In some Christian views, from what I remember, Hell is reserved for those who reject god - meaning newborn babies and people who've never had the opportunity to convert are not punished and just end up in Purgatory. Views on what that means differ.
Leviticus 18:22 is the verse in question on homosexuality. But, you might want to read the context in which that verse in mentioned. We obey a little more in that chapter than just that one verse.
Of course you follow most of those. Most of those say the exact same thing! (No incest), and the other three non-homosexuality ones are no Bestiality, no Adultery, and no sexual relations during menstrual period (for more context see 20:(10-21)). The last bit is just foreverbanishment worthy, the others are death-worthy... but they aren't alone. I've read the entire book of Leviticus (in multiple translations), trust me, I understand the context - not just the context of that individual verse, but the context of the book as a whole. Sure, Christian's do a pretty good job of following the sex laws, probably because they are so easy - but this is his 18th chapter of laws, and a good portion of those that come before it and after it are completely ignored. Not just the food ones, either. He organizes by topic, so the "context" is in no way surprising. The only thing that IS slightly surprising is he doesn't go on to condemn fornification in general like pretty much every other chapter of the Bible that mentions laying with a man.
Other things he describes that must never be done:
Tattoos
Eating from a fruit tree before the fifth year
No shaving your beard
Seeing psychics (penalty of death)
If there was going to be any chapter they decided not to ignore, why couldn't they have focused on ch19:(9-17), eh? That's a pretty good one, and the stuff in it is condemned, arguably, even more heavily than in ch18. (depends on translation, in my experience though)
And it is easy to see how the Church could have dropped this books importance, claiming it only applied to the Jews in Isreal, because of that context. The book is almost completely about the laws for the nation they are being given in a way. But it doesn't explain why they would continue to use it to argue against certain things - I mean, the incest ban is reiterated a whole bunch of times in other books, but it was also explicitly stated to not be a specifically Christian doctrine, but rather something not tolerated even among the pagan's and thus something which everyone realized was wrong. There's also the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, but wow does that change a lot depending on the translation you read, eh?
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Topic: Question for Christians (Read 9449 times)