Is it possible that homosexuality is a birth defect?

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 5:21 AM, Alive said:

Having observed my own 4 and watched numerous others over years of home church, I learned something.

Children need to be taught where the turn off switch is.

Have you ever seen a child in a cart at a store screaming bloody murder and the parent allowing it? That child is going to have much difficulty later in life. 
They need to learn the turn off switch.

I watched an aunt one day let her toddler scream for about ten seconds, when he stopped for breath.  She looked at him and said, "I've heard that all before.  Do you have anything new to  add?"  He stared at her for about two breaths and burst into tears.  I don't think I've ever seen a kid deflate so fast.

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 5:32 AM, AdHoc said:

The following passage sheds gives light from the infallible God.

24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: 25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. 26 For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: 27 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. 28 And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; 29 Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, 30 Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, 31 Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: 32 Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them (Ro 1:24–32)

V.24 - it is a "lust of the OWN heart"

V.26 - It is "vile affections"  a taste developed and fed

V.26 - it is "against nature"

V.27 - It is NOT natural, "burning in lust", "unseemly", and worthy of "recompense"

V.28 - it is "not convenient"

V.32 - "worthy of death" and knowing it is unnatural, promote it

The phrase "gives them over" does not mean that God promotes it. It means that man tends towards these thing but God restrains His creature. If gross evil is present, God removes His restraint and the person has no means of avoiding his tendency.

The problem is that Paul isn't talking about homosexuals:  he clearly says these are men who left "the natural use of the woman", which tells us he's talking about heterosexual men who for some reason changed.  This puzzled me for a long time until one day I was reading about Roman legions and sex, and things clicked into place:  it was common in the Mediterranean world that when one army defeated another the victorious soldiers would rape their prisoners to demonstrate dominance.  The Romans apparently didn't start out that way, but the custom got adopted as conquered Greeks started joining the legions, and it was pretty well established about the time that Caesar Augustus finally put all of Greece under Roman domination.

What really struck me,though, was how this changed the city of Rome itself:  temples with male prostitutes "served" Roman soldiers by giving them the chance to repeat the behavior from the battlefield, and records indicate that many of them came to prefer it over relations with their wives or female prostitutes.  From veterans "re-enacting" the aftermath of former victories the practice spread to legionnaires who'd never yet been in battle, and it became quite noticeable in Rome -- and after a time, accepted as "proper" for a "real man".

That matches what Paul said perfectly; indeed verse 29, with a few exceptions, described the behavior of many, maybe most, of those legionnaires  as seen by the rest of the city, while 30 and 31 echo complaints of some Romans.  By the time Paul write to the Romans, in terms of sex that culture was not only  accepted but in some ways celebrated; among the aristocracy the ancient Greek idea that a real man had "a wife, a lover, and a boy" had taken root, so sex with the same gender became almost obligatory regardless of actual sexual attraction.

It's a pretty astounding cultural shift when an entire society goes from upholding male-female marriage at admiring men who sexually dominated others -- and Paul's words described accurately what his Roman readers lived among every day.  It wasn't individuals that Paul was describing, it was the entire sexual culture in the city of Rome.

[And given his description, I have wondered how the Christians he wrote to could stand to stay in the city!]

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 6:13 AM, Jayne said:

If there were a biological cause to being gay, it would have already been easily found.

 

Not necessarily; if for instance the biological cause resided in a combination of different genes located on separate chromosomes finding the basis for some trait can be close to impossible, plus the fact that some genetic combinations don't activate unless certain external conditions happen.

That said, the evidence at this point is that there is no "gay gene", though some still hold out the possibility of a tendency.  But the twin studies that were supposed to determine if it was genetic actually point ed to something else entirely:  once the results of numerous twin studies were sorted, what became clear is that the later in birth order a set of twins was, the more likely one or both was to turn out to be homosexual.  This fits with what someone else found -- though a bit tentatively given the paucity of older data -- that the percentage of homosexual men in the general population has declined; that's exactly what the birth-order finding would predict, and I'm hoping to see if further studies can confirm that.

This leads to a current focus of study:  what happens in a woman's womb that makes later sons more likely to be homosexual?  Last I read, the focus was on changes in the concentrations of hormones after successive births, but that's hard to study in the West these days because families have gotten smaller.  And that's a course of study with a possible promise:  if some hormonal combination in the womb increases the chance that a son will be homosexual, there's a chance that medications that can adjust those hormones will help.  And while some homosexuals have responded to this possibility with outrage, others passionately hope it will happen so that others in the future won't have to put up with the mental and emotional agony of being abnormal.

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 11:07 AM, JohnR7 said:

 

The real problem is when people try to justify themselves. God requires us to be humble before Him. 

 

Luke 18:13 But the tax collector stood at a distance, unwilling even to lift up his eyes to heaven. Instead, he beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner!’ 14I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

They want us to give them approval, and we cannot do that. So in some cases the problem is not the actual sin but our attitude toward sin. 

 

 

I've known a number of gays and none of them wanted anyone's approval, they just wanted others to stop condemning and trying to keep the law discriminatory against them.

Which is not an unreasonable request to make to Christians, since Jesus told us to forget political power; our weapon is preaching the Gospel, not passing laws.

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 11:28 AM, Starise said:

If we are talking about 'us' then it's hopefully a moot point so far as this goes. I can only speak for myself here. If you've struggled with it, maybe you could give us some insight into your struggles, obviously not in any great detail. I'm referring to a battle against the flesh plane here. I have zero interest ion the same sex. The very thought of it grosses me out. 

Yep, this is going to be one of the things we are hated for, because we can't bend on the issue without compromise, and I won't do that. Go too far in the acceptance direction and it sends all the wrong signals. I believe we need to remain firm and resolute.

 

Something I observed on my university campus:  the Christians who gays actually would listen to were the ones who weren't trying to keep them from having their own club, or keep them from using campus housing, or opposing any other thing that gays were asking for so they could be treated as equal human beings.  I knew a guy (in Campus Crusade for Christ) who went camping with some gay guys and went skinny-dipping with them, and when he brought up the Gospel one day when it felt natural to do so, they actually listened.

His view?  We are all children of our Heavenly Father, according to one of the minor prophets, so we are obligated to treat everyone as part of our family.  Because he treated those gays as brothers, they listened -- and thus he learned that two of them (boyfriends) had been raised in Christian homes where they were disowned when they confessed where their attractions lay -- not a confession that they had done anything, because they hadn't (yet), but just because of their attraction!  When I left campus,they were attending church and struggling with the idea of giving up all sex but staying together.  That change would never have happened except for one Christian who was wise enough to treat them as brothers under our Heavenly Father.

So depending on what you mean by "compromise", I may or may not agree.  If you mean not backing down that Christians call actual homosexual sex sin, then absolutely we don't compromise!  But if you mean getting involved politically and condemning them publicly, that's not standing firm, that's having your priorities wrong!  Every moment spent in political action is a moment not spent loving others and showing them a life that says, "Christ has changed me for the better".

Edited December 18, 2022 by Roymond

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 12:05 PM, OneLight said:

Come now, a human with external organs for reproduction is a male and a human with internal organs for reproduction is a female.  One does not need to be a medical doctor to understand the difference.  It's the world and sin that wants to change what God created.  Can you trust God???

And what do we do with those who are born with both?  That's more common than most people would guess, and it can be horrifying to those who have the condition -- which is why at birth doctors have for centuries decided which set of characteristics to eliminate to "fix" the problem.  Sadly doctors can get it wrong; without detailed examination it's just not possible to figure out which set of characteristics dominates, and recommending such an examination to new parents can only bring distress.

[OneLight]

1 minute ago, Roymond said:

And what do we do with those who are born with both?  That's more common than most people would guess, and it can be horrifying to those who have the condition -- which is why at birth doctors have for centuries decided which set of characteristics to eliminate to "fix" the problem.  Sadly doctors can get it wrong; without detailed examination it's just not possible to figure out which set of characteristics dominates, and recommending such an examination to new parents can only bring distress.

Those do face a real question of which sex are they, but in all honesty, intersex births are about 1 in 1000, if you follow medical research.  Planned parenthood will tell you that the ratio is 1 in 100, but they also claim abortions is not murder.

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 3:10 PM, believeinHim said:

Babies are not born sinners. This line of thinking is damaging and harmful. 

I have to disagree.  I think an Episcopalian priest I once knew had it right:  there is no human more self-centered and selfish than a newborn babe.

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 3:37 PM, Vine Abider said:

Agree. Mankind is corrupted by sin in the flesh and this flesh is capable of most anything (except real love, joy, peace, etc.). Then we have the prince of the power of the air, doing his best to make it all worse.

Without Christ in us, man doesn't stand a chance, and the blatant homosexuality and other crazy things we see will go more and more off the deep end.  If it's not all mercifully brought to an end by God soon, how bad would it all become?

Well, we're not even close to a belief from ancient Greece that Rome adopted (after bringing Greece into the empire):  a real man has a wife, a lover, and a boy -- and they didn't mean as partners for playing cards.

Paul in the first chapter of his letter to the Romans describes the society his audience were living in the middle of -- they could look around and see that everything he described was right there in the city.  We're on a slide, but we're nowhere near that yet.

[Roymond]

On 11/10/2022 at 6:11 PM, grahampaul said:

would it really matter if we knew the causes of being gay/thief/robber.

Yes:  if people are born that way, which seems to commonly be the case, then continuing to decry it as a "choice" makes Christians look ignorant and bigoted.

On 11/10/2022 at 6:11 PM, grahampaul said:

to talk on how to witness to such would be, for me, far more edifying.

Absolutely.