(no subject)

[chess]

After the comments to my last post, I feel I ought to clarify things.

I am *not* saying that the verse in Leviticus is irrelevant. I'm just saying it's far too easy for people to pick holes in it, so it's not the best starting point for a discussion. A discussion with another Christian, or someone who wants you to go into more depth about it, should include that verse, yes. But it shouldn't be your starting point - because it's so easy for them to point at something else in Leviticus and say 'well, you don't do this any more, surely it's the same thing?'. It's possible for them to do that with some of the stuff in Paul's letters (to fend off another criticism :-) ), but not as easy. Yes, you can probably explain why the things in Leviticus that don't need to be done any more don't, but it eats away at your argument.

I'm just fed up of seeing people dismiss the objections in Leviticus and not go on to deal with all the other places the Bible objects to it.

Comments

Whosoever (should be whomsoever, surely)

[passage.livejournal.com]

Do you really think any of their arguments are any good?

I didn't look at all of them, but the one's I did look at (Gensis 18-19, Romans 1 and Corinthians 6v9) would be funny if it weren't so tragic.

Jesus apparently says that Sodom's sin was inhosptality.

He does this by saying if someone rejects the gospel when you preach it to them, they'll be worse off in judgement than Sodom and Gomorah[1] (as they've heard the gospel and rejected it instead of sinning without having directly heard God).

My word, I'm glad they told me! I would never have spotted that meaning in Jesus's words if they hadn't told me! (Matthew 10v14-15 if you want to chase it.)

However, yet classier is still to come:
"NOWHERE in the Scriptures does it say that the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was homosexual sex."
"Jude disagreed with God; he wrote that Sodom's sins were sexual in nature."

How odd, Jude's definatly in my bible ...
And I wonder what it is that makes them think Jude is disagreeing with God here.

So it would seem that they feel that if you carefully ignore certain areas of the bible (yep, Jude was disagreeing with God for that one verse, that one only, that's right), then indeed there's nothing left in your bible-minus-verses-on-homosexuality which condems homosexuality.

What a revelation! I'd never have known.

(I could go on: their interpretation of Romans 1 leaves me with the distinct impression that they tried feeding it into babblefish till it said what they wanted. When this failed, they settled with feeding it into babblefish until it was meaningless, and then declaring it meaningless[2]).

So, yeah, I wasn't impressed with that website.

Neil

[1] is it just because Sodom is easier to spell that we always refer only to it?
[2] A comma seperated list of sins with "These are bad things, don't do them" before and after got turned into "If you do all these at once and under special circumstances ... well God won't be impressed.

Re: Whosoever (should be whomsoever, surely)

[passage.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I just read this and had to comment (for the record: I don't think this passage is clearly against homosexulaity persay, it's not for it, but if it were the only verse in the bible on homosexuality I would think people made to claim the bible condemed homosexuality[1]).

This is their comment on:
1 Kings v24 "There were even male shrine prostitutes in the land; the people engaged in all the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites."

"there is little evidence that homosexuality was involved."

Right ....

I wonder, do they not quote the bible passages they talk about because of copyright, to encourage you to read the stuff around, or because if you went and read the passages in question they'd have a lot more trouble making you believe them?

Cynical Neil

[1] For those of you who got lost in that sentence, it's not so I don't.

Re: Whosoever (should be whomsoever, surely)

[chess]

Possibly it should be whomsoever, but people don't use the word 'whom' any more unless they're trying to be formal and intimidating.

Their main case is that all the references to homosexuality refer to a specific kind of temple prostitution, and it's temple prostitution (and worship of other gods etc) that the passages are talking about. I can't independantly check the meanings of the words they quoted, but when they said what the word literally meant and when the Evangelical Alliance document quoted that word and said it was a general one, this all seems to undermine their case (as they're claiming it means what they say it means because a word for that specific kind of temple prostitute was translated into it once, or something like that).

Re: Whosoever (should be whomsoever, surely)

[passage.livejournal.com]

Yes, I found their claim around leviticus 18 to be particularly weak: they claimed that a verse in the middle of a bunch of commands against sexual sins was infact about religious sins, and had just sort of arbitarily been shunted in there for confusion value.

And the reason for this claim: it says homosexuality is really bad, their conclusion: therefore it must be referring to worshipping idols.

Eh?

Ah well, makes no sense to me.

Neil