LGBTQ+ Rights and Religion

The problems with your statement are are two-fold: 1) by the time monks came into being the old testament was already around 2000 years old written, and even older as an oral tradition, and 2) monks were very meticulous and precise copiers. So much so that they even copied typos. I think you can see how a couple hundred years of people copying the same typos while adding more could cause problems.

"Roll for whores."

and Yeah, okay, I just like to think that with enough skill, effort, and enthusiasm; nothing is impossible for people.

If you want any of my avatars, just Pm me I'd truly appreciate any avatar of a reptile sleeping in a Nice Hat Read Elmer Kelton books

But hard work and effort cannot remove errors in a two thousand year old document. You're being naïve.

"Roll for whores."

Gonna parrot what Boredman said, and add that the different books of the Bible were written in different times and places for different audiences. The Book of Revelation, for example, was written during a time in which Christians were being persecuted by the Roman Empire for their faith and was generally intended to encourage Christians to hold on tight to their dreams faith, even if they could face death for it. The Gospel of Matthew was written with a specific group of radical Syrian Jews in mind.

Admittedly, I'm not the most well-versed (no pun intended) on Biblical history, but I do at least know that human perceptions do color much of the pages of the Bible, as well as the fact that much of it had been previously passed down through oral tradition, so obviously it's not going to be as accurate as intended. This is something that Christians need to keep in mind, and non-Christians need to keep in mind that most Christians who seriously examine their beliefs are aware of this fact and take it into consideration when interpreting their beliefs.

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I regret that I must go to hell for failing the 6th Commandment here.

This is a big (and scandalous) error, but I can imagine that other less scandalous (and thus attract less attention) errors that are no less significant in terms of the meaning is possible.

Yes, some things in the Bible are clear metaphor. Nobody could sensibly claim that the parables, for instance, were meant to be taken at face value. Every work of literature features metaphor.

That does not mean that everything in the Bible is a metaphor, and Christians cherry-picking which is which over the years seems extremely dishonest to me.

There's no reason to believe Genesis is a metaphor at all. You're welcome to believe, but you couldn't provide evidence for it.

It's like I said, if the beliefs of Greek polytheism were disproven, no one would take the retroactive claim that it was actually a metaphor for what science happened to discover seriously. The fact the claims are ridiculous in the light of recent knowledge does not mean they're metaphorical, it just means they're myths like any other ancient creation myth.

Yes, God forbid people try to expand human knowledge without kissing the ass of religious maniacs who exercise control over every aspect of human life without any clear warrant for doing so. Or, even worse, challenging authority!

It's nice to know that the church granted people permission to say and believe as they wished, as long as they supplicated themselves and didn't challenge their power and authority.

Either you believe the Bible is the word of God, or you don't.

If you believe that some parts are the word of God, and others are human error, you had better provide a good reason for claiming to know which is which.

You are entitled to claim to know which parts are God's word and which parts aren't, but you can't expect anyone to take this claim seriously, or to not question the wisdon of trying to divine such a being's will by the lights of a translation of a translation of ignorant, Iron-age, desert peasant philosophy without something a little more substantive and objective than "your own reasoning."

That's really just code for "the Bible means whatever is convenient."

edited 30th Apr '12 10:03:44 PM by Sarkastique

Memento Mori

"Roll for whores."

1. No one had enough scientific knowledge at the time to actually go about attempting to theorize any scientific explanation for the start of the universe.
2. For the Creation stories (there are two, which conflict with each other, thus providing further evidence), they were meant to show God's omnipotence and His power over all.
3. If you don't see how Cain and Abel can be a metaphor at all, then you clearly haven't been paying attention to any movies/literature with siblings and jealousy as a strong undercurrent. Oh, and murder.
4. Oh, yeah, you probably didn't realize there's more in Genesis than just Creation.
5. The Bible was written with Divine Inspiration from God, but it was still actually passed along and written down by human beings. Humans by nature have a tendency to embellish and occasionally fudge things.
6. This is a derail—we should get back on topic with the discussion of homosexuality and religion.

edited 30th Apr '12 10:16:13 PM by 0dd1

Insert witty and clever quip here. My page, as the database hates my handle.

Memento Mori

NOTE: If you honestly want to stop a derail, stop responding to it. Don't leave "one last little response, and by the way, get back on topic now that I've had the last word." Just shut up, ignore the derail, and if necessary, holler. I like this thread and would prefer to avoid a lock.

I still believe that people who voluntarily belong to an organization that spouts views that they disagree with have the responsibility of disavowing those views, and if they don't, it's perfectly reasonable to assume they hold them too.

Further, when those views are contrary to human rights, they have a larger responsibility to either work to change the organization so it doesn't express such views, or leave it so they deny the organization their money and support.

As for churches refusing to hold wedding ceremonies for homosexual couples, that's fine. It's entirely their prerogative, and it shows that they hold outmoded bigoted beliefs, which lets everyone who's watching know just what kind of organization it is.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

The things I object to about that assertion are the following:

• It by definition makes an assumption about a rather large group of people, which in itself is a form of bigotry.
• It assumes that everyone will be willing to leave their religion for a single conflict of interest. Religious affiliation for many is more than just being part of a club—it's a form of gaining identity and seeking truth and meaning. As I think one other person said, it's not like a light switch you can turn on and off on a whim.
• It assumes that there is nobody within these religions working to reform and that there are not a great deal of people who disagree with this sort of policy. This is patently untrue, and I myself and others in this thread have provided evidence to prove it over several posts in the past few pages.
• It ignores the ignores the positive aspects of these organizations (e.g.: charity work, providing solace for the lonely/depressed/people in conflict, teaching a basic system of morality—"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself") in favor of focusing on a single misstep of them. One which, as I mentioned, people are actively working to correct.
• The people who voice these bigoted opinions are not necessarily the largest groups, but merely the loudest voices.

Spoilered for off-topicness: Also, I realize that responding to something that's off-topic is not the way to deal with it, but I saw no real harm in it. Also, I couldn't help myself and probably should've given myself a minute to calm down and turn the other cheek.

edited 30th Apr '12 10:35:51 PM by 0dd1

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Memento Mori

It's not bigotry, because as soon as evidence is provided that they do voice their dissatisfaction, I change my opinion of them. But if you voluntarily belong to an organization where the leadership promotes certain views, my default will be to think that you hold those views too.

Take yourself, for example: I don't believe you're bigoted against homosexuals, because you've specifically said you haven't, regardless of your religious affiliation.

I'm very glad you brought this up. I don't assume everyone will be willing to leave their religion for a single conflict of interest. What I assume is that people who neither leave nor fight to change it have priorities that rank higher than any human rights abuses the organization takes part in. And then I object to that. So if someone says, "Well, I would speak out against the Church's views on homosexuality, but I think unity in the Church is more important," I'll object strongly to that notion.

Nope, I simply assume that there aren't enough people within these organizations working to reform and that there aren't enough people who openly voice their dissatisfaction with that sort of policy to keep the organization from adopting it. So, yes, I do hold those who neither fight nor leave responsible for those policies.

I have repeatedly stated that I think that those who fight for change within aren't responsible for the policies (generally). Further, those who leave are welcome to join or form other organizations that do the good parts without the bad.

I'd be more inclined to believe this if it weren't usually people in leadership positions. If those leaders aren't denounced by those beneath them, then those beneath them implicitly support those policies in their silence.

Much to my BFF's wife's chagrin, No Pants 2013 became No Pants 2010's at his house.

That's right. The Bible contains books which were written at different times for different audiences. And none of them was written for the current audience.

Markus, Johannes, Luukas, Matteus. Yes we should stick to the English names since we're communicating in English, but I think someone might find it interesting that the Latin Bible, for an example, has no Mark but Marcum.

edited 1st May '12 4:28:18 AM by Qeise

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.

@0dd: The way I look at it is through a lens of verisimilitude. That is, given the basic premise that Christianity is correct, more or less, what line of belief makes the most sense? And to be honest, here's what I think.

You'd have a belief, which focused on maintaining a tight social order and keeping all the ducks in a row more or less. This belief, would do charitable works however would tend to ignore or outright oppose systematic efforts to change the system to make said charity less necessary, as they see the charity as the goal in and of itself, and not the relief of suffering.

And generally speaking that's what we see in the world. Not everybody believes in this, of course (but many do), and maybe we shouldn't assume as such, but what I listed above, I strongly believe is the most obvious outcome of Christian belief. And I do think on the whole, it's a negative outcome. Even the charity works, in my mind, are somewhat tainted by the somewhat insincere goals for it. I don't think it HAS to be this way, of course. I'm not a fan of throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but the bathwater really does need to be changed.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

Given the number of off-topic thumps here, I suggest that everyone who isn't actually discussing homosexuality as it pertains to religion or religion as it pertains to homosexuality please take it to a different thread. "What the Bible Says" is, I think, a thread more suited to some of the discussion here, and I'd hate to see it die.

Thankies. ^.^

edited 1st May '12 8:49:15 AM by Muramasan13

Smile for me!

Sarkastique: "If you want to know to why I'm bothering to tell you this, it's because the practice of reducing Christianity to literary criticism in order to justify the most drastic changes in doctrine imaginable is intellectually dishonest and bankrupt. I'm glad fewer and fewer Christians are bigoted against homosexuals, but they can't dodge the responsibility their holy book has for inspiring that persecution in the first place, and claim that the Bible is a force for tolerance.

As long as we let people get away with telling others that religion is some inherently good thing (I'm not claiming it's inherently bad, either), and that any religious believer that believes nasty things about people is just "perverting" the faith, we're not just letting people get away with extreme intellectual dishonesty, we're preventing ourselves from criticizing books and the beliefs they engender that produce very real harm to our homosexual brothers and sisters in humanity."

I don't have to discredit someone's world view in order to point out the harm it causes. Furthermore fighting against religions isn't the most effective way to fight for gay rights. People fight for their gods a lot longer than they fight for their ownership over a legal institution (marriage) and I want my right to marry a dude today, not sometime in this millennium. Besides I don't care what kind of anti-intellectual concepts people uphold, as long as the said concepts don't effect the society as a whole.

To put these thoughts in a context let's say I'm having a debate with a person who says: "Gays shouldn't get right to marry, because God forbids gay sex." I could argue using "God doesn't exist" angle or for example "that shouldn't matter when laws are made" angle. I think the latter approach is more likely to produce a debate that would actually make the other party change their mind about gay marriage. They wouldn't change their mind about God or sins or gays, but I don't need to do that in order to reach my goal.

Agreed. If anything discrediting God along with gay rights make the religious right even LESS flexible to giving in. It mentally sets off a slippery slope fallacy more than just arguing seperation of church and state.

The Crystal Caverns A bird's gotta sing.

Depends on why. Saying Genesis is a metaphor because shut up P.S. haha we're still right is dishonest, yeah, and it happens depressingly often. But overall, seems to me that not trying to separate metaphor from direct message would be extremely dishonest and prone to missing the point. If you're going to look at a document notorious for regularly speaking in dense metaphor and symbolism, you have to be ready to cherrypick.

As for homosexuality in particular, I don't think banning it was a metaphor for anything, and claiming it was would be the wrong way to broach the matter. I think it was an instruction given to a people who didn't have the leeway in hygiene or medical knowledge to accommodate gay sex without endangering their tribe, and now we do — same reason we don't follow half the other laws in there anymore.

I would also lean towards the idea that, in addition to the health/hygiene reasons, the Bible prohibits it because of the way it was used in society. If gay sex was most often used as a tool to humiliate your enemies or to express power over someone, then it does make sense to discourage it. In the times when the bible was written, did monogamous, consensual, equal gay relationships even exist as a widespread thing? I don't think it did.

Be not afraid...

I've heard conflicting reports of that, however, it might be a more local phenomenon where it was seen more in some places than others.

In any case, as the whole Dan Savage kerfluffle shows us, even this discussion, as quite frankly tame and even-handed as it is, is something that's beyond the pale and offensive to people. Now maybe we should just say screw those people, but I don't think that's going to fly too well with moderates.

Democracy is the process in which we determine the government that we deserve

Memento Mori

Right. Also, people didn't just wake up one morning and say "oh, and by the way, the Lord hates it when you have gay sex". That's not how humankind works.

The ancient Hebrews' positions about homosexuality was due to a number of factors, such as for example health issues, the fact that some of the cultures with which they were in conflict practiced male sacred prostitution, the idea that being penetrated meant being dominated and made "lesser" (obviously, that was perfectly in agreement with the misogyny of most ancient societies) and so on.

And, as Loni said, the fact that male-on-male rape was associated to the humiliation of defeated enemies had certainly a role too.

By the way, I suppose that this is as good a post as any to say that I'll withdraw from this thread from now on. It's getting repetitive: we keep going over the same arguments again and again and again, and frankly that's just uninteresting to me.

edited 2nd May '12 3:36:15 AM by Carciofus

But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away from Omelas.

So is or is the Bible not a product of divine inspiration? Because that sounds a lot like you admitting the Bible is the ethics, health regulations and myths of some Jews and Greeks codified. If it were divinely inspired, couldn't that inspiration cause them to wake up one morning and say "oh, and by the way, the Lord hates it when you have gay sex"?

edited 2nd May '12 6:16:43 AM by Qeise

Laws are made to be broken. You're next, thermodynamics.