin which went unchecked and the Catholic church accepted it.

Homosexual were homosexuals, especially in private, but they want to come out now and make it look decent and accepted. Well, that is not at all surprising with the de-christianization of Western society. I use de-christianization rather than secularization because America was founded as Christian nation and only the monotheistic religions forbid homosexuality, not Hinduism or Buddhism. Islamic states will even behead homosexuals if they were in accordance with Sharia law. A Hindu or Buddhist society may still allow homosexual marriage and consider it part of their religion, just like the Greeks and Romans did.

Eliminativism and Naturalism

Elimination and naturalism are two too closely bonded ideas. Naturalism in order to establish it's supremacy and dominance claims that a lot of phenomenon that does not fit with the thesis of naturalism does not exist i.e it just eliminates it. This act of naturalism to use elimination as an explanation to prove itself is baseless eliminativism.

"If therefore he comes across some phenomenon that is hard to account for in materialist terms, he often ends up by denying its very existence. For instance, many materialist philosophers deny that there is any such thing as subjective experience. Philosophers call this view 'eliminativism'. What cannot be explained by theory is eliminated from consideration."  - Stephen Barr, Modern Physics and Ancient Faith.

Understanding Reality: Science or Religion

Many times in contemporary culture and media, science is pitted against religion in a effort to prove the superiority of science and undermine the influence and hold of religion over society. Many popular programs in Discovery Science and National Geographic produce programs like 'Cosmos', where scientists like Neil deGrasse Tyson, present programs which explain the history of science and the influence of science as something which has nothing to do with religion and religion to have nothing to do with reality. Though these pronouncements are made subtly as part of a greater argument, yet it is clearly made in a way which you will not miss out.

But the fact of the matter is that Science has it's foundation firmly on Christian ideas like the operation of laws in the universe, the reality of the external world, the consistency of the laws of the universe, the comprehensibility of these laws by man and the beauty in the laws and equations describing the universe. Rationality used in any scientific endeavor cannot be explained by science. Science can explain the rationality in humans but not the rationality out there, including the laws of mathematics and laws of logic. Science which explains 'How' things work in the universe does not explain itself. The scientific method is a philosophical idea, which when applied becomes the method for scientific investigation to detect the 'truth'. The idea of 'truth' itself is a theo-philosophical idea and not a scientific one.

Religion, especially Christianity deals with the 'Why' of reality. It explains the following: Why we are able to do science? Because there is truth which God has put out in nature and we are rational beings created in the image of God who are endowed with the ability to think, experiment and detect the laws of nature. Why we should do science? To detect the thoughts of God hidden in the created universe which he has engineered and to establish dominion over earth and develop technology for the benefit of the people.Why are the laws of nature reliable? Because the one God has created it and sustains it with his power and wisdom, which makes these laws consistent over time. Christianity explains the concepts of truth, rationality and the laws of nature whose existence science can  detect and describe. But science cannot answer the reason or purpose why the universe is the way it is.

So we need God and science, to explain the 'Why' and 'How' of reality, which gives us a more fuller picture of reality than provided by science alone. So the fallacy dilemma created by the secularist and atheist that science makes religion or faith in God redundant is a fallacious claim. They also do not speak about the assumptions and limitations of modern science.

Reference:
John Polkinghorn;Quarks, Chaos and Christianity: Questions to Science and Religion.

Christianity and the Growth of Science

One of the important contributions of Christianity towards the de-divinization of nature including trees, rivers and most importantly Sun, moon and planets.

Polytheism and nature worship in many cultures included worship of Sun, moon, stars, rivers, fire, fertility, crop circles etc. This prevented the scientific study of these objects as they were considered gods. In many culture astrology controlled the major decisions of life. The stars were seen as controlling the life of the individual human beings. The scientific study of stars and cosmos i.e Astronomy or cosmology was not their interest. Astronomical calculations were made for astrological purposes and it stiffled the proper study of the objects concerned. This study was mostly included identifying and naming constellations and using it for astrology.

Indian systems like Ayurveda and Siddha medicine have a long history but their advances were nothing compared to western medicine and therefore even Indians go to allopathy practitioners most of the time rather than to their own medical systems.

With the advent of Christianity and the christian thought - theology and philosophy, the Jewish idea that God created the universe became predominant. That sun and moon are mere lamps providing light and the planets and elements like fire, water, earth, air, matter including both organic and inorganic matter and the minds of men and women were all created  and not divine. This idea was instrumental in Europe becoming the center of scientific progress rather than China or India. Even though India and China has significant scientific disciplines, the progress of science to the extent of what we have today would not have taken place in those cultures.

The main theme of genesis Chapter 1, the very chapter of the Holy Bible is the establishment of the fact that nature was created by God and is NOT to be worshiped. It is the creator who is worthy of worship and not nature. The God who made everything also instituted laws according to which the universe functions. These laws were not under the control of multiple gods who would change it for their own agenda, if and when a dispute arose with the any other god. But the one God, the creator and sustainer of the whole universe has made theses laws to be unchanging laws, reliable ones. He keeps them unchanging so that the universe can function the way it does. The belief that laws of nature do not change was a very important idea that enabled the study of nature to discover them and apply them. They also promoted the idea of 'scientific doxology' which is the worship of God through the study of science. Science helps us discover laws and equations and design in nature and helps us appreciate the wisdom and power of God, which in turn leads to worship of God in response.

 The de-divinization of nature freed up the human mind to study it without fear. The fact that God created everything and called it "good" made the study of science the study of goodness and the study of the truth about nature which God has created. It also revealed the mind of the creator who created it.

The mandate placed by God to humans to multiply and dominate and rule over the earth became the driving force behind technological development which were done by Christians both Protestant and Catholic, in Europe to fulfill this mandate and use the natural laws or the benefit of humanity. So they studied nature and discovered laws which they used to build machines, and develop medicines and vaccines and build dams and windmills.



I've heard many people consider Christianity as an enemy of science. This view is an erroneous one, based on false propaganda and is entirely contrary to the truth. The rise of modern Atheism can be contributed more to the ignorance of history of science, philosophy and theology, than to scientific advancement. The oft quoted Galileo episode was an anomaly and an exception but has wrongly come to be understood as Christianity being against science. Galileo himself was a Christian and  the whole 'Galileo affairs' has not been completely and deeply studied by many. There were lot of issues in which Galileo was wrong in his scientific work, including the fact that he thought 'tides' were due to the movement of the earth. He also had a personal problem with the pope at that period of time. There were other explanations to the certain problems which the Ptolemaic model had and Galileo could not provide convincing proof. Moreover the Catholic church in which he was a part of was itself focusing on the Protestant reformation that was blazing through Europe. But once the catholic church was convinced and the confirmatory evidence was adequate, it changed it's position. After all you need good amount of evidence before you change an existing theory.

Christian scientists Kepler, Galileo, Newton, Mendel, Robert Boyle, Blaise Pascal, Faraday, Priestly, Jenner, Polkinghorn were trailblazers in their areas of scientific study which they considered as 'Calling of God'.  The father of the scientific method, Francis Bacon himself was a committed Christian who theological and philosophical works are well- known. Moreover, Copernicus whose theory Galileo proved through his work, was himself a part of the Church and was Canon of the Church, involved in ecclesiastical and theological matters.  They were not just scientists, they were also philosophers and theologians. It is ignorance of these facts which has misled many people.

The Church both Protestant and Catholic gave rise to a number of scientists who served humanity through their commitment to the discovery of truth in God's creation, advancement  of science and  the benefit of humankind for the glory of God. 

The Concept of God in Islam and Christianity | Dr.W.L.Craig