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[RedKing]

yeah, the Orthodox have icons. Oddly enough, I received an icon as a Confirmation present from my (Missouri Synod Lutheran) pastor. It was an odd choice of gift, but the artwork is fantastic. I've also been to some Russian Orthodox services where the veneration of the icon is a key part of the liturgy. Orthodoxy is intriguing to me...if I was to ever go back to Christianity, that might be where I'd end up.

[scriver]

So for the longest time there was just one Christianity. then, around the time of the Byzantine empire, shit began to go down.

There were hundreds of different sects and cults and cultures in early Christian history. Many of them were alike, but there were also those that were fundamentally different (Gnosticism is just one example). They didn't start consolidating until the Pontifex Maximus decided he wanted to be Bishop Supreme and that all other Christians should get in line with him and his way of worshipping. Thus began hundreds of years of actual persecution of Christians as those silly little peon's just wouldn't stop disagreeing with God's Voice on Earth.

Oh and yeah, those branches of early non-Papal Christianity that did survive, often because they were out of reach, are also called "orthodox" churches, but this is not the same "orthodox" as are found in say, Orthodox Greek or Orthodox Russian. The latter "Eastern Orthodox" churches are also known as "Orthodox Catholic" for a reason. Iirc.

yeah, the Orthodox have icons. Oddly enough, I received an icon as a Confirmation present from my (Missouri Synod Lutheran) pastor. It was an odd choice of gift, but the artwork is fantastic. I've also been to some Russian Orthodox services where the veneration of the icon is a key part of the liturgy. Orthodoxy is intriguing to me...if I was to ever go back to Christianity, that might be where I'd end up.

I have long suspected Protestant priest all host an intense, secret envy of Eastern Orthodox culture. "My" priest certainly did

[GlyphGryph]

For those who were a bit confused by the use of the word sect, it refers to any distinct religious or (in the more modern expansive definition) ideological group, especially but not exclusively those that break off from a larger group. The problem is that, much like Cleave, there are actually two valid definitions of the word sect depending on the source: "The beaten way" ie idealogy/religion, or the meaning "to cut off", seen in words like bisect. These definitions became kind of conflated, muddying the issue.

The negative bits come because, historically, the various Churches reserved its use for heretical sects (i.e., everyone but them. They weren't a sect because they were the only ones that mattered). Of course, since every group considered every other group heretical, this still results in them all having been considered sects.

[Willfor]

Iconoclasm in the Orthodox church was resolved as matter of theology by Irene of Athens. There were several other matters of politics and theology that separated the two though. It didn't help that at the time there were two major places who were calling themselves the continuation of Rome.

[scriver]

The Byzantines didn't just call themselves the continuation of Rome. They were the Eastern Roman Empire. They never stopped being it. They never called themselves anything else - "Byzantine" is a 19th century concept.

Unlike the Holy Roman Empire, which was nothing but a "continuation". Though they pretended to be the Western Empire, so that didn't really matter. Claimed different parts of Old Rome.

[Leafsnail]

What I was getting at is that it's just as serious as any other sin. If it's a choice, then I probably couldn't voice my opinion about it without getting banned in the face (I'd think that God could understand your specific predicament, though), but if it's unfix able  (Genetic, whatever, we've already said it's complicated) Then the person committing it would be forgiven.

So uh... just as serious as any other sin in spite of doing no harm to anyone, eh?

[kaijyuu]

God's morality doesn't have to follow your morality. Or mine. Or anyone's but his own.

Not saying I agree with ggamer, but "that would be wrong" isn't something you can levy directly at God. People, sure (especially those who pretend to be speaking for God but aren't, in your opinion).

[Leafsnail]

Sure, it's perfectly possible that God has a strange view of morality that doesn't correspond to our own.  In that case the most sensible thing to do would be to ignore it and continue using the stuff that actually works.

[Descan]

Besides, didn't he, uh, you know, make us?

Kind of a dick move to give us a different morality than him and then punish us for not following his. :/

[ChairmanPoo]

Both Catholics and Orthodox use icons. I think you're mixing things up. The Iconoclasm incidents predate the East-West schism. I think the Iconoclasts were of Byzantine persuasions, but IIRC were not approved by most of the Eastern hierarchy. The schism came later, and was about several different issues (not least among them whether the Pope had seniority over the Patriarch of Constantinople, or the other way around)

[Leafsnail]

Besides, didn't he, uh, you know, make us?

Kind of a dick move to give us a different morality than him and then punish us for not following his. :/

Ah, but in God's morality, that was a good thing to do.

[Truean]

GGamer,

Have you ever actually examined the basis for believing that homosexuality is a sin?

Level of Offense:
Even assuming being gay is a sin, the punishment, and level of severity, doesn't fit the crime. There are two levels of "sin." Mortal (very serious) and Venial (not so serious). All abominations are Mortal (very serious) sins. If homosexuality is an abomination, then it is also a mortal (very serious) sin. Here, that'd be like saying jaywalking is a felony. I posit this doesn't make sense for numerous reasons including but not limited to these:

Being Voluntary?
If God is all knowing, all powerful and all loving, then he would be fair and wouldn't make people a certain way just for them to be punished for the way he made them. If you think being gay is a sin, if being gay really isn't something you can control, then it shouldn't be a sin at all. Logically, if God made everyone, including gay people, then he made them how they are. Here, if how they are means gay, then punishing them for being how he made them, doesn't add up. They didn't do anything; God did (making them gay). All the other sins you mentioned like stealing, have a thing you can avoid doing: namely stealing. God doesn't make people steal. If being gay is somehow an inborn, unchangeable trait "from God," then it can't be a sin anymore than having any other inborn, unchangeable trait. Even in criminal law, if you really can't help it/had no other choice, then you aren't guilty and you go free (reflex, another person physically moving you, automatism, duress). No "forgiveness," required.

To be fair, rules have to leave you other choices. Otherwise, they're just punishing you for the sake of punishing you and you have no option to abide by said rules, but are merely doomed to punishment no matter what. If it stands to reason that God is all knowing, all powerful and all loving, then he won't make people who, solely because of the way he made them violate rules he made. That would be unfair and he wouldn't do that, would he? Moreover, if God's labor is infallible, and God made gay people gay then saying being gay is wrong is saying God's wrong for making them gay.

Translation Issues/Rogue Authors?:
Have you ever considered the possibility that being gay isn't a sin at all? Even assuming the divine source of the Bible, maybe something got lost in translation or changed by the very mortal human, and therefore able to make mistakes, men who wrote it down? Perhaps Leviticus was incorrect to say wearing clothing of mixed threads, eating shellfish, etc was a sin and thus he may have also been incorrect to say being gay was a sin? Maybe Leviticus just decided to add his own list of stuff in there that he didn't like and ban it, which might explain why the rest of the bible, including the stuff with Jesus, doesn't mention being gay at all? Maybe God doesn't care one way or the other about being gay but only Leviticus did?

Lack of Harm:
Is harm required for something to be a sin? The other things you mentioned harm people or potentially do. Stealing deprives the owner of property. Killing is obvious. Lying can lead to all sorts of loss, etc. How exactly does homosexuality hurt anyone? I propose to you that it doesn't. If you have two consenting adults who have chosen the same sex and won't marry the opposite sex, then they're either going to be together or alone for the rest of their lives. These two people being together doesn't harm anyone and alleviates their loneliness. Even if homosexuality is a choice, then it still isn't one that would hurt anything.

Judge not lest ye be judged:
Even assuming it is a sin, whose' place would it be to punish it? No one here.... What's that about a first stone and only casting it if you haven't sinned?

At least now you've seen some of the other side....

[Nadaka]

God's morality doesn't have to follow your morality. Or mine. Or anyone's but his own.

Not saying I agree with ggamer, but "that would be wrong" isn't something you can levy directly at God. People, sure (especially those who pretend to be speaking for God but aren't, in your opinion).

I don't believe in subjective morality. If a man does evil and says that it is ok because he does not believe it is evil for him, he still did evil. If a hypothetical god does evil and says that it is ok because he does not believe it is evil for him, he still did evil.

[kaijyuu]

Well we all have different opinions what's evil or not. Who's going to decide which is the "correct" objective morality? Seems to me the best candidate to enforce said objective morality is God. If you disagree, then by your own admission, believing that something isn't evil doesn't justify you.

In other words, if there's an objective morality, God knows which one it is, not you or I (at least if we're going by the Christian interpretation, and not one of the religions where deities have faults).


EDIT: Isn't theological philosophy fun?

[Nadaka]

Well we all have different opinions what's evil or not. Who's going to decide which is the "correct" objective morality? Seems to me the best candidate to enforce said objective morality is God. If you disagree, then by your own admission, believing that something isn't evil doesn't justify you.

In other words, if there's an objective morality, God knows which one it is, not you or I.

Only if there is a god, and only if the morality that he follows is the same as the one he asks you to follow, and only if the god is also correct.