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Comment by dodyg | Hacker News Reader

Tim Cook is a Christian. This is a message to the Church.

I have a hard time thinking of anyone as Christian if they ignore the basic tenants of what the Bible says. Homosexuality is very clearly spelled out as wrong. So are plenty of other things of course and the Bible doesn't specify homosexual behavior as any more or less wrong than any other sinful act. Christians shouldn't be treating homosexuals any different than anyone else, but that includes letting people know that God views that behavior as sin.

> I have a hard time thinking of anyone as Christian if they ignore the basic tenants of what the Bible says.

You can be an adulterer and a Christian. You can commit any sin imaginable and still consider yourself a Christian. Homosexuality is no different.

There is a difference though between commiting a sin then admitting you were wrong and actively promoting a lifestyle that espouses sin. I'd have the same problem with an adulterer who didn't think that their adultery was wrong. In one case, someone messed up - in the other someone is actually ignoring the bible entirely.

I wouldn't say they were ignoring it entirely. Rather, perhaps they were choosing to ignore the parts that they consider outdated and ludicrous (such as the calls to marry in-laws, or stone people for things), and instead consider their "Christian"-ness to be derived from a more forgiving perspective of a certain rabbi who advised people to love their neighbor.

You can believe the christianity idea of "God" but not in the bible as its "word" at the same time. In fact, you can believe in anything at all and still talk about "God". An it would be still valid.

The Quakers are clearly a Christian denomination, but here in the UK at least, they have been holding same-sex marriages since before it was legal and are one of the groups who forced the law change. Partly as it caused the legal theories against it that were based on respecting religious belief to become hopelessly muddled. It became very hard to argue that the law was upholding Christian rights on the definition of marriage while not recognising marriages being held by Quakers.

Millions of Christians don't take the Bible as the literal word of God. Several Christian churches have no problem with blessing the marriage of gay couples.

A Christian is just someone who believes in Jesus Christ as a messiah. You are referring to something much more specific.

Do you mean millions of Christians don't take the Bible as the word of god? Because "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death" (Leviticus 20:13) doesn't seem to leave the place for a non-literal interpretation which would not condemn gay sex (without some serious mind bending).

Yes, erase the word "literal" from my comment and I still stand by it.

A christian is someone that believes in the teachings of Jesus Christ, namely salvation and sanctification. We come to salvation by believing Jesus Christ is God and his teachings are absolute, and that he is the Word of God, the Bible. We come to sanctification by striving daily to know God more, which happens through the indwelling Holy Spirit we receive during salvation and happens by reading and applying the Word of God in our soul, and then outwardly through our body.

Being homosexual or lusting after a women in your mind are equally damning, but rejecting these thoughts and actions and leaving them at the Cross is the message of the Bible.

All the words attributed to Jesus about the sinfulness of homosexuality: ""

Lots, possibly most Christians, consider the bible to be a heavily edited political work containing aspects of revelation. Some Christians explicitly deny the bible as a historical work and even go as far as to refuse to base their beliefs on the idea that Jesus had to exist, Jefferson being a notable example. For my money, I am in agreement with him that Paul's stuff shouldn't be trusted as far as you could throw it, but then I am not a Christian.

"I have hard time thinking of anyone as an IOS engineer if they ignore the basics tenants of what Apple documentation states. XYZ is very clearly spelled out as unsafe."

To be fair as an iOS engineer, I'd appreciate it if more people read the HIG, and considered why things like UIAlertViews are discouraged. :)

It's funny that there's no moral imperative for christians to stone people who have touched women on their periods, yet there is some sort of moral imperative to let gay people know they are sinning.

Also, how does Red Lobster do so well in the south, let alone pork products...

in Leviticus 18:25, Man laying with another Man is an "abomination".

right before that, in Leviticus 18:19, "'Do not approach a woman to have sexual relations during the uncleanness of her monthly period."

and right before that, in Leviticus 17:15, "'Anyone, whether native-born or foreigner, who eats anything found dead or torn by wild animals must wash their clothes and bathe with water, and they will be ceremonially unclean till evening; then they will be clean."

and my Favorite, Leviticus 19:19 (one page after homosexuality): 'Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material."

That Cotton-Polyester blend you're wearing? You might as well be having gay sex, as far as The LORD is concerned. All of the above are hellworthy trespasses.

so with the above in mind, everyone is ignoring the basic tenants of what the bible says. Therefore, using your logic, you must have a hard time viewing just about anyone as Christian.

One can ignore the Old Testament in its entirety and still be a Christian who believes being gay is wrong - it is addressed, albeit briefly, in the New Testament.

Yeah, but they were straight people who god deliberately turned gay for committing the sin of idolatry, so being gay wasn't the sin but the punishment for having a great art collection.

"For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.

They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.

In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error."

That is but one passage. Others in the New Testament do in fact include "lechery with men" in the same category as murder.

Alongside lechery with men and a few variations of murder, they also include all other types of lechery, along with lying, adultery and impiety.

Though this category in Corinthians is about who will not inherit the kingdom of god, and then in Timothy it is describing who the law is written for, so in either case it is not distinguishing categories of sins, but merely listing them.

Elsewhere in Paul, homosexuality is equated with the greedy, the sexually immoral, thieves, drunks, slanderers, idolators and swindlers, but makes no mention of murderers.

edit - the passage in Corinthians is also interesting as it is in the context of a wider passage banning recourse to civil law in secular courts between believers.

>That Cotton-Polyester blend you're wearing? You might as well be having gay sex, as far as The LORD is concerned.

That's a pretty intense bastardization of biblical theology. It's fun to snicker and say things like that but your logical gymnastics are quite embarrassing to those who understand the correlation between Christ, the Old Testament, and covenant theology.

Point is, the bible states some crazy absurd things that Christians have to ignore because they are confusing at best and disgusting at worst. You can't explain these passages. No one can: http://www.evilbible.com/Evil%20Bible%20Quotes.htm

I invite everyone to read Leviticus and not laugh at the things that are hell-worthy. They shouldn't take my, your, or any other logical gymnastics as their opinion; reading the book is sufficient to determine how insane these trespasses really are.

But speaking to the correleation between Jesus and the Old Testament, everyone should also read Isaiah 52:13 through 54. This is the savior foretold in the old testament, and where matthew/john/paul/ringo draw most of their confirmation of Jesus' credentials. Does this sound like the Jesus we all know?

Drawing pictures of things god has made and especially using them religiously is spelled out very clearly as wrong, repeatedly and at length, but the Christians often represent themselves with drawings of a fish and keep drawing pictures of Jesus simply everywhere:

"You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below."

However you can rape the wives of your defeated enemies after battle, which the vast majority of Christians would find horrifying:

"When you go to war against your enemies and the LORD your God delivers them into your hands and you take captives,

if you notice among the captives a beautiful woman and are attracted to her, you may take her as your wife.

Bring her into your home and have her shave her head, trim her nails

and put aside the clothes she was wearing when captured. After she has lived in your house and mourned her father and mother for a full month, then you may go to her and be her husband and she shall be your wife.

If you are not pleased with her, let her go wherever she wishes. You must not sell her or treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her."

There's a lot of basic tenets of the bible that Christians ignore. Wearing mixed fibers, eating shellfish, donkeys and oxen co-working in agriculture.

If you go by basic tenets of the bible, most Christians don't seem to even know what they all are, let alone follow them.

Let me add a refrain to your hyperbole by saying that I too am shocked that Christians do not practice Old Testament Jewish customs.

The Calvinists during the reformation were not chipping faces off statues just for shits and giggles. Old testament teachings such as practicing iconoclasm, have been a regular feature of many Christian denominations. And fire and brimstone preachers still regularly preach Deuteronomy and Leviticus from pulpits in Christian churches. The idea that Christianity can disown the old testament is frankly ridiculous, apart from in those sects where they no longer preach from it.

And there are members of the Church who experience same-sex attraction but strive for a life of chastity, who have a powerful message for those who long to "move beyond the confines of the homosexual label to a more complete identity in Christ."

See, for example, Tina's, Jonah's and Blake's testimonies:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA4gpJUpvpc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbAqzGsjl30

Those videos are featured by the Courage apostolate:

http://couragerc.org/courage/#testimonies

This comment is not intended to be inflammatory; my intention is simply to share an alternate perspective.

And there are members of the Church who experience heterosexual attraction but strive for a life of chastity, who have a powerful message for those who long to "move beyond the confines of all labels to a more complete identity in Christ."

And fair play to them if it is what they believe.

It doesn't work for everyone though, as is eminently obvious if you look to scandals over the years across all religious groups who swear selected members to chastity.

And is Southern as well - From Alabama. Big church influence down there.

Indeed there is. Did not know Tim was from Alabama though, represent!

He went to Auburn

Well, that would explain why Apple's been headed down the tubes since he took over.

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