I can't get religious gay people!

[Kulindahr]

In that regard, I consider Protestantism a gateway drug for Atheism. It left a cultural imprint of questioning authority which permitted the achievements of the enlightenment and all that has followed.

Except it didn't. "Protestantism" was based on no challenge to authority, but on challenge to an usurpation of authority.

If anything about the Reformation gave an imprint of questioning authority, it was the iconoclastic Radicals, not the Protestants.

 

[Kulindahr]

Religious faith is not mainly about making assertions about reality. Questions of proof, evidence and science are therefor not relevant. Faith is a choice to believe in something without depending on reason or evidence . . . .

That's not what the Bible means by faith. I suppose it's what most Christians actually in fact do, though.

God in the Bible challenges man to test, to seek, to learn, and then to believe. Faith in the biblical sense rests on evidence -- not enough to prove the case to all and sundry, just enough to point the way. It also rests on reason, something clear from John's choice of word in the opening of his Gospel account, "In the beginning was Logic . . ."

 

[Kulindahr]

I think it is too simplistic to say that the reformation caused the enlightenment.

It was synergistic. Reformation had been sputtering and dying for more than a century, but when it collided with the seeds of the enlightenment, and both with the printing press, things lit off.

The reformation was more about politics than theology....

No, it was primarily about theology. The princes and cities made use of it politically, which tangled things together. Of course if you consider Ulrich Zwingli in Switzerland, theology and politics were essentially the same thing -- and that's where the stream that gave us today's elephangelicals arose.

 

[Kulindahr]

It's not only church that is the problem though. It's the idea that an ever-poweful being wants us to obey their rules that is the problem. I have many personal experiences where people who don't even go to church, but have very strong religious conviction, disown their child and throw them out the doors if they find out they are gay. They use the bible as their reason for doing wha they do. And, the Bible can justify their acts...

Twisting the Bible can justify their acts. People like that rarely pay attention to the Prophets or to Jesus, no matter how much they may throw His name around. They don't even pay attention to Paul, who says that whoever condemns someone is guilty of the same sin, and that if you fail in one rule, you've failed them all.

Any parent who would throw out his/her own son or daughter should be rebuked publicly, from the pulpit, and told flat out that what they just did was throw out Jesus -- because He said so, when He said "Whatever you've done to one of the least, you've done to Me".

The problem with "personal belief" is that everybody can have his/her own. And if all they have to argue is that they feel what they belief, thus it is their truth, then that opens the door to anything. That's why I generally don't like when people believe whatever they feel.

That's a good statement of one of the criteria I came up with for a divine revelation, a reason it had to be written: if it just depends on what people feel or come up with themselves, it's crap.

 

[Kulindahr]

Concerning the Rules....I'd much prefer to look at them as a set of guidelines, and because we are human, we tend to break them. They are guidelines to obtaining perfection to a much greater degree in this life, and yet, we all fall short.

"Torah", the Hebrew word for all those things we see as rules, is closer to "instruction" or "guidance" than the the traditional "law" or "commandment". That alone indicates that the statements weren't meant for all time; instruction changes depending on the situation -- culture, especially, but even technology.

Which is why when you get to the New Testament, God says those don't apply any more (unless possibly if you're a Jew [and born before the last Apostle died]).

^ i think lev 18:22 about not lying in the same bed with a man as you would do a woman is not a prohibition against homosexuality, but rather something about physical cleanliness of use of the marital bed. That is, you can have male-male sex, but don't do it in the same bed as you sleep in with your wife.

Of course you want to think that; it's a good justification for your actions. But, if you look at the other verses, they all seem to lead to the same conclusion. I am the first person to admit that if Christian God is real, I will be going to hell. I am not going to try to justify my acts as they are clearly against his book.

SW, that's a possible interpretation, but honestly I have to say it's really reaching. "Physical cleanliness" especially is stretching; "cultic cleanliness" not nearly so much. Given that it's in Leviticus, it's a cultic command anyway; the problem is just exactly what the proscription means. There's another interpretation that says the command is for married men; it's possible to translate it not "as with a woman" but "as with your woman/wife", which gives a whole different spin.

Noting that there have been periods in church history when it was treated that way on a pastoral/practical level, there's a certain amount of credence gained. The prohibition can be then seen as part of the "unclean" system, which didn't mean dirty, but spiritually/ritualistically forbidden; it would be considered "unclean" to profane what was dedicated to your wife (i.e. the penis) by putting it in a different 'receptacle'.
I'd like to take it that way, but I'm hardly convinced by the evidence. All I can do is venture it as a hypothesis and then go searching the ancient literature (modern being too weighted with polemics and wishful thinking), but I don't have the resources I used to for that -- so I'm still reserving judgment.

Another interpretation is that it has to do with temple worship, since a lot of the local deity-cults had sexual activity involved in worship, but that's problematic for a very simple reason: it would seem to condone sex with female temple prostitutes while forbidding male ones, and that just doesn't fit the rest of the book of Leviticus at all.

Choosing interpretations because you like them is really lame; far better to admit you really don't know yet and study on.

 

[Kulindahr]

Do you like prawns, pork or wear clothes made up of more than one material?

Heh. But those aren't applicable to Christians (unless they're Jews who were born before the death of the last apostle).

OTOH they're very useful in pointing out the hypocrisy of the gay-haters: they're only picking on one "abomination" (which BTW is a crappy translation) -- what about the others?

NOTE: any gay-hater who has teenagers who have ever yelled at them are hypocrites -- if a kid gets mad and yells at the parents, that's also an "abomination", and they kids are supposed to be stoned to death.

 

[Kulindahr]

The trouble is, what could it be a metaphor for? What could the shellfish symbolize? Who would base a religion on divine anger at a figurative crustacean?

I don't care if someone wants to call himself a christian, but if they do so, they need to believe things that are plausibly christian. They don't get to just decide "what feels right for them" or that they don't need to justify themselves.

Well, indeed they do need to be coherent, unless "christian" can be substituted for any other adjective selected at random.

Why would it be a metaphor or symbol just because it doesn't apply literally today? The old code of justice on the seas said pirates should be hanged when captured -- is that a metaphor now that it doesn't apply???

Kulindahr, peace.

He will never research or even care what you say.

Some is clearly wrong 'In the beginning was Logic...", is misquoted, rather, "In the Beginning was the Word(logos)."

Well, when I read it, it's like this:

Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος
οὗτος ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ πρὸς τὸν θεόν.

"logic" is a valid translation for "logos"; "concept", or "organizing principle", can also work.

To propose that things of the Spirit can be expressed in the MESS that is human language, to me is absurd. When others address such matters, STEP BACK, and deal with others where they are, HERE AND NOW in and as flesh, knowing nothing of more.

You mean don't engage them from the Word? Even though the impediment of human language imposes limitations, that's not an option.

If your faith is true, born of experience... take a breath, take two, and then chill for good measure before you post such things.

"Born of experience"? I say that's a flimsy foundation. Fueled by experience, though, is essential.

The author of LIFE and LOVE is unknowable, and sadly often difficult to even perceive by most.

Any Creator who is unknowable isn't worth paying attention to.

There are no teachers... not that your words could ever teach anyone, nor should you or I, at least not things of the Spirit. The One teaches what we need through living and loving and struggle, according to our nature, what and when we should know. It is not our place to take the Creator's place. It is not good nor proper to teach without knowing anothers heart.

But words are pointers, and misconceptions can be corrected.

 

[Kulindahr]

Kulindahr,

Let go of what came before. Trust your own experiences, your own loves, losses, struggle, failure, and the learning which comes from all these.

If I were to draw lessons from my experiences... here are a few:

Trust no gay man.
Trust no leather dyke.
Be suspicious of all blacks.
Despise policemen.
Love is a lie people use to get things.
Sex is a tool for hurting people.
Trees are more reliable than people.
Most people would rather destroy than build.


The problem with learning from experience is that experience doesn't interpret itself.

Forget... if only for a sweet, flickering moment, forget, and just BE. Forget yourself, and all you think about yourself, and just BE.

Do this every so often.

It helps... just saying.

There's value there. But as experience needs something from outside to be interpreted, such meditation requires a focus to be worthwhile.

Sometimes . . . the flame and the void.

 

[sokker]

Meh, I guess you can't change something people taught you when you were a child. I've never had a religious education in general, as my parents are agnostic. Even if priests told'em for the whole childhood that being gay is bad, they will eventually follow their native religion.

Exactly. I'm entirely thankful today that I grew up in a liberal household, by agnostic parents. They support LGBT rights too.

 

[oakpope]

It also rests on reason, something clear from John's choice of word in the opening of his Gospel account, "In the beginning was Logic . . ."

humm if you refer to "Logos" it is usually translated in Word, not Logic.

 

[SLOPPYSECONDS]

oooh

somethang alive on thread

kool

 

[bankside]

Why would it be a metaphor or symbol just because it doesn't apply literally today? The old code of justice on the seas said pirates should be hanged when captured -- is that a metaphor now that it doesn't apply???

Let's not worry about today for the moment. And I certainly don't buy that it is a metaphor. Are we agreeing that through the old testament, God gave the Israelites a mean-spirited Word filled with terrible and unjust laws?

Remember that if a young gay person had been bullied by by his parents into committing suicide in the era before Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild, it would have been done with divine approbation.

Jesus may have been inserted into the narrative of Abrahamic faiths like a retaining wall to shore up a terrible foundation, but the old-testament foundation of Christianity is a bunch of unpleasant petty cruelty foisted upon the world by the same General Contractor. Christianity cannot escape its continuity with the old testament, nor explain it away by treating Jesus as some kind of magic wand.

 

[Kulindahr]

You know not the flame... only the void.

Perhaps that will change.

My wishes rarely come true, I try just the same.

Try, fail and try anew...

THAT IS THE WAY OF MAN. YOU ARE MAN.

You don't even know what I'm talking about, with the flame and the void, obviously.

The flame is mine. Of course I know it.


It's sad that you limit yourself to being man.

 

[Kulindahr]

THINK, seperate yourself from it and those who are wrong.

There are good Human Beings.

Only let these close to you.

Define "good".

Then give me the source of your definition.

The flame is known only to those who struggle to be Good Human Beings. The FLAME is LIFE, VITALITY, and later LOVE... I rarely see it in others. The NOTHING, I see that all the time.

As if there where choice between the two for any who know? Do you?

Even when I didn't know the source of the flame I knew better than to post anything like you did. I feel cheated somehow?

Still I'll post this.

You appear to be a mystic who talks in fuzzy phrases so you sound profound.

 

[Kulindahr]

humm if you refer to "Logos" it is usually translated in Word, not Logic.

Usually, yes. But that's merely because if you want to use a single English word for a single Greek word, it's the best choice. But it loses an incredible amount in translation -- it loses the sense of order, reason, logic, organizing foundational principle/concept.

To say "word" to a modern English-speaking audience means almost nothing; a word is just one of thousands of such things, one that can probably be traded for another. But to say "logos" to John's audience indicated something unique, and not merely unique, but the very source of uniqueness, the source of order, the thing which defines the very parameters of existence and does so in an orderly, integrated, dependable and constant fashion.

 

[Kulindahr]

Let's not worry about today for the moment. And I certainly don't buy that it is a metaphor. Are we agreeing that through the old testament, God gave the Israelites a mean-spirited Word filled with terrible and unjust laws?

No, we're not agreeing that. Those laws introduced the concept of justice where there had only been vengeance and retribution. They were a step forward, toward the Prophets where the concept of Law was thrust below that of Mercy.

Remember that if a young gay person had been bullied by by his parents into committing suicide in the era before Gentle Jesus Meek and Mild, it would have been done with divine approbation.

That's a fundamentalist reading. I get tired enough of arguing fundamentalist idiocy with fundamentalists

Jesus may have been inserted into the narrative of Abrahamic faiths like a retaining wall to shore up a terrible foundation, but the old-testament foundation of Christianity is a bunch of unpleasant petty cruelty foisted upon the world by the same General Contractor. Christianity cannot escape its continuity with the old testament, nor explain it away by treating Jesus as some kind of magic wand.

Jesus is the foundation. He came later in time, but the Adamic, Noahic, and Mosaid convenants rest on Him.

 

[bankside]

Jesus is the foundation. He came later in time, but the Adamic, Noahic, and Mosaid convenants rest on Him.

Fair enough. I don't buy it, but I concede that it is internally consistent. A time-travelling Jesus who was there not just for the founding of Judaism but the hatching of the first dinosaur and the beginning of time, and then later perhaps irritated to bear witness to the first night that Mohammed slept with his 9 year old wife. A divine H.G. Wells, only better at woodwork.

That's a fundamentalist reading. I get tired enough of arguing fundamentalist idiocy with fundamentalists

Before the Age of Mercy, when only the Law stood against vengeance and retribution, what choice had the people been given but a fundamentalist reading? What would a simple devout and conscientious person have done, upon hearing the Word of the old testament in Leviticus? Strange too that the Law codified vengeance and retribution. I think I found them easier to accept when they didn't have a divine imprimatur behind them.

No, we're not agreeing that. Those laws introduced the concept of justice where there had only been vengeance and retribution. They were a step forward, toward the Prophets where the concept of Law was thrust below that of Mercy.

Justice? It was perhaps the most subtle introduction of any concept since the marketing profession invented the "soft launch." Why would it be a step forward to codify vengeance and retribution? Yea, verily, He smote them with His mercy.

The advice given in Leviticus is objectively wrong. It is wrong now. It was wrong then. It was, as you agree, not a metaphor, but something to be understood as a law and carried out by all who knew it. Yet not in a "fundamentalist" way. All the while, Jesus observing from the sidelines, waiting for the right moment when humanity is ready for the explanation that following these laws is needlessly cruel.

Without even going to Toastmasters I bet Jesus could have convinced people of that far earlier and spared the cruelty done to millions of innocents in the Name of Justice and the Law. Presumably even Jesus could have convinced the oldest Pharaohs and oldest kings of Babylon of the value of Mercy. And if not the rulers, then the people. They were humans; they had free will; they had reason. Why keep Mercy a secret from them?

 

[star-warrior]

Heh. But those aren't applicable to Christians (unless they're Jews who were born before the death of the last apostle).

I'm not sure why God would want spirtually pure Jews yet have Christians who are defiled by the things he does not permit his chosen.

The Jews must've thought that was quite a burden on them when these upstarts are claiming their God and barging into their Heaven with less spiritual purity than they must observe. Christians are cheating their way into heaven by their lax observance of the traditional Judaic rituals.

 

[Kulindahr]

Fair enough. I don't buy it, but I concede that it is internally consistent. A time-travelling Jesus who was there not just for the founding of Judaism but the hatching of the first dinosaur and the beginning of time, and then later perhaps irritated to bear witness to the first night that Mohammed slept with his 9 year old wife. A divine H.G. Wells, only better at woodwork.

No need to travel in time, if you're outside it.

Before the Age of Mercy, when only the Law stood against vengeance and retribution, what choice had the people been given but a fundamentalist reading? What would a simple devout and conscientious person have done, upon hearing the Word of the old testament in Leviticus? Strange too that the Law codified vengeance and retribution. I think I found them easier to accept when they didn't have a divine imprimatur behind them.

They would have heard it as it was meant -- and there's a good chance it didn't refer to all male-on-male sex, given that it was a cultic command.

And yes, the Law "codified vengeance and retribution" -- in order to limit them.

Justice? It was perhaps the most subtle introduction of any concept since the marketing profession invented the "soft launch." Why would it be a step forward to codify vengeance and retribution? Yea, verily, He smote them with His mercy.

The advice given in Leviticus is objectively wrong. It is wrong now. It was wrong then. It was, as you agree, not a metaphor, but something to be understood as a law and carried out by all who knew it. Yet not in a "fundamentalist" way. All the while, Jesus observing from the sidelines, waiting for the right moment when humanity is ready for the explanation that following these laws is needlessly cruel.

"Fundamentalist" applies to how you're reading it -- as though it was written in modern English to be taken in our literal fashion.

I regard the torah concerning male-male sex the same way Jesus talks about divorce and people eventually figured out about slavery: it was allowed "because of the hardness of their hearts". As for the speed of progression, my only comment is that when the Prophets came on the scene, they had to keep telling people the same things for centuries, and by the time of Jesus they STILL hadn't gotten it.

And a large number of today's people, including many Christians, are evidence that we're still far behind the ethics delivered in 500 B.C.

Without even going to Toastmasters I bet Jesus could have convinced people of that far earlier and spared the cruelty done to millions of innocents in the Name of Justice and the Law. Presumably even Jesus could have convinced the oldest Pharaohs and oldest kings of Babylon of the value of Mercy. And if not the rulers, then the people. They were humans; they had free will; they had reason. Why keep Mercy a secret from them?

He didn't keep it a secret. But to educate a society takes a very long time -- look how many people in the U.S. still think slavery would be okay, and the movement against slavery began among Christians in England before Newton was born!

Anyone can be convinced of the value of mercy for their own -- if their own follow the rules, of course. Convincing people in general of the value of mercy in general is a task that might be completed in another two thousand years -- if we're lucky.

 

[KashMoney]

the Bible says that God killed over 2,000,000 people.

How can anyone trust him?