The Gay

Funny how they use the bible to justify their opposition to gays, and then try to use a one man one woman definition of marriage to punish them.

If you were to have biblical marriage then you would have around 3-4 wives and numerous concubines. Also you’d marry your brothers wife if he were to die. Funny how that never comes up.

Outside of Utah, anyway.

Personally i think The Church hates homosexual people because in most cases its a gender switch. The Church has worked long and hard to define gender roles within its self and in the society as a whole. Any acceptable homosexuality, is almost by definition a danger to the male power structure that is so evident in The Church its self and society as a whole. Any of that crap they quote from the bible, is a simple faith based cover up of the very material and real purpose of the church, that being social engineering.

If you don’t think that part of the bible matters, then you’re not a Christian. As distateful and fucked up as many, many Biblically-founded Christian beliefs are, “right-wing Christians” are the real Christians. Progressive Christians that decide which parts of the Bible they want to omit are the ones being disingenuous.

I don’t understand why people want to align themselves with Christianity and the Bible. Jesus said some nice stuff, and there are some really good takeaways from the Bible if you overlook all the horribly evil parts, but many of the tenets of Christianity are totally unpalatable to modern society. And you can’t really just forget about 'em.

Edit: You know… I’m going to leave this here, but I don’t think I have the energy for a fight about this right now. If anybody wants to reply, that’s cool, and I will engage, but this came off far more caustic, self-righteous, etc than I meant it to.

Everyone picks and choses, including right-wing Christians, who, as mentioned, usually don’t have that much of a problem with divorce.
Arguing which Christians are really Christians seem to be a fool’s errand.

I don’t understand why people want to align themselves with Christianity and the Bible. Jesus said some nice stuff, and there are some really good takeaways from the Bible if you overlook all the horribly evil parts, but many of the tenets of Christianity are totally unpalatable to modern society. And you can’t really just forget about 'em.

Yet so many do. It is very possible to have a discourse between secular humanist philosophy and exploring the essence of God through the Bible, and is one of the reasons Western society has had such a thriving intellectual development (that and the fact that our good ol’ chaps haven’t been averse to some genocide now and then).

Everyone picks and choses, including right-wing Christians, who, as mentioned, usually don’t have that much of a problem with divorce.
Arguing which Christians are really Christians seem to be a fool’s errand.

I don’t really self-identify as a secular humanist, but that’s probably an accurate enough reflection of my beliefs.

I think that those who self-identify as Christians should seriously consider the fact that Fred Phelps (famous proprieter of GodHatesFags) is probably equally justified in calling himself a Christian as they are.

I really am not strongly anti-religion, but the cherry-picking and incredible apathy that mark the belief system of most “Christians” really offends my sensibilities. I understand that any time one identifies one’s self with a movement or organization, there are some disagreements that might get glossed over, but there is a big difference between glossing over a few details and striking a large number of fundamentally important tenets from your source document…

I don’t know, there’s only so much that can be said about this topic without a lot of repetition and really pissing people off, but it’s something I won’t ever understand – why is it so important for people to call themselves Christian when they disagree on a fundamental level with important underlying assumptions of that creed? I don’t get it.

Remember all that “Separation of church and state” malarkey your ol’ high school government teacher lectured on? What the Hell was that all about? I wasn’t listening; I sat next to an impossibly cute girl who looked like a redheaded Gelfling, I didn’t learn squat in that class. I guess that didn’t work out, like that whole “one black person = 3/5 of a white person’s vote” thing, or whatever (insert Florida election joke here). Our grandkids are going to be embarassed when they learn about how gay couples couldn’t get legally married in our times.

He’s also equally justified to call himself an American – should those who self-identify as American also seriously consider that fact?

I know what you mean. You know what else? It really torques me off when my wife gets all offended when I tell her how “women” are supposed to think.

Could you show me where the Bible declares itself as solely authoritative? Uh, oh yeah, it doesn’t. Which means that the insistence that the Bible has every single answer is, in itself, an extrabiblical concept. (Unless you’re Mormon, 'cause the Book of Mormon actually does claim primacy).

For that matter, the vast majority of the world’s Christians don’t regard the Bible as the sole rule of faith – there’s also the Apostolic Succession, the Communion of Saints, and the Holy Spirit.

Contrary to what you seem to be implying, while the evangelical/fundamentalist crowd is certainly the loudest Christian voice in America, they’re hardly definitive.

So do many of “us” moderate Christians. “We” also get annoyed when “we” get lumped in with them. Both the Evangelicals and the anti-Evangelicals are trying to put “us” in that lump but “we” would prefer to be left the hell out of it thankyouverymuch.

Not to derail too much, but aside from the clear-to-everyone-except-a-very-few distinction between the OT and NT, I think many moderate Christians would argue that society is changing for the worse. So of all of the social enlightenments that have occurred throughout history, many were against Biblical doctrine. The argument then would be that the tenets are unpalatable because society itself has degenerated beneath them.

To accept that he/she did create that way means that the Bible is not literally true. Which means that the whole faith comes tumbling down like the Walls of Jericho.

Well, I guess that’s true for some people. Most of the Christians I know don’t base their faith on the arrogant assertion that their interpretation of how things are must be how things are, but I do know there are some who are that way.

Instead, we believe in God because we’ve experienced His presence, and we use the Bible as one of many ways to learn more about God. Much like breakfast cereal, which is only part of this complete nutritious breakfast, the Bible is accompanied by prayer, a spiritual journey, hard work and fellowship with others.

I don’t understand why people want to align themselves with Christianity and the Bible.

I don’t know… maybe because we believe God exists? One thing to note is that the Bible doesn’t even discuss the existence of God; it assumes, from the first word to the last, that God exists already. It doesn’t even bother with proof. It’s not meant to be proof for unbelievers, but a tool for people who already believe.

Since it was penned, compiled and translated by human hands, I seriously doubt it’s infallible. You can say it is if you like, but let’s be realistic…

You make a very good argument. It’s completely repulsive IMO, but I can’t fault the logic. It’s amazing how degeneration and progress look so much alike.

No Divine Inspiration? Realistically speaking, I don’t see how you can argue for rationality after just having admitted to highly irrational faith in god. Reading the Bible, where is the point where faith stops and reason steps in?

You make a very good argument. It’s completely repulsive IMO, but I can’t fault the logic. It’s amazing how degeneration and progress look so much alike. [/quote]
Agreed. That’s why I said “many” moderate Christians but not all. For instance, I don’t find in the Bible the oppression of women or the notion of racial inferiority/superiority. Now some people, including the haters always trying to poke and prod moderates into defending the zealous, will interpret something as simple as “a woman shouldn’t teach in a church” to mean “women are to stay at home, barefoot and pregnant, in 1950s obeisance to the MAN, and shouldn’t work and shouldn’t vote and blah blah blah”. Myself, I believe it means only what it says, that women are not to teach in a church. Or some people may take “Jews should not charge each other interest” and create entire financial systems calling the usury of anyone by anyone sinful and all this. I believe it means simply what it says: that Jews (under the Mosaic Law, I may add) were not to charge each other interest. So clearly there are extremists who adopt positions that are not only socially grotesque but a sometimes very thin “interpretation” of the Bible. It is these people who would think things like women voting and civil rights are disgusting and abhorrent.

On the other hand, there are simple Biblical statements such as “homosexuality is a sin” and “marriage is between a man and a woman”. Now clearly a bunch of rednecks or Evangelicals driving around beating down gays aren’t being very Biblical (and those who do bother use it as a veil to cover their own heinous crimes), but being against gay marriage appears to be more in line with the Bible. So on this type of issue, it’s fair to say that most Christians would agree with the Biblical position. Of course the most vocal among these are the same people who think that prayer ought to be forced on schools, so once again the few areas of more-or-less Biblical agreement get lost in the din.

No Divine Inspiration? Realistically speaking, I don’t see how you can argue for rationality after just having admitted to highly irrational faith in god. Reading the Bible, where is the point where faith stops and reason steps in?[/quote]
I think Rimbo makes a good point, in a sense. While I believe the original scriptures to have been penned in the inerrant inspiration of the Spirit, translations obviously get improved and cross-references and studied more in depth as the years go on and new resources are uncovered by Archaeology and linguists and such. So while there may be certain passages which aren’t fully agreed upon by scholars and theologians, there are certainly large swaths which are clear enough in translation.

For instance, Jesus died on the cross for your sins. This is not in dispute from a Biblical point of view (i.e. we’re not talking about third-party accounts for the purpose of this paragraph). That one passage says he wore a purple robe and one says a red robe can be chalked up as a translational error, or an error in a scroll which has been used to translate a certain gospel, or what have you. But the doctrine or the concept is clear enough. This is the importance of the inerrancy of the Bible: the message which can be clearly studied and communicated.

All in my opinion, natch, but there it is.

I agree with everything you say shift6…

except that opposing gay marriage on the basis of scripture subsumes society into the religious system. That is it presupposes all marriages are religously based.

Of course for those whom think all good is derived from religious texts and everything else second best, such basis would be for them an ideal society anyway.

Have you read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?

-Amanpour

Have you read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?

-Amanpour[/quote]

Is that about oppression of women per se though? Even Proust thought Gomorrah represented female homosexuality, not exactly the same as all women.

Could someone point out to me the bit of the Bible where it says boys should not do the nasty to one another in the … uh … biblical sense? In all this fooforaw I’ve never ever heard anyone quote it. Which seems strange.

Here’s a useful site that lists the applicable verses along with arguments for both sides of the issue of how God views homosexuality (scroll part way down the page): http://www.ambs.edu/LJohns/Homosexuality.htm

And another one from the always helpful Religioustolerance.org website: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibl.htm

Have you read the story of Sodom and Gomorrah?

-Amanpour[/quote]

Is that about oppression of women per se though? Even Proust thought Gomorrah represented female homosexuality, not exactly the same as all women.[/quote]

I’m referring specifically to how Lot treats his daughters when the angels come to town as a window into how the Bible views women.

“Look there’s two women fucking a polar bear.”

-Amanpour