You don't know God is real and you don't know he isn't

Philosophy Forums Religion and Spirituality
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The historical context of Jesus Christ’s crucifixion reveals a complex interaction between Roman authority and Jewish religious leaders. Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judea, according to historical accounts, was uncertain about the necessity of executing Jesus and genuinely hesitated, seeing no sufficient grounds for a death sentence. Nevertheless, the demands for execution came from orthodox Jewish religious authorities, who strictly condemned homosexual relations as violations of divine law.

Jesus was unmarried at the age of 33, which indirectly suggests that women did not attract him. He preached “love” among men. One of his disciples, by the way the “beloved” one, betrayed him, but what exactly? Only information about non-traditional relationships. It was impossible to betray or reveal anything else.

Another piece of evidence is that Roman citizens had the right to defend their beliefs by the sword, yet no one thought of taking up the sword to defend homosexuality. Therefore, it was specifically sex between men that was being propagated, not “universal love.”

It is important to note that Roman culture at the time was significantly more tolerant of sexual relations between men, and such practices were not considered criminal or punishable. This confirms that the Roman authorities did not persecute or condemn such relationships, unlike the Jewish religious leaders.

The Bible does not explicitly mention homosexual relations; however, it can be indirectly seen that religious authorities were concerned with maintaining traditional order and strict morality, which included prohibiting non-traditional sexual practices. Additionally, Judas Iscariot’s betrayal, one of the disciples, is often interpreted as informing the authorities about non-traditional relationships within the circle of followers, which led to the execution. This confirms that these issues caused conflict between religious orthodoxy and the personal lives of certain individuals.

Thus, historical and cultural realities indicate that the main opposition concerning non-traditional sexuality occurred between the orthodox Jews and their followers, while the Roman authorities remained relatively neutral on such matters. This leaves a particular imprint on the interpretation of biblical texts and explains the absence of direct references to homosexuality despite its presence in the society of that time.

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God kills people and feeds on human souls. Souls flavored with tears and seasoned with sorrow, hunger, and hardships are to his taste. What’s so attractive about that? And how long can one keep lying about love to sell idols instead of God?

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Do you really know how to distinguish your own ideas? Then at least give one that is not a product of reality. By the way, reality is the realized will of God. And here you can have a good laugh. If anything exists in fact—like a lie, fantasy, fiction, nonsense—then it is reality, though an insignificant one. But can you think beyond existence itself? Seriously?

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According to the four gospels, Jesus was executed by the Romans, primarily for claiming to be the King of the Jews, which the Romans saw as a threat to their authority and a potential cause of rebellion. The Sanhedrin, the Jewish council, initially accused Jesus of blasphemy, but the Romans focused on the claim of kingship. There is no mention of homosexuality as a charge by the Sanhedrin or by Pontius Pilate and the historical record.

The New Testament doesn’t state that Jesus was not married anywhere. So you’re merely speculating without evidence. As I already said above three words for love in an ancient Greek and Jesus never uses or advocates eros between persons of the same sex in the gospels.

You’re factually incorrect about the beloved disciple being the one that betrayed him. That’s only mentioned in the gospel of John and the disciple is never identified by name, but it was not Judas the one that betrayed him. In the Greek text of the Gospel of John, the word for “beloved” when referring to the beloved disciple is ἀγαπητός (agapētos) which is like parental love for a child not erotic love.

Neither Jesus nor the disciples were Romans so that part of your argument is irrelevant. Jesus generally advocated non-violence, but in the gospel of Luke chapter 22, verse 36 he tells his disciples” But now, if you have a purse, take it and also a bag and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one.” So you’re wrong about that too.

According to the gospel, Jesus was accused of breaking Sabbath laws by healing on the Sabbath, which the religious leaders considered work and therefore prohibited. They also accused him of blasphemy. They never accused him of homosexuality.

According to the gospel, Judas Iscariot identified Jesus to the Roman soldiers in the garden of guest them by kissing him. He did this after previous agreement with the chief priest to betray Jesus, and the kiss was a signal to the soldiers to arrest him.. There’s no record of anything that he said to the Roman soldiers before he betrayed him so it seems like you’re just making that up. The fact that Judas Iscariot kissed Jesus was not an indication that he was a homosexual. It was a prearranged signal to the authorities that Jesus was the man they were seeking for a arrest. In Judean culture, a kiss was a common way to greet someone not a sign of romantic or sexual attraction. Actually, it still is. So, your inference , that Jesus and the disciples were gay is factually baseless.

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Response: What Was Removed from the Gospels to Preserve Respectability

You argue as if the Gospels are honest historical records. They’re not. They were written not by eyewitnesses, but by men already shaping a religion. Anything that looked immoral, socially dangerous, or unacceptable was either erased or carefully reworded. The real question is not “what’s written,” but what was removed.

  1. *The real reason for the execution was sexual behavior—and its open propagation.
    Jesus and his disciples lived in an all-male community, unmarried, physically and emotionally close, and openly preached “love” as the highest virtue. For the Romans, sex between men was tolerated. But under Jewish law, such relations were considered an abomination. And if that love went beyond the platonic— and all signs point to that— then the religious authorities saw it as corruption of the people. Preaching such love made Jesus a heretic and a moral deviant, threatening the very foundations of their law.
  2. That’s why the execution was public and humiliating.
    Crucifixion was not used on minor heretics. It was a statement— a theater of shame. You don’t crucify a man just for breaking a rule; you crucify him to humiliate him in front of the world, as a warning. The idea was: this is what happens to those who defy our moral order.
  3. Pilate didn’t understand the charges.
    From his Roman viewpoint, Jesus was no real threat. The accusations from the priests sounded like moral panic. But the religious leaders insisted. Eventually, Pilate gave in—not out of conviction, but to avoid unrest. Politics was the pretext. The real reason was sex—and the dangerous message of love preached in its name.
  4. The Gospels cover the tracks.
    The “beloved disciple” is unnamed. Judas’ kiss is reinterpreted as a signal, not a personal gesture. The language of love is neutered. What was once intimate is rewritten in vague spiritual terms. The early Church wanted respectability—so it erased everything that hinted at the real reason for the crucifixion.

So let’s be clear: Jesus wasn’t killed for politics or rebellion. He was killed because he broke the moral code, lived closely with men, preached love that included the body, and gathered followers around a way of life that defied the religious norms. The rest? That’s editing, censorship, and the pious mask of theology.

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Oh yes we can..
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All things abide by the laws of nature, even the laws of nature themselves.. the chemical, mechanical, physical etc. are bound by the very nature of their being.. the inanimate, more-so than the animate/metaphysical/alchemical, coz.. the latter → autonomy.
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The law maker is the laws themselves, created, by a domino-effect of cause and effect.. reaction, after reaction, after reaction, after reaction, ad infinitum, so.. conditional.

..but it is these reactions that create the environment for limitations, from interactions.
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I never insinuated that nature solely behaves uniformly.. some of it does/the inanimate / some of it doesn’t/the animated.
..so the geographical veers on the side of uniformly, as opposed to the cosmological, with meteorology sat somewhere between the two.. for example.

..’three feet to a yard’ is a poor example of an analogy, in this context.. I don’t conflate the manmade with the natural.. who does? :woman_shrugging:
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..less subject to law doesn’t mean not subject to law.. coz even in the vastness of space, there is still much for cosmological ‘objects’ to interact/collide with and/or influence each other.

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All is nature.. ultimately..

..everything, being a subset of it.

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The problem is you have no evidence to support your claim and absence of evidence is not evidence. You’re basically claiming that history got it wrong for 2000 years. And now you doubling down on your conspiracy theory.

Your mindset is very much in the Zeitgeist of our time. There’s probably already a book out there somewhere making this claim. If there’s enough people who think like you out there, it might be a best seller.

But still, you haven’t produced any evidence. You have demonstrated that you were unfamiliar with the subject matter and got a lot of the facts wrong. But now you’re doubling down. If facts don’t matter to you, then no amount of evidence that I produce will persuade you otherwise.

I do wonder what motivates your belief. Why do you need to see the matter this way in the absence of evidence to support your view? I’m guessing that it’s because your conspiracy theory supports your overall cynical view of humanity. As if human history weren’t evil enough you seem to feel the need to add to it.

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I agree, even things that could be called supernatural or paranormal or spiritual, are really just aspects of nature that we don’t understand yet.

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Thank you for the critique. The mistakes have been noted.
Instead of “Roman citizens,” I should have said “free inhabitants of the Roman Empire.”
When referring to the name Judas, the reference should be to the Gospel of John.

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1. Morton Smith — historian, professor at Columbia University

  • In 1958, Smith claimed to have discovered the “Secret Gospel of Mark,” in which, according to his interpretation, Jesus spends a night with a young man “wrapped in a single garment.”
  • Smith argued that this was about spiritual and physical initiation, which gave rise to discussions of an erotic subtext.
  • His discovery was criticized, but even his critics admit that: the very fact that Jesus’s sexuality was discussed became academically legitimate thanks to Smith.

:performing_arts: 2. Terrence McNally — playwright (USA)

  • Author of the play “Corpus Christi” (1997), in which Jesus (named Joshua) is portrayed as a homosexual man, and his disciples are his lovers.
  • The play caused a storm of protests, especially from Christian groups, and was banned in many places.
  • Nevertheless, the play raises questions about love, acceptance, and rejection, rather than sexuality in a crude sense.

:brain: 3. John Boswell — professor of history at Yale University

  • An openly gay Catholic and historian, author of the book “Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe.”
  • He does not directly claim that Jesus was homosexual but shows that early Christianity had rituals blessing same-sex unions, including between men.
  • He also points out the possibility of friendly-erotic relationships between disciples and their Teacher as a spiritual tradition rather than a moral violation.

:artist_palette: 4. Art historians and cultural scholars

  • In Renaissance painting, Jesus and the “beloved disciple” are often depicted with a noticeable sensual subtext — especially by Giovanni da Milano, Caravaggio, Leonardo da Vinci.
  • Some interpreters believe that these images convey intimacy that could be perceived as erotic or sensual.

:memo: 5. Modern LGBT Christians and activists

  • In recent decades, many activists and theologians (such as Troy Perry, founder of the Metropolitan Community Church) have expressed the idea that Jesus could have been gay, or at least did not condemn same-sex love.
  • This is not “proven,” but is presented as an attempt to reinterpret the Gospel through the lens of love, acceptance, and rejection of dogmatic condemnation.
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Right, thank you for those references. I’m familiar with Morton Smith’s hypothesis. While I stand behind what I said above,Smith’s analysis is there on the margins and cannot be simply dismissed either.

The texts you cited exist in the context of postmodern scholarship where historicity of Jesus itself is a live controversy as is more recently the historicity of the apostle Paul who’s letter were the primary basis for the existence of Jesus. And this occurs in the context of a religious textual tradition in which homosexuality was a taboo subject. This a problem for mainstream religious institutions who have perennially negatively sanctioned homosexuality which is nevertheless present in their midst.

If Jesus as a historical person never actually existed, what would it mean if there are thinly veiled references to homosexual themes in the gospel texts? Would that be something that was intended by the author or perhaps story that he read or heard? Or was it a story that bubbled up from the author’s own latent homosexuality? How shall we go about answering these questions?

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Hello, I’m new to the forum. If we must stay in a perpetual state of uncertainty about the existence of God, then my position is that it is an arbitrary, unfalsifiable notion that should be discarded.

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You merely exist and don’t exist and claim things because you don’t possess life,the same as a binary processing machine.

A fool says there is no God.