LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

The thing is, it isn't going away, either.

Not as much deliberate revisioning of the Bible as people assumed had occurred has. But, it doesn't stop the fact that retooling has occurred multiple times, mate. Often by accident, rather than by design. Sorry.

And, you can't brush the "transcribe and tweak" part of being put to paper in a more-or-less standardised format (being the Bible, there are various versions even of "standard" to choose from).

edited 6th Dec '12 1:07:58 PM by Euodiachloris

@Starship. I'm with Pykrete (and the others) on this one. You keep saying that you've debunked and argued against Shima and other's points, but I can't remember actually seeing such an argument. Now I'm more than willing to accept that I could have missed it somewhere, but if so would you be willing to humour me and link to your counter argument? Because I've missed it and would really like to hear it.

Since our discussion of Christianity and homosexuality isn't really going anywhere right now, how about we try talking about other religions and homosexuality? We haven't gone in to that very heavily.

Exactly what part of "this topic has come up, it's been argued, we all traded flashy links, and nobody was convinced, hence I'm done" is confusing?

I'm not typing in ancient Aramaic, I'm using idiomatic American English.

I have yet to see an actual refutal. Dancing around the subject, acknowledging it exists... these do not count.

You want to convince us? Then explain and pick it apart. Avoiding it just proves us right. I've read the varied ones, and I can say without a doubt that not every book is the same translation. Which means something is wrong. That takes barely any research or effort to do. 5-10 minutes out of your life? Yeah. If it takes that long to refute the idea of them being the same, it shouldn't take you a severely long time to do the research on your own and prove that your version is the correct one. As of right now, you believe a specific version is correct. So do the research, and prove that to us. It's in your court. So play the ball.

edited 6th Dec '12 1:10:05 PM by Hydronix

Just because somebody provides a counterargument via a link rather than a post, that doesn't mean you should ignore it. If you were having an ongoing argument with someone IRL, and they gave you a book on the subject you were arguing about and asked you to read a specific chapter of it so you two could discuss it, would you ignore their book?

edited 6th Dec '12 1:16:47 PM by Haldo

Exactly. Your argument in the last page was patently false. They aren't the same words in every version.

The issue here is, that you haven't really explained yourself in all these hundreds of pages. You haven't given proof. Yes, the arguments have come up before, but you've dismissed them with no evidence and then called that proof that we're wrong.

I want to be challenged. I want actual sources. Not platitudes.

The part where only you seem to be able to remember you actually making a proper counter argument. That’s the sticking point here, either we’ve all had a dose of retcon or you are mistaken about your refuting it. Now who wants to dig though this thread to figure out what the hell has happened here?

edited 6th Dec '12 1:15:19 PM by Silasw

I would've found this less amusing if I haven't spent 40, 50, a hundred posts refuting things and using proof that didn't require translating ancient Greek to make it clear, and still had it ignored.

I'm not going to backtrack through 223 pages of posts to hunt down the appropriate links. Nor am I going to spend an hour on Google to find the articles that Jhimm mentioned that point out the fallacy of translation drift.

If to you that constitutes proof, by all means, be my guest.

Okay, that part was wrong. Obviously the NIV and KJV and whatever is the official French version won't be the exact same. Yes.

edited 6th Dec '12 1:17:54 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

@Starship

We haven't "traded flashy links" we've presented evidence that you either ignore or avoid thinking about, and you've presented evidence that we have refuted and argued, and that you have either been unable or unwilling to counter refute.

The problem is not that we both have linked to studies and articles, it's that we have and you've ignored them, and to you have and we've refuted them.

edited 6th Dec '12 1:18:54 PM by LMage

It constitutes a lack of proof. If you would have to trawl through hundreds of pages just to find your counterargument, that shows that you haven't touched upon it in quite a while.

edited 6th Dec '12 1:18:25 PM by Haldo

But, it isn't a fallacy to say that translation errors have occurred, and in in further translations, been compounded (the King James itself has many versions where that occurred)! Not only that, in many cases, there isn't even a single version of anything to fall back on as a definitive source, as, if there was something, it's long gone, leaving only footprints!

Wikipedia on the subject... just a quick read-through tells you what you need to know.

In most cases, wilful, deliberate textual editing is not what happened: just standard translation and transcription errors in good faith. Only in a few, specific points, did deliberate change occur.

edited 6th Dec '12 1:25:54 PM by Euodiachloris

Then Maxima, if you say you provided proof in your last 40-50 posts, do us all a favor and link to each of those. We'll read them.

But make sure you actually read our links, because it's quite clear you didn't. Many of your claims are false. Not every translation is the same, and that's a fact. Somebody is wrong. Leviticus is quite clearly talking about cultural taboos, as the section is specific about that. In addition, he never meant homosexuality, since that was a purposeful mistranslation too. An easy one to make, I'm sure, bigotry being one reason, atleast.

He only ever meant Male Temple Prostitution, as the original text talks about. And even if there's that slight chance he didn't, it still is only referring to Homosexuality being wrong in that particular culture, and has nothing to do with the entire world. Thus, following is, when you're not of that culture, means you're not following what he meant at all either. No matter what, homosexuality was never wrong in all of the world, especially not from Leviticus.

Again, I'm not combing through 223 pages so that I can prove we really did do this dance several times before. I did find an article saying that this idea of "different meanings" isn't so, but in between repeating myself here 50 times, I can't find it via any search.

The point being, I don't spend 50 pages demanding people address the fact that they can't even get the definition of "homosexuality" down pat, and that's something that typing "homosexuality" and "definition" in the address bar would pull 50 results, all exactly the same. No need for flashy links.

My point is there isn't some rule that says "Take our word for it, but you, you need a MLA citation with every syllable, or it's void." And again, if that makes you say "See, we're right," then go forward with that belief. Nobody's stopping you.

That's the point, Haldo. I know I spend a lot of time here, but I do have a life, and I just don't have time to research every bit on every topic so I can have a tidy link list to justify my every post.

edited 6th Dec '12 1:31:31 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

Dammit, now I'm all obsessed with finding this article....

edited 6th Dec '12 1:43:37 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

@Starship

If you can not adequately defend your position, then you either need to better defend it, or reconsider it. Anything less is an exercise in intellectual dishonesty.

None of this would be a Thing, Starship, if you answer to every fact and study thrown your didn't in the end boil down too "You make a good point that I can't really counter, but I still believe what I believe" That is not a refute, that is hardly even a statement.

You're still stressing over that?

We've already admitted that "homosexuality" can refer to homosexual acts. But the fact is, when I typed my post saying otherwise, that post got submitted mere seconds after your post about the definition of homosexuality. There was no possible way I could've read your post before making my post because when I started my post, your post didn't exist yet.

However, in layman's terms, the term "homosexuality" is almost always used to refer to the orientation, so when you use it in conversation, people are going to think that's the meaning you're using.

The reason why I said it was "selfish" to use that word to refer to homosexual acts was because, as a result of this word choice and the confusion that it creates, many, many people think that their natural attractions are sins even though a lot of the people who they heard it from were actually using the "homosexual acts" definition. This confusion is a component of why so many gay teens have clinical depression, in fact.

I misspoke when I called it "selfish" — I should have called it "inconsiderate" or something along those lines — But there you have it. That's why I said it.

edited 6th Dec '12 1:41:04 PM by Haldo

And that was after we had the conversation where you admitted that wording it that way contributed to suicides not a few pages before that. It might not be selfish, but it's certainly not ethical either.

edited 6th Dec '12 1:48:32 PM by shimaspawn

Haldo, for God's sake, this isn't about you. Stop being so "selfish" .

I'm getting a bit aggravated because I'm being told that unless I trawl through 200 pages of conversation and pull scholarly articles from all corners of the internet, then my points aren't valid.

Meanwhile people make these bold assertions about a standard American English word whose definition could've been ascertained via Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Merriam-Webster.com, or Google Definition. I was right, but I made the point once, and then still said "But hey, I'll still bow to your request."

So it's like, this game of Rules Lawyering and Bothering by the Book only applies when it's for certain people, but not for others.

Hell, you're the only person who's even addressed it in some fashion. Edit: Well, one of two now.

I resent that.

And I'm still trying to find that damn article because you people have me on a mission now. Goddamnit, TV Tropes Will Ruin Your Life!

Excuse me?

edited 6th Dec '12 2:02:33 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

I am willing to do research.

edited 6th Dec '12 2:12:08 PM by shimaspawn

I know you have all reason to be mad and all, but might I suggest taking a less accusatory tone? It would probably help you get through to him.

Ouch baby. Very ouch.

But alas you only proved my point. Me saying I find something repugnant and agreeing with your conflations aren't remotely one and the same.

You yet again demonstrate this thing where one's interpretation of the statement magically becomes the statement.

Haldo, I'm touched. But I've known Shima a while. When she's being, well, unnecessarily Shima, I let her know it. 99.67% of the time, she simply takes no shit and wants to make her point.

Besides, I thought it was a clever-as-hell rejoinder.

Edit: Where the FUCK is this article??

edited 6th Dec '12 2:15:09 PM by TheStarshipMaxima

I'm with Haldo, can we take a break from yelling at each other and talk about some other religion?

For instance, I've heard that muslims hate homosexuality, but are fine with transexuality. What's up with that?

Okay, you know what? Fuck it. Challenge accepted.◊ At 1:25 PM today I started poring through this entire thread, looking for a single example of actually refuting it.

You joined this discussion somewhere around page 25, when we were still going over demographic breakdown of acceptance within specific denominations.

As of this post you posited Biblical inerrancy while both freely admitting that you can't prove thus and offering no evidence to even support your point. Then we got on a huge discussion of sexism and the epistles, followed by another cycle of general antireligious wank. Following a brief mention of translation difficulty, here you claim to have spent "considerable effort explaining and re-explaining" why, except you haven't beyond stating your position over and over.

Interestingly, you have explained yourself adequately on other topics since then — such as gender equality popping up several times — just not that one.

At some point Jhimmibob linked a lexigraphical study of the Pauline Epistles (which was extremely interesting) that showed their authorship was a fuzzy topic but was ultimately inconclusive. In any case, it wasn't about translation.

I'm now on page 150 of the thread, and I've yet to see a single actual rebuttal of translation issues. At all.

edited 6th Dec '12 2:17:47 PM by Pykrete

Their logic is that if a gay person gets a sex change, that'll turn them in to a straight person! Yaaay

At least they actually understand that changing one's sex means that you should treat that person like the sex they've changed in to.

edited 6th Dec '12 2:17:19 PM by Haldo