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Dear david f.,

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Thank you for reading my thoughts and generously using some of your word credits to express them here.

I had none left and had to content myself with a single line.

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Dear diver dan,

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I am sure you are right in thinking there is a homosexual lobby. It seems perfectly logic to me.

I have no preconceived ideas on the subject of same-sex wedlock. I have no axe to grind. If you look more closely, you will see that I did not shoot myself in the foot. I was not expressing a personal opinion in noting that opposition to same-sex wedlock is increasingly seen as a homophobic attitude. The evidence is available for any inquisitive enquirer to discover. I did not invent it. I simply pointed to it. That was not a gun. It was my finger.

I, personally, do not consider opposition to same-sex wedlock as a homophobic attitude. I suspect the problem is more of a psychological nature, but, I hasten to add that I am totally incompetent in matters of psychology.

Your suggestion that something may be "an aberration of nature" is interesting. It merits reflection. It raises questions as to what the norm might be. Are you the norm? Am I? Is my child the norm? If not, should I reject her?

My understanding is that each of us is a unique individual. That there is no norm. That we are all variations to the general theme we call "human being". Biologists study genomic variation and its effect on phenotypes and gene regulation. Much of what we are is determined at conception and during the early years of our life and is not the result of our individual choice of morality.

The term "aberration" designates a departure from the norm with a negative connotation derived from moral notions of right and wrong. Biologists avoid projecting morality into their observations and employ the more neutral term of "functional variants".

I, personally, prefer to consider homosexuality as "a variation of nature" rather than "an aberration of nature" as you suggest.

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It always fascinates me how firmly you are able to grab the wrong end of the stick, Dan S de Merengue.

>>Remember what Dawkins said, ‘We live in a universe which has no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.’ If the universe is indifferent why should you care?<<

Being "indifferent" is not a pejorative term in this context, as in "he was indifferent to the fate of six million Jews". Those are merely overtones that we infer from behaviour of humans, not the universe at large.

Dawkins was pointing out, in his somewhat charmless fashion, that the universe operates with its own agenda, regardless of the carbon-based life forms who inhabit the teensy-weensy speck of that universe we call Earth.

Despite the wording in some insurance agreements, earthquakes are not "an act of God", which is merely terminology surviving from a more unenlightened age. They are instead acts of a uniquely indifferent "mother nature", completely out of the control of us weaklings. In your concept of the world outside the confines of your religious beliefs, we should not care about the victims of an earthquake - or a flood, or a drought, or a hurricane - because the cause is "indifferent".

If indeed they are, in your view, "acts of God", what does that tell you about his indifference to the fate of the people he kills along the way?

To turn your question back to you: if God is indifferent, why should you care?

Pericles,
The original question came from Brian Rosner, "To what end is my sense of justice and my yearning for transcendence, and so on, in purely evolutionary terms?"

In evolutionary terms, life evolves without a teleological view, with no purpose or end in mind. In that sense it's blind or indifferent. I think that's what Dawkins was getting at. If there is no God or Spirit, then only matter remains. All causes are material; just atoms bumping around. So Rosner asks, why this yearning in the presence of grandeur, or sense of injustice in the face of devastation. Can such things be explained within this framework?

I don't believe God is indifferent. As Paul explains in Romans, ever since the first sin of Adam, all of us sinned and all are deserving of death. God has placed a judgement and curse upon the world. Earthquakes and other disasters are reminders of sin and it's consequences upon all of humanity. As is declared in Romans 8:20, "all creation was subjected to God’s curse." That God grants life at all is part of his blessings. As Ecclesiastes 3:11-13 opines 'Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can. And people should eat and drink and enjoy the fruits of their labor, for these are gifts from God.'

Tony,
Certain GLBT media repeated the phrase "putting gay people to death". So this is why that word 'put' is at issue. 

I agree with you that it is important to look at what was actually written down when interpreting Scripture. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be loose with our interpretation if that strays from what was written.

The Salvos and others are keen to be following the 'conventional' interpretation that has been understood for around two thousand years since Paul's letters have been read and accepted in the church.

However, the conventional interpretation has become muddied since Darwinian evolution has become popular. Before Darwin was buried in Westminster Abbey the conventional view was that death came into the world as a result of Adam's sin about 6,000 years ago. Since then, and with the interpretation of immense geological ages, death is thought to be intrinsic to the theory of evolution, which views death as occurring constantly over eons of time.

Consequently, church leaders have become vague in their interpretation of what is 'physical death' and what is 'spiritual death'. Before churches started swallowing Darwinian philosophy (death, disease and suffering have always been with us as a constant companion to the struggle of life on earth) Paul's letters (which say otherwise) were more straight forward and easier to interpret.

So I agree with your straight forward reading of Romans chapter 1. Nowhere does this mention 'spiritual death'. It just says death.

But I also know that there are those within the Salvos that are starting to wake up and see the theological important issues that derive from the creation/evolution discussion and see its relevance. 

As for those archaeologists who claim to have found human remains over 190,000 years old? Well, that is one way to look at it. But I know they weren't there at the time to write those things down.

So Tony Lavis, if you are not supporting the interpretation put on Paul's words by gay rights activists, what is your point? If you want to take your literalist view of the words, then we all die, and some are more deserving of that death than others.

You still can't deal with that outside of Paul's theology of original sin, and death being a factor in the world being a consequence of that sin. The alternative is eternal life, which Paul says becomes available to humans through Christ. As he views homosexuality as a sin, and a consequence of an abuse of freewill, then ipso facto, they accept the death that Adam brought into the world.

I doubt that he took Dan's view of evolution, but that doesn't really matter in terms of how he saw the world.

If you are not implying the word "put" in your phrase, then you essentially agree with my interpretation of the passage.

Banjo Paterson:

...I recently chided “Individual” for the same attitude. To “sit on the fence” on this issue is exactly the outcome desired by the homosexual lobby. Not to oppose them is to effectively support them.

Comment on this piece of relevance!

#...“The AFL has agreed to show anti-homophobia ads on the big screens at this weekends preliminary finals”...#

...The cleansed homophobe-free games no less! You must agree this situation is out of control!

...I attend football matches strictly for the joy of watching the game...I am hugely offended by the constant reminder of homosexuals and their "broadly" insignificant problems, being imposed on my enjoyment of football...and talking among my group of friends and relations, this latest imposition will not help their cause !