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I know! Ask them to ask my brother to marry them. He used to marry gay people in California so he has some free time at the moment.
He is a member of the ULC, so he can perform any ceremony. Bar Mizthvah's, issue Fatwas, summon zombies, perform exorcisms, summon spirits which he then has to exorcise, declare things kosher or hallal, and declare which kid is the reincarnation of Buddha. He doesn't do animal sacrifices unless the couple provides the animal.
It was Kh7463's son who was dealing with his bride-to-be's minister, not mine.
Interestingly enough, the Patriarchs in Genesis mostly do some really bad, morally ambiguous crap. They often, but not always, suffer consequences from it, but the things they do are still bad.
Incidentally, no matter what modern interpreters say, the Bible comes down fairly clearly against homosexuality. That isn't to say that there aren't good arguments for ignoring those parts of the Bible; I read a responsum by a Conservative rabbi a while ago that argued that even though the Torah condemns homosexuality, it requires a bunch of other things like love and respect that outweigh that requirement, or something like that -- I don't remember what the arguments were.
The closest the Bible actually comes is in condemning male prostitutes who used to hang around the temples (Some things never change!)
As for Lev. 19:22, it says that lying with another man is an abomination, but 'abomination' isnt' what we think of it as today. Back then, it was more along the lines of unclean in a certain sense.
And that's about all you have. Now, there are hundreds of statements about hetero sex in the Bible, so clearly, gay sex was at most a mere passing interest.
"If a man lies with a male as one lies with a woman, the two of them have done an abhorrent thing; they shall be put to death -- their bloodguilt is upon them."
This comes in a section of sexual crimes. If you're a man: don't fuck a married woman, don't fuck your father's wife, don't fuck your daughter-in-law, don't fuck another man, don't marry both a woman and her mother, don't fuck an animal (this one applies if you're a woman, too). There's some other stuff afterward, but these are all deadly offenses, where both the men and the women involved get killed. Now, that's not ritually impure. That's a capital crime. Ritual impurity was something you could make a sacrifice for and atone, and thereby fix the impurity. Homosexual sex, if Leviticus was followed, got you the death penalty.
The Bible was obsessed with telling people to worship Yahweh and not other gods. That's the first of the Ten Commandments, and everything from Deuteronomy up through Kings is mostly one big tirade against worship of foreign deities. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't also unequivocally condemn homosexuality. If you want homosexuality to be respected, you have to either not believe the Bible or come up with reasons to override the anti-gay sentiments it expresses -- Christians, for example have found ways to do this by stipulating new deities and whatnot.
I disagree. If the crowd were homosexual, why would Lot offer his daughters to them? You have been duped by others who prefer to discriminate against gays by perpetuating that same tired conclusion that "God" smote Sodom because of homosexuality when the real reason is that it was because of being inhospitable to the strangers which as we know even today among the Jews and Arabs that one never is inhospitable to guests.
Incidentally, one is at the mercy of an interpreter's own biases when they are chosen to be the sole, credible interpretation. Interpretations are political and serve certain people in power, then and now. There are many instances of mistranslations throughout the bible and for a person to stand by and say certain earlier versions are the only one's that are correctly translated is ridiculous. The truth is that the Bible is actually, not really clear about homosexuality since the term didn't even exist until much later. Yes, one can quote Leviticus all they want, about "a man lying with another man" and not see a thing written about women lying with other women. This was a patriarchal religion and women were property. It is obvious that if God had written this, there would be no mistakes. For goodness sake, the bible identifies bats as birds!
You should ask yourself why Jesus never mentioned anything about men lying with other men but said a lot about divorce and adultery, and casting stones at others whilst denying their own sins. I wouldn't be as sure as you are about translations regarding men lying with men.
Furthermore, the New Testament had many books written whilst only a select number were ever canonized to become a bible most likely because they supported each other whilst the ones that didn't were left out. Surely, you have noticed there are more books canonized in the Roman Catholic Bible than the Protestant Bible. Now why would that be it the Bible is the Alpha and the Omega of Books? Why would one group of Christians leave out books from an older branch of Christianity?
One could discuss religion until the cows come home and there would be very few agreements in the process.
One last point, when scroll is translated from Aramaic to Hebrew, to Greek, to Latin, to English and on and on, there are bound to be mistranslations or misinterpretations, whether by accident or by purpose. I wouldn't bet my life on any one of them being the true "Word."
Also, why would Lot offer his daughters to a bunch of gay people? Let's rephrase: why would the author of that passage have Lot offering his daughters to a bunch of gay people? Answer: to illustrate that they preferred the sexual companionship of men rather than women -- otherwise it wouldn't be clear that what they wanted with the men was sexual. Besides, there's no reason to suppose that people knew what gay people were like at the time, or even that they existed. People still don't accept this today; Mike Huckabee went on The Daily Show this week and talked about homosexuality as a "lifestyle". It was FAR from being accepted 2800 years ago or whenever the story was composed. The way it's written, it says that "not only did the Sodomites want sex with men, they also refused sex with virgin women". "GASP!" says the ancient Israelite audience.
On your last point, I think that the text of the Bible has been pretty well preserved in the original Hebrew. It did take about 1400 years or so for it to become standardized as the Masoretic Text, and there are some minor differences between some versions centuries apart, like the Septuagint, the translation into Greek, and the Targum, the translation into Aramaic. From what I've read so far, it looks like they're mostly pretty close, maybe with one word changed here and there, or a daled turned into a resh somewhere, and it's nothing so big as to throw doubt on the meaning of any of the passages in question. Obviously I'm only talking about the Tanach here -- I have no idea what the Christian Bibles contain, and if all of those letters are anything like the Prophets, it's going to be boring as all hell to read.
Anyway, my point isn't that the Bible should be accepted as the True Word of God™ -- I'm a total atheist -- just that what it says is actually pretty clear. The Bible is a fairly interesting historical document, in my opinion, with the exception (so far; I'm not done reading it yet) of some of the Prophetic books, which are very uninteresting historical documents. You don't have to think the way it says you should think, and, as an atheist, I think that you should avoid thinking that way at all costs. But it takes some fairly heavy bullshitting to come up with ways of saying that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality.
Because the offering of Lot's daughters was not accepted, in no way means they must be gay. Put yourself in the same situation. Just because you are offered someone, does it mean you have to do what is offered? What if you weren't in the mood? All of a sudden, it proves you are gay? I stand by my first statement that Lot wouldn't have offered his daughters to the crowd unless they were considered straight.
Does your definition of "wickedness" always segue to mean, homosexual? Those who are biased regarding homosexuality will lean toward that being the answer. If it has already been said that it was inhospitality in the unerring bible, then it is in disagreement with itself. Also, who is the author of that passage. Is it "god" telling the story or did the scribes get it wrong? Why should one rephrase it only to try and change its meaning? I can say that the parable has been twisted to mean homosexuality by those who's agenda is to discriminate against gays.
I have heard many descriptions of who wrote the bible. Was it God? Was it man being influenced by God? Was it man making it all up through a series of parables to scare and keep his tribe under control? One, we can be assured that it wasn't god who wrote it. A perfect being like a god would not have made all the mistakes that abound in the bible. A god would know that a bat is not a bird. A god would know that the earth was round and not flat. A god would know that the sun did not revolve around the earth. So could man, inspired by what they think a god would want, write the bible? It makes more sense and would explain their unscientific knowledge of the times and why they would believe the way they do.
Jesus, actually says nothing about gays and lesbians. One would think that if a person was going to follow in the path of a Christ, they would do their best to be like Him. St. Paul was a very troubled person. The Greek names in his letters for what now are described as homosexual ( a more modern term describing an orientation and not necessarily an act ) meant a "soft" person. I can see where modern bigotry could assume when translating that surely, it means homosexual. But, one has to remember that we are imprinting the biases of a translator into their interpretation of what has been written not necessarily the actual meaning verbatim. Only Paul mentions temple sex and that most likely was for the Jews of the time to keep away from the Baal religion temples where it was a part of their ritual. Again, if one is to be a Christian, one should follow the teaching of Christ, not Paul. If a person is comfortable with following Paul's writings then, change the name of the religion to Paulist or Apologist or something else, but claiming that Jesus was bigoted against gays when there is absolutely no evidence that he said anything about it, is disingenuous.
I must say that because you think the translations throughout time are "mostly pretty close" is like the game of horseshoes; close don't get it. I would make the point that because one translation to another language seems close enough sometimes only means that the translator didn't keep an open mind. Look at how the Gospels were written. Many of the passages in each are verbatim, meaning that the persons responsible for writing the Gospels copied from one of the earlier Gospels. No wonder they are similar. Also, I remember a show from the 1950s where there were five or six persons seated next to each other. The first one on the left would tell a joke to the next person in another language, and that person would tell the same joke to the next person in another language and so on until the last person told the joke again in English to the audience. It was completely different from the joke the first person told. Such is the problem with translations. So how can one tell anymore what the "true word" actually is when it is allowed to be filtered through each translator's mind and biases?
I would counter your last statement about it taking some heavy bullshitting to come up with ways of saying that the Bible does not condemn homosexuality by saying that we have had more than a millennium to plant the seed against gays and lesbians by mistranslations and ignoring what actually has been written. The fact that many gospels were not canonized tells me that the religion was formed by what the early church leaders wanted and what they didn't want in their New Testament. Politics and religion, a first! If you are what you say you are, an atheist, then this is all goobley-gook anyways and one shouldn't be taking it for truth at all. I am an atheist and, though it is interesting to watch how these religions evolve, ( and none has evolved more, in my opinion, than the christian church ) I am reassured daily by the acts of malaise by so-called religious folks against others that it was all made up. Knowing that many of the stories of the New and Old Testaments come from earlier religions out of Egypt and we can even follow the Catholic church by watching where they chose to celebrate their holidays. Many fall around the holidays of some of the pagan religions and lift much from them to try and bring in the flock to their own.
You seem to have a bias towards homosexuality and all I can say is that it is a natural occurrence in nature experienced even by the animals, of which we are included. It is not a choice as I'm sure you didn't make a choice to be straight. You just were and you knew it from an early age. It is the very same thing for gays and lesbians and to say it is a choice can only be correct if I were to choose to pretend that I was a straight person only to fit in this society. Cultures are built around superstitions and religions and gays and lesbians have been in every culture regardless of how strict the culture has been against them from the beginning of time. Think about it; why in the world would a person choose to be gay in a culture like Iran or Iraq unless it was not their's to choose from the beginning?
But the Biblical writers weren't JUST pulling all this "scripture" out of their butts; they were writing and collecting it thoughtfully with specific goals in mind. And, more specifically, they were writing in their time, under their code of morality. They were trying to clearly pass down what they thought was the word of their patron god Yahweh, to educate the Israelite public on their roots, to instill a reverence for Yahweh (an important thing for national unity, since the alternative wasn't atheism but worship of foreign deities), and so on. And in the case of this particular story in Genesis 19, the writers were fairly clearly coming up with a nice mythological explanation for the salty, barren regions of the plain where the cities were supposed to be located, as well as telling an important story about treating guests, as well as labeling homosexual sex as evil -- not even just sinful.
Not to mention that Leviticus 20:13 prescribes death for gay sex between men -- one of relatively few offenses to merit the death penalty. If you're going to believe in the Bible, unless you go through all sorts of intellectual contortions of dubious merit, you will have to concede that it says that male homosexuality is very bad.
It also says that there are many gods, but only Yahweh should be worshipped. And it has two versions of the creation story, conflicting codes of law, and so on. Turns out Talmudic exegesis is mostly just intellectual contortions of dubious merit anyway.
He is part of the Holy Trinity. His symbol is the Lamb. He was born of a virgin on December 25th in a cave in the presence of shepherds. Wise men announced his birth. As an infant he had to flee for his life to a foreign land because the king wanted him dead. He had twelve disciples and was considered a great teacher. He was tempted by the Devil who promised him riches. He was known as "the Good Shepherd". He performed miracles. He sacrificed himself for world peace. He was buried, and on the third day he rose from the dead. He was considered the "Way, the Truth and the Light," "Redeemer," "Savior" and "Messiah." He instituted the "Lord's supper." He said, "He who shall not eat of my body nor drink of my blood so that he may be one with me and I with him, shall not be saved." He ascended into Heaven. He was the savior of the world.
No, the person I'm talking about is not Jesus. His name was Mithra. He was an Indo-Persian god who predates Jesus by 1,500 years. Mithraism was one of the major religions of the Roman Empire. By about the year 100 BC the cult of Mithra had become extremely popular among Roman soldiers who believed that Mithra had died by crucifixion.
So you see, I just don't take the gospel as gospel. The whole Jesus thing was lifted from Mithra. It was completely typical of Romans to incorporate other people's religions into their own. The cult of Mithra probably entered mainstream Roman society through Greece which had previously conquered Persia. I think a lot of historians think that a person named Jesus did actually live. He was mentioned by Jewish historian Josephus who was born in 37 AD. But most historians believe the passage in Josephus that mentions Jesus was inserted later by Christians. It is completely out of context and breaks the flow. Then there was the Roman historian Tacitus who was born in 55 AD and mentioned Jesus in a work he wrote in 112 AD. But historians think Tacitus got all his information from the stuff that was floating around at that time. Of the 40 or so historians that were writing during the first and second centuries, only those two mention Jesus. Well, except for a second century historian named Suetonius who mentions a "Chrestus" who was a rebel. Christians insist it was just a misspelling of "Christus". But in fact "Chrestus" was a very common Greek name, and was the name of a Jewish rebel at that time.
By the time the New Testament was compiled, the persona of Jesus had basically become Mithra. Though the Mithra legend differs from the Jesus legend in many ways, the 27 striking similarities listed above can not statistically have been merely due to coincidence. The Jesus of the New Testament is derived from Mithra.
And the Old Testament was never intended to be what it became either. People quibble over its every word in an effort to apply it literally as the "Word of God" when it is very clearly the word of men. Pity then that so many people have based everything upon such shaky ground. It makes it all the more irritating when total strangers clutching a book of scriptures come knocking on my door with their message that my life is somehow messed up.
They're ANGELS. Why didn't they fly away, or at least just start obliterating things and people? You'd figure a celestial being would come to Earth with at least enough power to not get gang-raped by a desert village.
Also, Genesis messengers ("angels" is a more modern term) couldn't have possibly been that powerful, because Jacob wrestled with one and won. Though maybe that one was just impossibly weak.
( I couldn't help myself )
I guess the lesson is, don't marry a man if he has a brother.
Must be assuming no kids = no sex.
Actually being a non-believer, I give man all the credit or the blame, depending on how you look at it, for writing the Bible.
I mean look at Chickenhawk Chambliss feeling up his granddaughter in a TV commercial!
Larry Wide Stance just keeps digging the hole deeper.
I could go on and on, but everybody knows the moral psychos are always the ones doing the most outlandish stuff when they think nobody is looking.
It's the American Way.
Deuteronomy 22
22 If a man is caught lying with the wife of another man, both of them shall die, the man who lay with the woman as well as the woman. So you shall purge the evil from Israel.
23 If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, 24you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbour’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.
25 But if the man meets the engaged woman in the open country, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26You shall do nothing to the young woman; the young woman has not committed an offence punishable by death, because this case is like that of someone who attacks and murders a neighbour. 27Since he found her in the open country, the engaged woman may have cried for help, but there was no one to rescue her.
28 If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are caught in the act, 29the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.
30 *A man shall not marry his father’s wife, thereby violating his father’s rights.*
I would like to apply these standards to the GOP.
Those who live by Leviticus -- well, they should also be stoning their neighbors for watching TV on Sunday, to go by their own logic.
Just sayin'
Here's one to throw out to the next "Biblical inerrancy" bible thumper that comes thumping on your door. Ask them how many angels were at the tomb of Jesus. The correct answer is one, two, a multitude, or none, depending on whether you read Matthew, Mark, Luke or John.
Honestly, what was so wonderful about Bronze Age thinking that we should pattern modern society after it? Take the whole stoning thing, for example. If somebody cursed, you were supposed to get the whole town together to stone them to death according to Leviticus 24:10-16. Well, that's fine if you're living in some Bronze Age rock pile near the Dead Sea 3,400 years ago when Leviticus was written. But what if you're out there on the American prairie? Where are you supposed to get rocks? It's hard enough to get your hands on enough firewood to burn the folks that sleep with their in-laws. (Leviticus 20:14) And it wasn't any big deal to refrain from work on the Sabbath in those days, so when Exodus 35:2 said anyone working on the Sabbath had to be die, no problem. But now we have flex time to deal with. And what do we wear to the office? Leviticus 19:19 forbids the wearing of mixed fibers. But forbidding cotton/poly blend? Come on! How many guys know how to iron an all-cotton shirt? And Leviticus 11:6-8 says it's an abomination to touch the skin of a dead pig, but they would never have made that rule if football had been as big as it is now. And shellfish. Sure, it was no problem making the eating of shellfish an abomination for people living in the middle of a broiling desert. What did they care about Leviticus 11:10? But nowadays we've got refrigeration and shellfish is everywhere. It's even in cat food. What? You're supposed to let your cats eat better than you do??
Honestly, if people want traditional marriage, they should forget about the Bronze Age and stick to the modern era. We should go back to traditional marriage of the 1800's when women were the legal property of their husbands, and he could beat the crap out of them whenever he wanted.
It great to be a man in a patriarchal religion. (snark)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eoBYYElyP4c
Folks that go to the time to do the research deserve the credit.
So G should really read more like, "If your dad tried to whore you out, but none of the guys in town took him up on the offer because they were gay, and if in your quest to kill said gay people, the entire city (and the neighboring one) get destroyed killing all the straight men along with all the gay ones, and you have no one else to impregnate you, one possible solution to consider is for you and your sister to get your dad drunk and have a threesome with him, provided of course your mother also died in the quest to murder off all the gay people, because if mom is still alive it might be considered adultery for daddy which is much much worse than killing 2 cities worth of people or engaging in incest."
Second, 14 of the 15 references quoted are from Ha Tenach, {The Old Testament}. Christians teach the Old Testament was done away with i.e. replaced with the New Testament SO STOP QUOTING Ha Tenach!
Third, Ha Tenach was written to B'nai Yisroel i.e. the Children of Israel. This means a historical perspective is necessary to understand what is written and how it applies.
Fourth, the references were taken out of context.
Fifth, who ever wrote this article can POUND SAND!!
http://www.ibelievethis.us
And BTW - after reading your blog's post regarding opposition to same sex marriage, the abomination of homosexuality and your religious views, have you seen "Trembling before G-d?" http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0278102/
Thanks!
http://www.ibelievethis.us
There is nothing in the New Testament, and Jesus said nothing about homosexuality.
The New Testament was written for both Jew and Gentile, all others. No discrimination.
The main point of the coming of the Messiah was....God is love and you can be sons of God through Jesus, right?
Redemption not exclusion.
The religious right and possible even the religious center point to the Tow Aw Vah of same sex relationships while at the very same time ignoring the Tow Aw Vah of sins Ha Torah Defines as Tow Aw Vah.
It is people who choose to discriminate! It is people who choose to hate and be mean spirited!
Speaking of the Messiah, Jesus is not my Messiah! Yet, there is a very interesting quote attributed to Jesus in Luke 17:24. 'I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.'
This couldn't possible mean....
Regarding love... Lets leave the judgment to G-d and be loving and kind to all of humanity!
http://www.ibelievethis.us
I am not a Christian. I am Jewish. Does being Jewish really change the picture? The word ridiculous does not work for me. Maybe laughable but it's not funny. Maybe mockery is the word... I feel like many religious leaders etc. make a mockery of those Stone Age texts.
http://www.ibelievethis.us
Won't the xtians be in a tizzy when the Scientologists start taking over local governments (as Xtians have done) and start passing laws to edify their own religion. Think xtians will have a new opinion on the separation of church and state then?
But what applies even more is that this blog OVERLOOKS the greater words of the NEW testament spoken by Jesus Himself about marriage - specifically *PRIOR* to Mark 10:9, starting with Mark 10:5: "And Jesus answered and said to them, "Because of the hardness of your heart he (Moses) wrote this precept (concerning divorce). But from the beginning of creation, God 'made them male and female (Genesis 2:24). For this reason a man shall leave his mother and father and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate". If this isn't clear, I don't know what to tell you - it's a spiritual marriage that God alone sanctifies - so why would anyone consider even divorce likely if it has God's blessing?
If you're going to use the Bible for your preaching, use it rightly so and with correct context! As a Christian, I have no issue with your cause because what gays and lesbians and secularists fail to realize is this: Marriage historically in all religions has been between a man and woman because marriage by definition is a spiritual bond, not just a *legal* one. In fact, the concept of *legal* marriage by a government system is far more modern than the institution of marriage itself. So, if you want to *separate* the concept of spiritual marriage from *legal* marriage, that then is what you need to do. Otherwise, you will have to explain to Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Zoarastians, Sikhs, and a few other religions out there - that the concept of marriage is anything but between a man and woman. Perhaps you could find equal footing in their sacred documents as well to help you, as you've attempted to do with the Bible. In fact, I would appreciate it that you would do so because frankly I don't appreciate when it is incited alone, as if it were the sole enemy of gays and lesbians. It's not - open your eyes and look around.
Nice you've noticed that the Bible has been often used as a club (weapon) and that it is wrong. No one is preaching here, it is deconstructing the sorry preaching of others. The whole point of the post is that these out of context old testament verses are the more often used, as clubs, selectively. Usually by non-observant non-Jews much less educated in their own professed sacred word than you. There is no reasoning with it other than to point out the contradictions so that they take a pause. And try to get the conversation from battling religious views to equal rights in a civil and yes, necessarily secular society.
Back in the day, pre-teen girls were married (sold) off as soon as they could start bearing children.
Godhatesshrimp.com
As a gay woman myself, I prefer to leave Christianity the hell alone (no pun intended), rather than vainly attempt to twist it into something more pallatable for me - which is something that I see my gay Christian sisters and brothers doing all the time.
It sickens me to no end. WHY would i want to claim allegiance to religion that has shown me over and over that it does not want me, as i am??? It's no different from insisting on trying to be friendly to a person who has shown you in no uncertain terms that he does not wish to be friendly towards you.
For all it's talk of "loving thy neighbor" and leaving judgement to God, Christianity has proven to be judgemental, hypocritical, hateful, and spiteful. Or maybe, rather - Christians themselves have taken the Christ out of Christianity.
To my gay christian brothers and sisters - I hope you can learn to love yourself unconditionally instead of chasing a religion that hates you and wants you to hate yourselves.