Do you do any of these things that are banned in the Bible?

[Owlswing]

I keep looking in to see if we have had an answer. Sadly not.

Nor, I regret to say are we likely to as an admission that the only reason is rampant homophobia is not likely to be all that welcome or popular.

[Shaker]

Well, that's the triumph of experience over Hope, isn't it?

[Owlswing]

OUCH! Harsh but probably true!

[Nearly Sane]

Well, that's the triumph of experience over Hope, isn't it?

Points

[Dicky Underpants]

So it's really a sub-branch of Judaism.

Probably as much as one can say that Buddhism is a sub-branch of Hinduism!!

So you're sort of half agreeing with Leonard and half agreeing with BA? I take it you don't entirely support BA's latter-day Marcionism, with his virulent insistence on divorcing the OT from the NT?

[Dicky Underpants]

So the God who made the prohibitions listed in the Old Testament is not the God of the Christians?

I wondered when someone would make this schoolboy error, Matt.

As has been discussed on at least two other threads recently, Jesus pointed out that he had come to fulfill the law.  In other words, he had come - as God in human form - to make the law unnecessary by instigating a completely different approach to life (and before you make any comments about how unsuccessful that was, I will happily acknowledge that the church has often failed to live up to the standards Jesus set for us).

The Jewish people, for whom the original law was developed, remain under its jurisdiction for as long as they choose to ignore/dispute the Messiahship of Jesus.  Therefore, it ios they who you ought to be addressing the question in the OP.  In a sense, so does everyone else, since law only exists to control or manage human failing.

Isaiah and Micah had already declared most of the Levitical law obsolete. Hillel went even further in this regard than Jesus. Modern Jews are a mixed bunch, just as Christians are. Do you think Rabbi Julia Neuberger is very concerned about wearing clothes made of two types of fabric?

[Hope]

So it's really a sub-branch of Judaism.

Probably as much as one can say that Buddhism is a sub-branch of Hinduism!!

So you're sort of half agreeing with Leonard and half agreeing with BA? I take it you don't entirely support BA's latter-day Marcionism, with his virulent insistence on divorcing the OT from the NT?

Well, no Buddhist would want to be told that Buddhism is 'really a sub-branch of' Hinduism.  I happen to believe that this 'sub-branch' idea is too simplistic.  As for BA's 'virulent insistence on divorcing the OT from the NT', it would seem to me that he is determined that the God of the OT is not the same as the God of the NT - something I would disagree with.

[Hope]

Hillel went even further in this regard than Jesus.

I would disagree, in that Hillel stayed within the parameters of Torahnic teachings.  As such, he expounded the Torah. Jesus, on the other hand, took those same teachings and punched holes in them by saying that they didn't go far enough.  Hence the Sermon on the Mount which radically remoulds the ideas taught in the Torah.

[Shaker]

Since you've been back to this thread, Hope, perhaps you can now answer the question, posed by myself, Gordon and Rhiannon independently, of what you think the "good reasons" were or are that homosexuality has been regarded "with revulsion" "through history and across cultures" as per your #66.

Doubtless omitting to answer this point was merely an oversight on your part, and I'm glad to remind you of the point.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Since you've been back to this thread, Hope, perhaps you can now answer the question, posed by myself, Gordon and Rhiannon independently, of what you think the "good reasons" were or are that homosexuality has been regarded "with revulsion" "through history and across cultures" as per your #66.

Doubtless omitting to answer this point was merely an oversight on your part, and I'm glad to remind you of the point.

All good questions I'm sure.
I wonder whether the cultures I think you are alluding to...Ancient Israel?.. regarded lots of things with revulsion and that it is a less than useful exercise to look at a culture as ''homophobic'' rather than ''revolted''. To focus on this is to be a bit revisionist and not at all historical. Still I understand why you bring in this historical revision, that these cultures were specifically homophobic and their society and economy were somehow powered by homophobia. That is IMHO a specifically antitheist narrative and is one of the heaviest bludgeons in the antitheists armoury.

My own understanding is that the heart of ancient Israeli life was the conventional family, that childbearing and nuclear family building were central and that any sexual activity outside of that( and the ancient Israelis took it that anyone was capable of any of those acts ) was held with equal revulsion.

At this moment I am thinking of historians who might be better placed to clear the ''revulsion of ancient societies''...someone like say, Diarmid Mc collough who describes himself both as a friend of Christianity and Gay.

 

[Leonard James]

What a strange attitude they had to a natural process we pretty much all share.

 

That's what the daft belief in "God" can bring you to!

[Shaker]

... and what a planet-load of grief and misery it has brought to the race 

[floo]

Considering the Bible is supposed to have a downer on adultery it is incredible how many of the Biblical 'heroes' had extra marital sex, like Abraham, for instance! Solomon must have gone in for serial bonking as he had so many concubines!

[Walt Zingmatilder]

Considering the Bible is supposed to have a downer on adultery it is incredible how many of the Biblical 'heroes' had extra marital sex, like Abraham, for instance! Solomon must have gone in for serial bonking as he had so many concubines!

Phwoooaar.

[Leonard James]

Considering the Bible is supposed to have a downer on adultery it is incredible how many of the Biblical 'heroes' had extra marital sex, like Abraham, for instance! Solomon must have gone in for serial bonking as he had so many concubines!

You can't get too much of a good thing! 

[Hope]

"According to one Gnostic view women were wholly creations of the Devil, as were men from the waist down*"

Rose, you need to remember that Gnosticism had been in existence for years before the birth of Christianity (they exist in Hindusim and Buddhism), so Gnostic ideas like this aren't 'Christian' ideas.  As does happen in many areas of life, Gnostic ideas began to infiltrate the church, and it is generally thought that John's Gospel was written to counter a number of ideas - such as Gnostic ones - that contradicted Christian thought. 

As for the passage about 'making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake', the Greek has a meaning closer to " ... and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." (NIV).  In other words, they choose to remain celibate, arguing that if they are to serve the kingdom of heaven, (or even an employer) they can do so more efficiently by choosing to abstain from sexual activity.

[Shaker]

As for the passage about 'making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake', the Greek has a meaning closer to " ... and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." (NIV).  In other words, they choose to remain celibate, arguing that if they are to serve the kingdom of heaven, (or even an employer) they can do so more efficiently by choosing to abstain from sexual activity.

... which coincidentally but happily and neatly brings us straight back to the unanswered (since unanswerable) point that any omnipotent and omniscient deity would have no difficulty in getting its intended message across perfectly transparently without crossing its fingers and taking pot luck with the vagaries of translation between different human languages by fallible, information-limited and/or agenda-pushing human beings.

Thoroughly shoddy work all round, I'd say.

[Hope]

Considering the Bible is supposed to have a downer on adultery it is incredible how many of the Biblical 'heroes' had extra marital sex, like Abraham, for instance! Solomon must have gone in for serial bonking as he had so many concubines!

Are you suggesting that the Bible should only have recorded the 'good' things/behaviours.   It's worth pointing out that where people had done things that were wrong, the Bible points out the outcomes - such as the breakdown in relationships between Sara and Ishmael, David's temporary loss of sanity and the throne, Solomon's adultery leading to the collapse of the united nation of Israel, etc.

[Leonard James]

  In other words, they choose to remain celibate, arguing that if they are to serve the kingdom of heaven, (or even an employer) they can do so more efficiently by choosing to abstain from sexual activity.

Which itself is demonstrative of how stupid they were. Sexual repression  has a negative effect.

http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/08/cz_af_1008health.html

[Hope]

... which coincidentally but happily and neatly brings us straight back to the unanswered (since unanswerable) point that any omnipotent and omniscient deity would have no difficulty in getting its intended message across perfectly transparently without crossing its fingers and taking pot luck with the vagaries of translation between different human languages by fallible, information-limited and/or agenda-pushing human beings.

Thoroughly shoddy work all round, I'd say.

I realise that you would rather that humanity was robotic without any opportunity to do its own thing, but we aren't.  the 'unanswered question' you refer to has been answered numerous times by a variety of posters here, including some who have no religious belief.

[Walt Zingmatilder]

As for the passage about 'making themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven's sake', the Greek has a meaning closer to " ... and there are those who choose to live like eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." (NIV).  In other words, they choose to remain celibate, arguing that if they are to serve the kingdom of heaven, (or even an employer) they can do so more efficiently by choosing to abstain from sexual activity.

... which coincidentally but happily and neatly brings us straight back to the unanswered (since unanswerable) point that any omnipotent and omniscient deity would have no difficulty in getting its intended message across perfectly transparently without crossing its fingers and taking pot luck with the vagaries of translation between different human languages by fallible, information-limited and/or agenda-pushing human beings.

Thoroughly shoddy work all round, I'd say.

I don't see how it nicely brings things round to what you say it does....except if you expected a comment on Origen castrating himself...but then, doesn't that sound a teeny bit apocryphal to you?
Besides isn't it a bit silly to support people ending their own lives at the hands of others and yet expressing revulsion at someone taking a free choice to have their plums removed?

[Hope]

Which itself is demonstrative of how stupid they were. Sexual repression  has a negative effect.

http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/08/cz_af_1008health.html

But we're not talking about sexual repression, Len.  We're talking about voluntary abstention which is very different to repression (which is imposed upon people). 

[Shaker]

I realise that you would rather that humanity was robotic without any opportunity to do its own thing, but we aren't.

Nothing to do with the beloved robots so often trundled out - metaphorically speaking - by the deity's defenders when faced with a question they can't answer.

It really is perfectly simple.

You presumably think that the deity in which you believe is powerful enough to magic a universe into being out of nothing and to perform parlour tricks such as enabling a virgin to give birth and corpses to come back to life; but when it comes to being able to get across its message to its human creation in an absolutely crystal-clear, transparent way which doesn't allow for ambiguity or error or any other kind of unclarity, its supposed powers suddenly desert it and we're left with a hodge-podge of differing translations, frequently mutually contradictory, in a multiplicity of human languages, made by fallible, information-limited humans who may have an agenda to advance.

Why is that, exactly, in your view? I know full well what my explanation is, but I'm asking you for yours.

the 'unanswered question' you refer to has been answered numerous times by a variety of posters here, including some who have no religious belief.

I haven't seen any such answer. Can you point to me to where this matter has been answered, please?

[Leonard James]

... which coincidentally but happily and neatly brings us straight back to the unanswered (since unanswerable) point that any omnipotent and omniscient deity would have no difficulty in getting its intended message across perfectly transparently without crossing its fingers and taking pot luck with the vagaries of translation between different human languages by fallible, information-limited and/or agenda-pushing human beings.

Thoroughly shoddy work all round, I'd say.

I realise that you would rather that humanity was robotic without any opportunity to do its own thing, but we aren't.  the 'unanswered question' you refer to has been answered numerous times by a variety of posters here, including some who have no religious belief.

On the contrary! No 'god' has ever unequivocably demonstrated its existence. So either it is unwilling to, or it doesn't exist.

[Leonard James]

Which itself is demonstrative of how stupid they were. Sexual repression  has a negative effect.

http://www.forbes.com/2003/10/08/cz_af_1008health.html

But we're not talking about sexual repression, Len.  We're talking about voluntary abstention which is very different to repression (which is imposed upon people).

The result is the same whether it is voluntary or obliged.