[quote=Ichthys]I see a lot of biblical referencing in this debate with people recounting stories/events in the Bible to prove if something is right or wrong. This leads to the following questions: If something is mentioned in the BIble, does that directly mean it is acceptable or unacceptable, considering some of these stories/events never actually comment on whether the act was good/bad? In other words, is it merely a historical event and just that or is it an example of what is/isn't allowable? Also something to consider is who committed the acts in each situation: was the person who did such things, like rape, supposed to be someone good or bad? To put it in biblical terms, does that fact that either a "saved" or "unsaved" person committed the act change anything?[/quote]

Depend's on what you consider acceptable.
There some people who would respond "It's the word of God, of course it's acceptable!", and others who may look at it and go "I don't think this is acceptable". 

Also all the cases involving acts such as rape, slavery, homophobia so far have all been stuff either God directly told his followers to do, or were something his followers did on Gods behalf (and God did nothing to stop it, or punish said followers after. Meaning he approved of it or simply didn't care) outside of the one case with the daughters and their dad, which seemed more of a historical telling.

So considering that it was Gods followers doing these things with orders, blessings or simply no consequence it's safe to say that the Bible allows you to commit these acts. So from a 100% Christian/Gods Word point of view, those are acceptable acts.

From another's perspective?
I really hope I don't need to say.

[quote=Ichthys]I see that the statement that If someone acts a certain way, then it must mean that they thought it first. Therefore, thinking and doing are the same thing. ~~~ That said, does thinking one thing really equate to enacting that behavior? If someone has the thought of killing someone but never acts on it, are they still a murderer? What is murder without an actual, well, murder?[/quote]

This is a philosophical question, therefore no easy answer generally.

I would personally rule no, everyone has dark thoughts at times. That doesn't mean we actually go ahead and commit them or that we should now be treated the same. I mean we've all probably that time where someone was so much on your nerves that you think to yourself "I could kill you right now", or look at something we really wanted and thought "I wish I could take that...", but we don't actually do it.

There's actually a theory based on this called the Iceberg Theory (It does have some other names too. Iceberg is a popular one though), where it describes three parts of your mind. The ID, the Ego and the Super Ego.

Your ID is your basic wants and desires. It's the side of your mind that goes "I want to take that, I want this. We should punch this annoying jerk square in the Jaw".
Your Ego is your rational side, it evaluates your surroundings and recognizes complication's and issues such as "If I took this, the alarm would go off. If I punch this guy in the Jaw, he'll break my spine".
Your Super Ego is your balancing factor and moral factor (It's been taught to me by several different teachers in school. Each described it a bit differently). It basically tries to satisfy your ID while listening to the Ego and also uses factors like "This is wrong, I shouldn't do this".

[quote=Ichthys]Not to mention, some Psychologists have theorized that personality can actually be changed under the right circumstances (source: http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2012-10-18/henry-kellerman-personality-how-it-forms; I suggest listening to the whole podcast), so if this theory is true, then is sexual orientation, if taken as a facet of personality, a valid argument against what a person is vs what they do? Does someone's mere actions dictate who they are as a whole, is it their thoughts only, is it both thought and behavior or is there more involved, especially if personality (which is defined as the pattern of thinking, feeling and behaving by the APA) can, in fact, be changed? To put it another way, if personality can change and sexual orientation is a part of personality, can the orientation be changed or not? Is it ultimately a choice? And if it is a choice, is that enough to say[/quote]

That link only leads to a 200 page long paper from what I could find.
If there is a podcast there I didn't see it. :(

Hypothetically, if Orientation was a personality aspect then yes it could be changed, like any other personality aspect.

However, [url=http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/113/6/1827.full?maxtoshow=&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=%2522Sexual+orientation+and+adolescents%2522&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=0&sortspec=relevance&resourcetype=HWCIT#ref-2]that's not the case[/url] (Cntrl F "Gene" if you want to find the piece on it quickly).

So to answer the rest anyways, since it can still apply to other things.
I'm a big supporter of the saying [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmwLPU5H6_Q]"It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me".[/url]
This could easily be wrong mind you, I don't claim to be an expert on the thoughts vs actions topic.

Basically, I find that deep down you may want to be someone else. Or wish you had another characteristic.
Like for example with myself, I wish I was able to be more clear, concise and affirmative in my dialog in person. 
I get quiet and/or miss-word what I mean to say quite commonly.
But I'm not, so as much as I think to myself that I may be this way, or wish I could be, it's not going to make it true.

Could it change for me? Yes, but it would take a lot of practice, effort and some luck to pull off.
For another example.

Let's say you find a child outside in the snow, he's freezing and doesn't have a coat on while waiting for the bus (It's going to be a while). But you have a perfectly good coat on you, what do you do?

Almost all people here would want to say "I'd take my coat off and put in on the child", but not all the people who say that they would will actually end up doing it if in that situation. Those who actually do the action of giving the coat to the child will be people demonstrating a higher capability to be kind and selfless towards others than those who may want to help, but keep their coat on themselves cause they would get cold otherwise.

Or maybe an example that may be a bit harder to make.
You're loved one or a close friend/family member is about to die, and not a painless death either.
Their death will be decently long and painful, and let's say hypothetically the one way to stop it is for you to take their place, will you?
Whatever happens I think we can all agree, we will recognize and see those who do make the switch as kinder and braver people than those who let the loved one die so they themselves don't have to.

So basically TLDR: Being Homosexual is genetic, so it's not something they could choose on.
But for the question of is it just thought, just action or both that makes someone? 
I rule it's far more based on action that it is based on thought.

[quote=Ichthys]On the topic of biblical theology and all that: First off, I notice most scriptural references are from the Old Testament, but wasn't some of the Old Testament, in terms of some of the rules in it, made null because of Jesus Christ? If this is true, what parts of it are still applicable and which ones are void?[/quote]

It's iffy, in the Bible Jesus mention's new rules and laws to lead the people with.
But it's not fully clear in a 100% precise manner if that means ditching the Old Testament or not.
That it does seems to be a popular belief, and honestly I can't blame them. Who wants to relate to a Religion today that supports rape, slavery, sexism etc?

It's like one of those 5 bible passages listed above about where the Bible supports rape where I had to rule "It could be suggesting it, but with the way it's worded it's difficult to tell for sure". The stuff about forgetting the Old Testament seems the same way.

Now, as to what is still applicable and what is not?
With it being unclear, it could go either way.

And with all the different denominations of Christianity it is certainly possible for some to claim that the Old Testament still applies, and for others to claim it doesn't.
But this just get's complicated (especially when a debate pops up against a non-Christian) cause technically speaking the Bible is Christianity. It's where all the religions laws and rules come from, it is their Gods word. If they are ignoring it, what exactly is there left to be calling them a Christian?

And with the matter that the Old Testament still being in effect or not, not being 100% clear can cause both sides of it to be accused of "You're ignoring the Bible, how are you a Christian?".

So Long story short, it's hard to say.
But what I can say, you would have to accept all of the Old Testament, or none of it.

Cause either Jesus re-wrote it so it's none of it is relevant, or he didn't and it's still in effect.
To only take the Old Testament parts you want... it's cherry picking.
And the second you start to decide what parts of your religion you want to believe in or follow, is when you need to look at it again and ask yourself "Is this still Christianity? Or what I want it to be?".

[quote=Ichthys]As there are many Judeo-Christian denominations, doesn't the fact that there are so many different beliefs under the same religion make the religion unreliable? What makes one different from another? Is it the same God? The same religion? And related to this topic, what is the point of using different translations? If the BIble is supposed to be eternal and "God's word", then does believing in solely one translation prove that the previous claim is false? What makes on translation correct and not another? Are they all correct?[/quote]

Thunderf00t made a [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ie2-12sSyKI&list=FLai9SuO87-oQDrAepGMBdvg&index=25]very good video[/url] about this. Skip to 5:30 to get to the main point on this topic.

Essentially if they were meant to be the same thing in agreement they wouldn't be separate denominations to begin with.
Also Christianity wasn't the first or original Religion.

It came from other religions that were far older than it.
So for all intents and purposes. the whole of Christianity is one giant denomination of another Religion.
A denomination that happens to have many denominations within it as well (Denomception huh? :P).

Different Translations exist for different reasoning. But generally it amounts to, people didn't like the way Christianity was going. May it be a belief disagreement, not liking a certain rule, wanting a certain rule, adding of quotes, removing of quotes, discovery of removed quotes and putting them back in, translation error's etc. So people argue over which is correct, sometimes to the point where if you don't do it in their translation they discount your entire point. 

Kind of like how Shy responded to quotes showing Christianity as Homophobic and claiming it to be false/bad evidence because it wasn't of the Translation that Shy personally chooses to follow.

Now as to which is actually correct? First we need to be under the assumption that Christianity is the right religion, and not one of the many others in the world, or that no religion is in fact correct.
Being atheist, my stance is none of them are correct. All have shown conflicts and none of shown proper evidence to give any good reason to follow it.

But for the hypothetical question, let's assume that Christianity somehow was the true Religion. There's still the matter of translation, and honestly I've never seen a single argument proving one better than another that wasn't basically them having faith, or God saying so. So sadly, they're all at one giant stalemate. They'd need historical proof or Gods divine intervention to establish one as true. 

I think the safest assumption to be made in this hypothetical though would be that none of them are 100% correct. All got pieces of it right, but never the whole picture and it would have to be a matter if fitting all the right pieces back together again.

[quote=Ichthys]Since, according to the fundamental principles of evolution, the primary goal of any living species is to pass on the best genes for survival and reproduce (survival of the fittest and all that), and since Homosexuality is, in essence, a "mutation" (if it even is a mutation) that works against survival of the fittest, is that enough ground to discriminate against them from a strictly scientific perspective? What about from a moral one? In other words, can the argument be made that if Homosexuality is not compliant to evolution, it a deterrent to the advancement of the human race?[/quote]

To which I have to ask in response "If we found proof that one race was better at surviving than another, would it warrant discrimination against the others?".
We know there are already some genetic differences between races of humans, differences which would play a role in surviving in the wild.

Plus let's consider the fact we are also in modern day society, would any of these even be relevant for today?
And also let's say hypothetically somehow all of humanity became homosexual. Do you think they would allow for there to simply be no kids and for the human race to go extinct?

Probably not, they would organize and breed for the sake of survival. Homosexuality doesn't make you unable to have children, it just makes it so you may be attracted to certain individuals who you may not be able to make children with.

Lastly as far as Homosexuality and Evolution is concerned.

[url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHDCAllQgS0]Richard Dawkins gives some good points on how the Gay gene could of been passed during the generations.[/url]