Same Sex Marriage Thread - Part III

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"The Christian right only pretends to take the Bible seriously. But what they actually do is to take out of context..."

I'm agreeing with this. The 2 1/2 references that people equate with homosexuality are hugely taken out of context. The 1/2 reference isn't really a reference at all but has been turned into one over the centuries. The Leviticus reference when you look at the original language isn't referring to a homosexual dating or sexual relationship at all it references something much closer to an arrangement or prostitution type of relationship, and then Paul's reference refers back to the Leviticus reference. The original text makes absolutely no reference to homosexual relationships as we know them today.
 
How do you interpret this one?

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

(I'm just about to head out, so forgive me for not responding right away. I'll get back to in later on)
 
How do you interpret this one?

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

(I'm just about to head out, so forgive me for not responding right away. I'll get back to in later on)

This is the Leviticus verse I mentioned earlier. You could also be put to death for touching pork or sleeping next to your wife while menstruating according to Leviticus.
 
I probably should've quoted the entire essay.

Here's an important part:

The Bible isn't a rulebook, and Christians cannot lift out of its context any passage from it, and still hope to gain a clear understanding of that passage.
It is important to understand that even the most fundamentalist Christian sects do not take the Bible wholly literally. The New Testament is two thousand years old, the old Testament much older. The Bible's cultural contexts, along with the translation at hand, is always taken into consideration by any Christian serious about understanding this vast and complex work.

To excerpt any isolated short passage from the Bible, and then claim for that passage absolute authority, is to fail to take the Bible on its own terms. If we wish to follow the word of God, then we must take the entirety of God's words into account. For example, when the Bible itself identifies some of its words as proverbs, it is bestowing upon those words less moral weight than other words that it identifies as commandments. The Bible itself tells us that some of its contents are songs, some visions, some histories, some dreams, some parables, and some commandments. The Bible itself also instructs Christians that New Testament moral directives supersede Old Testament moral directives. The Bible itself tells us that its moral principles supersede any of its moral "rules."
The context of any Bible passage is as integral to its meaning as the passage itself. It may be appropriate to give equal weight to each clause within a business contract, each step within a set of mechanical instructions, or each rule within a game rulebook. But the Bible itself tells us that the Bible is not a uniform document, with each passage spelling out something clear and specific, and all passages having equal value. The Bible is not a rulebook for being Christian. We would be foolish to fail to understand that not everything in the Bible is a commandment, and that Christians cannot take a small section of the Bible out of its larger context, and still hope to gain a clear understanding of that section. Isolating a clobber passage from its context, and then claiming a sort of moral helplessness because "it's in the Bible," is failing to take the Bible either literally or seriously.
 
BVS said:
This is the Leviticus verse I mentioned earlier. You could also be put to death for touching pork or sleeping next to your wife while menstruating according to Leviticus.

*iPhoneWaitingToPickSomeoneUpMicropost

I agree. But that verse in particular is immediately surrounded with proclamations like 'don't sleep with your mom' 'don't sleep with your daughter' 'don't sleep with your grandmother', so in that context, is it entirely unreasonable to include not sleeping with other men?
As far as omitting it all together like you would pork or sleeping next to a menstruating wife, is that not less interpreting and more just ignoring?
 
*iPhoneWaitingToPickSomeoneUpMicropost

I agree. But that verse in particular is immediately surrounded with proclamations like 'don't sleep with your mom' 'don't sleep with your daughter' 'don't sleep with your grandmother', so in that context, is it entirely unreasonable to include not sleeping with other men?
As far as omitting it all together like you would pork or sleeping next to a menstruating wife, is that not less interpreting and more just ignoring?

Well it basically says you can't have sex, except with your wife on certain days, and a stranger as long as they aren't related. So if one wanted to be "pure" as you put it and didn't understand the context of Levitical law than yeah I guess they would have to wipe out a big portion of the planet.
 
Well it basically says you can't have sex, except with your wife on certain days, and a stranger as long as they aren't related. So if one wanted to be "pure" as you put it and didn't understand the context of Levitical law than yeah I guess they would have to wipe out a big portion of the planet.

Since when is it outlandish for a religious person to think they can't have sex out of wedlock? It doesn't wipe out a big portion of anything. There are still huge portions of the population that adhere to that very thing.
What is the context of Levitical law? You still haven't interpreted those verses any differently than they appear; you only ignore them
 
Since when is it outlandish for a religious person to think they can't have sex out of wedlock? It doesn't wipe out a big portion of anything. There are still huge portions of the population that adhere to that very thing.
What is the context of Levitical law? You still haven't interpreted those verses any differently than they appear; you only ignore them

Ironically enough sex between an unmarried man and unmarried woman isn't covered in that passage if I remember correctly.

Levitical law was a set of Old Testament laws that most Christians would say were abolished with the "new law" and then the coming of Jesus. I can't remember saying anything about interpretation I thought I just mentioned context.
 
How do you interpret this one?

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

(I'm just about to head out, so forgive me for not responding right away. I'll get back to in later on)

Usually I disagree with nearly everything that you say about religion, but you reminded me of something that really bugs me about Christianity. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I left Christianity. The difference between God in the Old Testament and the New Testament drive me crazy. Many Christians try to write off every crazy thing that Leviticus says, but I always found the explanations for how God's personality could so radically shift to be unsatisfying. I also don't like the shift between borderline-racist God-of-one-ethnicity to God-of-all-people.
 
How do you interpret this one?

"If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads."

(I'm just about to head out, so forgive me for not responding right away. I'll get back to in later on)

Sooooo basically this says that men should not be bisexual(if one doesn't lay with woman, they can lay with men, as far as this verse is concerned), and women/women gay relationships are okay?


Really, you can interpret these sentences in so many different ways. And even though, they're still words written down by man. So why should we take them as laws? :shrug: It's fine by me if people are religious, if they get something out of faith, but it's a personal thing. So as long as they don't tell me what to do based on the rules THEY choose to live on, I couldn't care less. The only people I have a problem with are the ones forcing their faith or beliefs on me. I'm not forcing them to believe in my fairytales, so why not just leave me alone. I'm not harming anyone, I'm obeying the law like any good citizen... :shrug:
 
Levitical law was a set of Old Testament laws that most Christians would say were abolished with the "new law" and then the coming of Jesus.

And then there are some who say this in one breath, and then in the next point to those very laws to explain why their homophobia is biblically justified.
 
Really, you can interpret these sentences in so many different ways. And even though, they're still words written down by man. So why should we take them as laws? :shrug: It's fine by me if people are religious, if they get something out of faith, but it's a personal thing. So as long as they don't tell me what to do based on the rules THEY choose to live on, I couldn't care less. The only people I have a problem with are the ones forcing their faith or beliefs on me. I'm not forcing them to believe in my fairytales, so why not just leave me alone. I'm not harming anyone, I'm obeying the law like any good citizen... :shrug:


So is not parking in front of a fire hydrant. Amongst others, for some reason that was the first one that came to mind that can't be pointed to as also being in the bible (although if they'd had fire hydrants in Moses' time...do you think we'd have the Ten Commandments? Surely someone would have put out that burning bush before he even saw it). But as a good citizen, you're obeying that man-written law, lest your car get towed.

People came up with these laws isn't a reason not to obey them, humans came up with every biblical and non-biblical laws there are. I'm sure you, unless you're advocating total anarchy, just meant something more along the lines of man-made laws with no real consequences/only re promise of eternal damnation if disobeyed, why should we follow them anyway? And i am nitpicking here. But I really just wanted to make that burning bush fire hydrant joke. I've been awake way too long. I keep picturing Charlton Heston saying "a sign from god!" and some nameless bystander shouting "quick! I'll get a hose!" and it amuses me.
 
Yeah I get your point, guess I should've elaborated a bit more. Our laws are, of course, man written as well. But I think the difference is that they are far more recent, and made to make our society work. It's all one big system that works as long as everyone works with it, while the 'old' biblical laws were more Obey or be damned. They were mostly to keep people in fear so they would obey, whilst our laws are more the moral things to make sure our society functions.

Asides from that, most of those biblical laws are horribly outdated. We now know so much more than they knew back then, we understand more how we work, how the universe works, we don't blame gods for our natural disasters anymore. We understand how they are caused and choose to protect ourselves as best as we can with waterworks and everything. Yet nothing of that is written in the bible. So maybe, just maybe, it's time to adjust those laws to recent times?
 
One thing that I don't like about Bible thumping Christians is that they treat the Bible as though it is a deity itself. I know they believe is the Bible is the absolute word of God, but they seem to make it part of the Trinity - Father, Son, Book.
 
Ironically enough sex between an unmarried man and unmarried woman isn't covered in that passage if I remember correctly.

Levitical law was a set of Old Testament laws that most Christians would say were abolished with the "new law" and then the coming of Jesus. I can't remember saying anything about interpretation I thought I just mentioned context.

Didn't Jesus also say something about not coming to change the laws?
You say most Christians say Levitical law was abolished, but then why does your country in particular have such a huge problem that would imply the opposite? It would seem that a rather large percentage of Christians don't believe what you're saying at all.
I suppose you didn't say "interpret", but I don't think we should suddenly pretend like that has never been part of the argument
 
And even though, they're still words written down by man. So why should we take them as laws? :shrug:

You won't find any arguments about this from me. But unfortunately, to debate with irrational beliefs, you need to debate down to that level. Really, "Yes, but it's all completely made up" puts the stamp on the whole thing
 
Usually I disagree with nearly everything that you say about religion, but you reminded me of something that really bugs me about Christianity. In fact, this is one of the reasons why I left Christianity. The difference between God in the Old Testament and the New Testament drive me crazy. Many Christians try to write off every crazy thing that Leviticus says, but I always found the explanations for how God's personality could so radically shift to be unsatisfying. I also don't like the shift between borderline-racist God-of-one-ethnicity to God-of-all-people.

for me, it's one of the glaringly obvious proofs of it being man made (among many other things).
I assume you're still religious? Where does that leave you in regard to what god you believe in?
 
There's a simple historical reason why the Hebrew/Torah god and the New Testament sense of divinity differ so radically: they were written as reflections of social conditions in radically different societies. One cannot expect a priest-dominated, largely agrarian society of shepherds in 1500 BCE to correlate well with the urbanized, Hellenistic society that gave rise to the New Testament gospels. If you look at these things as pieces of literature, then the whole picture falls into place quite neatly.

I will also add that - again from a completely historical standpoint - there is no such thing as modern-day "context" for biblical texts. They are reflections of wildly, wildly different societies in almost every way conceivable. In that sense debating how to interpret Leviticus for the modern day is a completely futile exercise.
 
There's a simple historical reason why the Hebrew/Torah god and the New Testament sense of divinity differ so radically: they were written as reflections of social conditions in radically different societies. One cannot expect a priest-dominated, largely agrarian society of shepherds in 1500 BCE to correlate well with the urbanized, Hellenistic society that gave rise to the New Testament gospels. If you look at these things as pieces of literature, then the whole picture falls into place quite neatly.

I will also add that - again from a completely historical standpoint - there is no such thing as modern-day "context" for biblical texts. They are reflections of wildly, wildly different societies in almost every way conceivable. In that sense debating how to interpret Leviticus for the modern day is a completely futile exercise.

:up:

That probably puts them overdue for another revision
 
for me, it's one of the glaringly obvious proofs of it being man made (among many other things).
I assume you're still religious? Where does that leave you in regard to what god you believe in?

I am not religious. I just tend to be somewhat of a religious apologist.

There's a simple historical reason why the Hebrew/Torah god and the New Testament sense of divinity differ so radically: they were written as reflections of social conditions in radically different societies. One cannot expect a priest-dominated, largely agrarian society of shepherds in 1500 BCE to correlate well with the urbanized, Hellenistic society that gave rise to the New Testament gospels. If you look at these things as pieces of literature, then the whole picture falls into place quite neatly.

I will also add that - again from a completely historical standpoint - there is no such thing as modern-day "context" for biblical texts. They are reflections of wildly, wildly different societies in almost every way conceivable. In that sense debating how to interpret Leviticus for the modern day is a completely futile exercise.

Agree completely.
 
There's a simple historical reason why the Hebrew/Torah god and the New Testament sense of divinity differ so radically: they were written as reflections of social conditions in radically different societies. One cannot expect a priest-dominated, largely agrarian society of shepherds in 1500 BCE to correlate well with the urbanized, Hellenistic society that gave rise to the New Testament gospels. If you look at these things as pieces of literature, then the whole picture falls into place quite neatly.

I will also add that - again from a completely historical standpoint - there is no such thing as modern-day "context" for biblical texts. They are reflections of wildly, wildly different societies in almost every way conceivable. In that sense debating how to interpret Leviticus for the modern day is a completely futile exercise.
:up: Good point.
 
You say most Christians say Levitical law was abolished, but then why does your country in particular have such a huge problem that would imply the opposite?
One word: homophobia

No Christian denomination that I know of follows the pork, sideburns, etc laws. They all point to the Paul reference, even though Paul is referencing Leviticus.

It would seem that a rather large percentage of Christians don't believe what you're saying at all.
I suppose you didn't say "interpret", but I don't think we should suddenly pretend like that has never been part of the argument

If you look back at some of the early gay marriage discussions in FYM and you'll find a lot of discussion on this. There's a lot of circular arguments, they will all admit that Levitical law was abolished, or some will try and gray the area and say that the law was "fulfilled" so it's still law but we just don't have to follow it to a T. But they'll all cling to the Paul reference to justify their stance.
 
So if it's Homophobia, and not written in the bible.... where does it come from? When did the humans decide that homophilia is bad? Really makes me wonder where it all went wrong.
 
You also have to wonder why there's such a strong correlation between homophobia and religiosity
 
Oh no. After noticing that Pearl was online and checking some of her recent posts, I've stumbled on yet another thread about religion. :eek: The same old arguments that go nowhere. The same old posters arguing over the same old things. It leads us nowhere. So much ignorance and lack of understanding. I want answers, not arguments.
 
Didn't Jesus also say something about not coming to change the laws?
You say most Christians say Levitical law was abolished, but then why does your country in particular have such a huge problem that would imply the opposite? It would seem that a rather large percentage of Christians don't believe what you're saying at all.
I suppose you didn't say "interpret", but I don't think we should suddenly pretend like that has never been part of the argument

Matthew 5:17

"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
 
Oh no. After noticing that Pearl was online and checking some of her recent posts, I've stumbled on yet another thread about religion. :eek: The same old arguments that go nowhere. The same old posters arguing over the same old things. It leads us nowhere. So much ignorance and lack of understanding. I want answers, not arguments.

I guess the only thing less productive than that is posts like yours.
At least we're trying
 
Oh no. After noticing that Pearl was online and checking some of her recent posts, I've stumbled on yet another thread about religion. :eek: The same old arguments that go nowhere. The same old posters arguing over the same old things. It leads us nowhere. So much ignorance and lack of understanding. I want answers, not arguments.

:uhoh:

Er, am I being followed around here?

Pardon me, I just read this and thought it was odd.
 
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