You're confused. The angels were sent to destroy the city, but Lot took them in persuasively, knowing how horrible their fate would be. The angels put out the deviant's vision to save lot, and they stayed that way, because they couldn't find the door to Lot's House. Then the Angels turned around and led Lot out of the city telling him not to look back for any reason, that they had a job to do and were sent to see exactly how bad it was from deviants gone crazy with power.
Those deviants knew it wasn't right to treat strangers poorly, and they threatened Lot's life and family to do worse to them than they intended to do with the 'strangers.' whom they did not recognize because they were so bent on evil-doing.
Ancient people knew these were bad cities, and when their loved ones were harmed there, they prayed to God about it. That's how God knows who's naughty and who's nice.
I don't think God has to rely on the prayers of people to learn when a city is sinful/wicked.
He's Omniscient, which means He knows everything. That he decided to honor the people's prayers and send the Angels to destroy those cities doesn't mean he had first learned of it through their prayers.
They were sinful cities, that's true, but nothing was mentioned about homosexuality. That the evil men wanted to do that was because they were being inhospitable with Lot's guests. There was no mention that the city was gay - just wicked and sinful, and there's lots of things that are wicked and sinful that have nothing to do with homosexuality. Gang rape is a demonstration of power, not sex. I thought everyone knew that.
Why did God destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, plus two others, Admah and Zeboyim, which were nearby? Christians who take the Bible absolutely literally will tell you that God did this because the inhabitants of these cities were all gay, or at least most of them. I am humming again my favorite tune 'It ain't necessarily so ...'
First of all, when God informs Abraham of his decision to destroy these cities, he only mentions 'wickedness' and 'great sin' plus he speaks of an outcry of the people living in the area complaining about them to God. Nowhere in the whole narrative is explicitly stated what the exact sin of Sodom was.
The only sin we can deduce from the text itself, is the sin against hospitality to strangers when the men of Sodom demand his guests from Lot so that they may 'know them' aka have sex with them. To understand the gravity of that, you need to have traveled or lived in the Middle East, or in any other part of the world where hospitality towards others is a law-like custom. This was even stronger in the past, when hospitality in those parts of the world was seen as a sacred duty and the host would have done everything, yes, including sacrificing his own daughters!, in order to fulfill his obligation towards his guests. Therefore
The sin of Sodom was NOT homosexuality, it was the breach of hospitality attempted by the inhabitants of Sodom towards Lot's guests!
Gang-Rape, like any other form of rape, has actually little to do with sexuality, as any psychologist can confirm you, but has all to do with violence, power over others and ultimately humiliating the rape victim. And, in the case of male to male rape, about establishing power over another man and emasculating him.
Sodom and Gomorrah- What does the Bible say about homosexuality?
People take their troubles to him in prayer. His answer was to test them first, and if they treated his emissaries badly enough, he'd carry through with eliminating it.
It was a story written for the enlightenment of future generations about planning a life around unacceptable deviant sex. It's against wisdom and should not be even a temptation to anyone. Accepting the behavior is the same as bringing it down on the rest of society.
There is nothing in the scripture to suggest that it was "enlightenment of future generations about planning a life around unacceptable deviant sex. Wouldn't Lot's daughters having sex with him be pointed out as deviant, if that was the case?
Not sure how that fits into the topic of the thread, but I gather you had to throw in some rhetoric.
When that happens, normal people will lose their freedoms, because people like those in the evil cities will be in charge of the banks, hankering to destroy people who don't cooperate with their deviancies and power-madness as Seawytch calls it.
We have evil people everywhere - some with guns, even, and some who defend that they have their guns. But trying to claim that homosexuality was the reason for Sodom being destroyed is a bit of a stretch.
The bible wasn't written so deviants could change the meanings. It was written so ordinary people could understand it in language that is clear and precise enough to know certain lifestyles are not acceptable. That's why. The entire scenario of deviance is defiance of the authority of the family. They'll damn and disown their own parents and deny them children before they'll change their behaviors, and shill other people into engaging in the behavior daring them with social acceptance and pity. Once in, they're trapped. They even pat themselves on the back for not bringing more people into the world by sex, which is its stated purpose historically.
And it is clear that some have decided that their understanding is the correct one and then go and ignore other scripture that would contradict their understanding, such as you have done when you claim that homosexuality was being condemned, but incest was okay.
Criminals who rape sometimes cause more people into the world, but I'm sure that is not what "God intended".
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