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To: Westbrook
This is a result of Scripture taken out of context.

You just proved my point. Who decides that context? Did you visit the link I posted above? It is replete with biblical sources and interpretations. But, lacking an 'authority', anyone can interpret scripture.

The Catholic Church applies scripture and holds it up with the Early Church Fathers. For example:

"You shall not commit murder, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not commit pederasty, you shall not commit fornication, you shall not steal, you shall not practice magic, you shall not practice witchcraft, you shall not murder a child by abortion nor kill one that has been born" (Didache 2:2 [A.D. 70]).

Or

"[W]e have been taught that to expose newly-born children is the part of wicked men; and this we have been taught lest we should do anyone harm and lest we should sin against God, first, because we see that almost all so exposed (not only the girls, but also the males) are brought up to prostitution. And for this pollution a multitude of females and hermaphrodites, and those who commit unmentionable iniquities, are found in every nation. And you receive the hire of these, and duty and taxes from them, whom you ought to exterminate from your realm. And anyone who uses such persons, besides the godless and infamous and impure intercourse, may possibly be having intercourse with his own child, or relative, or brother. And there are some who prostitute even their own children and wives, and some are openly mutilated for the purpose of sodomy; and they refer these mysteries to the mother of the gods" (Justin Martyr - First Apology 27 [A.D. 151]).

And also from Justin Martyr

"The fate of the Sodomites was judgment to those who had done wrong, instruction to those who hear. The Sodomites having, through much luxury, fallen into uncleanness, practicing adultery shamelessly, and burning with insane love for boys; the All-seeing Word, whose notice those who commit impieties cannot escape, cast his eye on them. Nor did the sleepless guard of humanity observe their licentiousness in silence; but dissuading us from the imitation of them, and training us up to his own temperance, and falling on some sinners, lest lust being unavenged, should break loose from all the restraints of fear, ordered Sodom to be burned, pouring forth a little of the sagacious fire on licentiousness; lest lust, through want of punishment, should throw wide the gates to those that were rushing into voluptuousness. Accordingly, the just punishment of the Sodomites became to men an image of the salvation which is well calculated for men. For those who have not committed like sins with those who are punished, will never receive a like punishment" (ibid., 8).

Essentially, scripture is supported by the writings of the earliest christians. Yet sola scriptura believing christians are exonerated from taking such passages as these (and there are plenty more) into consideration. That is the point I was trying to make. My purpose in doing so is not to incite a flame war but to clarify the critical need for a unified voice, based on historical documentation, including scripture. What active homosexual could excuse away the above passages?

75 posted on 07/08/2011 3:27:20 PM PDT by NYer ("Be kind to every person you meet. For every person is fighting a great battle." St. Ephraim)
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To: NYer; Westbrook
But, lacking an 'authority', anyone can interpret scripture.

The Catholic Church applies scripture and holds it up with the Early Church Fathers. For example:

[Quote] (Didache 2:2 [A.D. 70])
[Quote] (Justin Martyr - First Apology 27 [A.D. 151]).
[Quote] (ibid., 8).

Essentially, scripture is supported by the writings of the earliest christians. Yet sola scriptura believing christians are exonerated from taking such passages as these (and there are plenty more) into consideration. That is the point I was trying to make. My purpose in doing so is not to incite a flame war but to clarify the critical need for a unified voice, based on historical documentation, including scripture. What active homosexual could excuse away the above passages?

Has the Roman Catholic Church to-date provided an infallible interpretation of the documents from which you quoted?

If not, then what you doing here is the very same thing you condemn in others. You tout the principle of the illegitimacy of private judgment and yet here you are relying on your own fallible private judgment picking and choosing which interpretation of Scripture and Church history seems best to you.

You hypocrite! You profess to not want to start a flame war, but if you are going to use a thread about homosexual perverts criminalizing Christianity and distorting these Scriptures "as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16) to argue against the sole infallible authority of God-Breathed Scripture, then why don't you for a change start applying the SAME epistemological standard that you demand of everyone else to YOURSELF and to that other "infallible authority" that you privately decided, using your own fallible private judgment, was an additional "infallible authority" besides Scripture.

Cordially,

112 posted on 07/11/2011 6:32:17 AM PDT by Diamond (He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people,)
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