So you're just arguing the semantics of something you don't believe in? That seems like a waste of time.

That's not quite what I was getting at: that reading you provided (if you interpret it correctly) says that we can't accept the New Testament as, er, gospel, without refusing to accept Deuteronomy 4:2 as gospel. So you've got to pick-and-choose either way.

That's an interesting observation that got a bit lost in the arguing. I can understand how misogyny crept in in translation (male pronouns for God etc.), but have you got a source for the homosexuality thing? Seems to me that plenty of people ought to be told about it if the bibles they thump aren't, in fact, anti-gay.

Naturally...not being a Texan and all...

"Thou shalt not kill" truly is a bad translation, at least for our vernacular... it made a little more sense in 1611.

The Bible is very clear through both testaments and several authors that homosexuality is a sin.

The Old Testament has a lot of sins that people violate every day. That was the purpose of it. To show that man could never follow all those rules and live a sin free life. It showed that if they wanted to follow God, they would need the Messiah.

How come self-decadence is sinful?

Hang on, are you saying that even consensual orgies are disgusting and/or wrong, or are you saying the Romans went in for nonconsensual orgies? How come self-decadence is sinful?

Almost correct. Yes the law was to demonstrate that people needed the Messiah, but that doesn't mean that what was sin then is no longer sin. While we are no longer required to adhere to the laws pertaining to worship practices and government because of the crucifixion, we are still under the “moral” law, where homosexuality would fall. It is still sin and therefore in conflict of living the Christian life.

This statement is both wrong and representative of why discussions such as this one should not define people's beliefs. The orginal manuscripts of the old and new testaments are not extant. The Old Testament manuscripts were destroyed as the became worn. The New Testament documents will probably never be found either.

Whatever else you can say about the Lord, He's a marketing genius. "I'll impose all these arbitrary rules on you, specifically aimed at making it impossible to follow them all, and then I'll offer you a new faith-based product in which following these rules is not the prerequisite for salvation." That's right up there with "New Windows 95 doesn't restrict you to 8.3 filenames" in the arena of selling solutions to problems the seller created in the first place.

But that just falls into the whole picking and choosing part again.

My point is that nowhere in the gospels does Jesus say it's ok to hate and alienate. But people do that everyday in his name.

'll impose all these arbitrary rules on you, specifically aimed at making it impossible to follow them all. . .

Jesus was fully man and he did it.

If Adam had not fallen he would have been able to follow the law perfectly as well.

This is the same as saying if he hadn't eaten an apple, then he wouldn't have eaten an apple -- a meaningless tautology.