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While most of the old Jewish law of the Old Testament was replaced by the New covenant of Christ, including the allowing of man to eat "unclean" food such as shellfish, the New Testament still admonishes against homosexual acts. See St. Paul's letter to the Romans 1:26-27.

- T. Paine, June 23, 2012

T. Paine, Objection Overruled.

The New Covenant was not new set of rules.

It was a renewal of a violated agreement.

Here is the source of the false claim Christians make:

Jeremiah 31:

31 Behold, the days come, saith Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

32 not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was a husband unto them, saith Jehovah.

33 But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith Jehovah: I will put my law [Torah] in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people:

34 and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know Jehovah; for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith Jehovah: for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more.

To quote a site I now have misplaced (forgive me author of that site, but overall you spoke a bunch of nonsense. However, you expressed this one thing very well, so I clipped it):

The prophet contrasts the existing covenant made with the fathers when he brought them out of Egypt (see Exod 24:8) with a covenant that God will make with the house of Israel and Judah in the latter days. The new covenant is distinguished from the older covenant in four ways:

• Yahweh will write the law in the minds and on the hearts of those in the new covenant.

• Yahweh will be the God of those in the new covenant and they will be his people.

• Those in the new covenant will know Yahweh.

• Yahweh will forgive the iniquities and the sins of those in the new covenant.

The new covenant, therefore, has two basic characteristics:

1. First, it describes an internal spiritual transformation resulting in a new relationship with God and a new possibility of obedience.

2. Second, the new covenant results in the forgiveness of sins for those in the covenant made with the fathers.

A covenant was made by God with a prior generation. The descendants of this generation did not know God intimately and they did not honor the agreement their fathers had made. God renewed the covenant with the descendants directly, forgave them, and made Himself more familiar. He promised to forgive the breach of contract and to renew the contract with His current chosen people. He did not promise more. I would think claiming that He promised more in the absence of said promise would be very dangerous. The God I know seems very cantankerous and moody.

Despite the Christian reinvention of God, He did not change His mind about the law. He did not decide that goodness would now be remade and that what was formerly wrong would now be OK. He did not decide that you can now eat whatever you want, ignore the Sabbath whenever you want, forego circumcision at your own discretion, allow babies He dooms to die for the sins of their fathers to be exempt from His wrath.

Anywhere the New Testament deviates from God’s original law, it rejects God’s law, as God is immutable, so far as I know, as is His law.

Nowhere does He offer this. Those who quote Jeremiah claiming God made such an arrangement libel God and better hope that God forgives them merely for accepting a crucified rebel into their hearts. However, nothing about the stated character of God suggests that He will.

Update:

T. Paine's reaction is, sadly, the unfortunate misinterpretation of scripture shared by many Christians. Too many condense Paul's letter to the Romans to a single verse.

- Burr Deming, June 24, 2012

And I also don’t agree with that.

T. Paine was right about Paul. Paul was trying to reinvent God, but also had to defend himself against the charge, so he claimed to honor the law. However, claiming to honor a law is not honoring it. Honoring it is.

Paul’s hippie faith was nothing like the Spartan reality of New Testament Law. God never endorsed or embraced such a thing, and never would have.

Updating the Update:

I don't think that the "old rules" were arbitrary. At least, the ones I've thought about had a base in practical reasoning.

- Tim McGaha, June 25, 2012

I agree with Tim. I don't think any of the old rules were arbitrary and most of them had a practical basis, even if we don't know it. I remember studying some of them way back, such as bury your feces (which may have been in the Talmud or elsewhere, I don't remember the exact spot).

The rules were not random.

As for homosexuality, assuming it was always forbidden, something I seriously doubt, obviously it can lead to infection and tears. The body is not well-suited for homosexual sex.

John Myste also writes for his own site, where rules are not random and hippies are free to believe what they want.

Please visit John Myste Responds.