Anti-gays MISREAD Bible...

[_Jersey Girl]

GIMR,

Forget what I just said about posting richard's comments that bother you. Can you answer this one question?

Is it okay or not okay for richard to judge a behavior?

Jersey Girl

[_Sam Harris]

Sure. But when do you draw the line? Too much of a good thing, and all that...

If Richard feels his life is made better by judging gays, that's his life. But not everyone is going to agree with him.

If when dealing with people close to me, they do something that I feel is wrong or I "do not like", I speak once. If it is something you are doing to harm me, you'd better hope you heard the first time. That's it for me. I don't hound them, and I NEVER use God in the argument. Bad form.

[_Sam Harris]

:-)

Jersey Girl, I'm fine. Just insanely curious about this subject. And my writing comes across as WAY more forceful than how I really feel. I've been expressing myself via writing for so long, that I don't realize the power of it anymore.

I'm through batting at Richard, he can breathe now.

Perhaps it's just that I feel so strongly against using religion to oppress another. For many reasons.

Since I became a Christian, I look around me and see beauty in diversity. Before that I hated everyone. I do not understand how anyone in the same boat as me can look at another man, woman, or child and think less of them...and say God feels it's ok. I felt that way before the experience that I interpret as "getting to know God". The more I get to know, the more my abusers [edit: this is a behavior issue] just seem like frightened people, perhaps chess pawns in this game called life. The more I get to know, the more I feel like just one thread in this tapestry. And I'm ok with that. I just want all the other threads to have the chance that I do. No matter their color, their thickness, or length.

[_Jersey Girl]

Sure. But when do you draw the line? Too much of a good thing, and all that...

If Richard feels his life is made better by judging gays, that's his life. But not everyone is going to agree with him.

If when dealing with people close to me, they do something that I feel is wrong or I "do not like", I speak once. If it is something you are doing to harm me, you'd better hope you heard the first time. That's it for me. I don't hound them, and I NEVER use God in the argument. Bad form.

Do you know where richard draws the line?

Jersey Girl

[_Sam Harris]

I'm wondering if there is one.

I wonder when people take an issue, and say that if you disagree with them that "you don't know the Bible".

Not to be flippant, but can we fast forward to the point? I've already stopped caring how Richard feels about the sinfulness of homosexuality. I'm off on my own personal tangent to look and see if he's right, because if he is, then I want to be where he is.

But if he's not, then I want to know why.

And I'd better elaborate before the quest to get to this elusive point gets even futher. I want to know what the Bible really says, past the sucky English translations about gay people. Among other things. "He" for me means every person I've ever debated with on this issue. Richard's personal quest, is now out of range of my attention span.

[_richardMdBorn]

Richard, has it ever occurred to you that the ancients, the men you attempt to follow so closely, are keeping you from developing a personal relationship with God, by the inaccuracy of their words and teachings? Has it ever occurred to you that by following them, you are shortchanging your own spirituality? Has it ever occurred to you that they were simply wrong about some things that might be pertinent in your life today?

Because it took me a while to realize it myself, but the ancients were just men, men trying to figure out who and what God was, and how their world worked. They didn't have a better understanding or any closer a relationship with God than we do today. And if you can figure out that Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet, how and why did you figure out that Paul was?

Hi Harmony,

Would you please list a couple of major defects you have found in the biblical writers.

Richard

[_richardMdBorn]

GIMR,

My citation of Acts showed that the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament do not apply to Christians. Thus, your comment

If the milk and the meat are sitting side by side on your table as you sit around and quote Deuteronomy to your kids, telling them how sinful gays are, then you are a hypocrite. Plain and simple.

is incorrect.

I have a gay friend. We met for lunch together frequently when I worked downtown and he has attended plays with my wife and yours truly (he also went to my wedding). He appears to have been raised in a Christian home. I know he went to Inter-Varsity in college. He knows that I'm an evangelical. I've never brought up the issue of homosexuality with him. I figure he probably knows what my opinions will be, and if he wants to talk about it, he will raise the issue.

My point about my friend is not to say that some of my best friends are.... Rather, it's that I'm a live and let live kind of person. Unfortunately, the love that dare not speak its name is becoming the love that will not shut up.

Richard

[_harmony]

Richard, has it ever occurred to you that the ancients, the men you attempt to follow so closely, are keeping you from developing a personal relationship with God, by the inaccuracy of their words and teachings? Has it ever occurred to you that by following them, you are shortchanging your own spirituality? Has it ever occurred to you that they were simply wrong about some things that might be pertinent in your life today?

Because it took me a while to realize it myself, but the ancients were just men, men trying to figure out who and what God was, and how their world worked. They didn't have a better understanding or any closer a relationship with God than we do today. And if you can figure out that Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet, how and why did you figure out that Paul was?

Hi Harmony,

Would you please list a couple of major defects you have found in the biblical writers.

Richard

Moses killed a man, hid his deed, and ran.

Abraham was not admirable at all. He lied about his wife, setting her up for rape, and was prepared to kill both his sons, one by the knife and one by starvation in the desert. He took his wife's servant to bed, got her pregnant, and then kicked her and his oldest son out of his household into the desert to die.

Jonah was a coward.

Paul hated women.

Perhaps you don't call those characteristics defects.

Their personal defects aren't what I was talking about. I was talking about the times when they were flat out wrong in their advice and their teachings. Like when Paul told all women to be silent in church. Like when Nathan gave David Solomon's wives. Like when Elisha sicced the bears on the children who were mocking him. They were wrong.

[_Yoda]

Moses killed a man, hid his deed, and ran.

Abraham was not admirable at all. He lied about his wife, setting her up for rape, and was prepared to kill both his sons, one by the knife and one by starvation in the desert. He took his wife's servant to bed, got her pregnant, and then kicked her and his oldest son out of his household into the desert to die.

Jonah was a coward.

Paul hated women.

Perhaps you don't call those characteristics defects.

Great point! :)

What is amazing to me is that the character of these men are never questioned. There is never even any fault found with them on a personal level(i.e..."they were speaking as men, not prophets"...the current "out" for LDS Church leaders). Your statements in most Church settings, whether LDS, Catholic, EV, etc. would be considered blasphemous, even though they are right on the money.

[_Sam Harris]

GIMR,

My citation of Acts showed that the dietary restrictions of the Old Testament do not apply to Christians. Thus, your comment

If the milk and the meat are sitting side by side on your table as you sit around and quote Deuteronomy to your kids, telling them how sinful gays are, then you are a hypocrite. Plain and simple.

is incorrect.

I have a gay friend. We met for lunch together frequently when I worked downtown and he has attended plays with my wife and yours truly (he also went to my wedding). He appears to have been raised in a Christian home. I know he went to Inter-Varsity in college. He knows that I'm an evangelical. I've never brought up the issue of homosexuality with him. I figure he probably knows what my opinions will be, and if he wants to talk about it, he will raise the issue.

My point about my friend is not to say that some of my best friends are.... Rather, it's that I'm a live and let live kind of person. Unfortunately, the love that dare not speak its name is becoming the love that will not shut up.

Richard

If you are a live and let live kind of person, then why focus on this issue and insist that those who do not agree with you don't know the Bible? I'm sorry if my willingness to value my neighbor and let God decide their fates makes me ignorant.

What does the Bible say about those who are ignorant and humble, and those who are proud and "wise"?

Here's an excerpt from a lecture given by a gay Christian (an oxymoron for some, I know).

For the fact is that when you listen to some Christians talking about homosexuality, and then turn to the gospels, you find an absolute divergence in tone and emphasis. When Christ talks about good and evil, he doesn't focus on sex. It's clear from his preaching and his example that for Christ morality means being kind, gentle, responsible, considerate, and generous of spirit. It means being willing to rethink your assumptions, reject your traditions, and act boldly in the cause of God. As Christians we're very diverse, but we share two things: our baptism and our moral obligation to the Summary of the Law, which tells us to love God and to love our fellow human beings. And tied up in the pairing of those two loves is a recognition of human love as a reflection of divine love - and implied in that recognition, it seems to me, is an obligation to honor and to take joy in the love that other people bear for each other. Christianity is all about the struggle to get beyond your prejudices and to look into the eyes of the scruffiest, smelliest, most ornery and obnoxious stranger and to see God and to feel love. To say that someone is straight or gay is to say that they've been made to love in this or that way. Not to embrace that love and recognize a commitment based upon it is to condemn love, to demand that certain people live without love, and nothing could be more un-Christian.

And the link to the lecture. Mind you, you will have to click on "Lecture at St. John's Cathedral". Read the whole thing, Richard and tell us if your friend has ever spoken like this to you.

http://hem.passagen.se/nicb/christ.htm

Perhaps your views will precondition you to reject everything that is on this site, and that is ok Richard. But listen to the testimony of the man who gave that lecture, do you still think he's just fornicating with no feelings?

I have friends who are TBM, and they sometimes go on and on about how by their beliefs, in some ways others who are not Mormon are less righteous than them. Those folks "don't have the spirit". That includes me. I make my disagreement clear on occasion, but for the most part I ignore it. They may not believe me, but I think that my relationship with God is strong enough for him to prick my conscience when I'm doing something wrong. And it happens...often enough.

I do not understand how one person can say by his interpretation that another person is somehow "less than" in the eyes of God based on something like this. Those may not be your exact words, Richard (and I know of a person who is TBM who has so-called friends from every walk of life....yet he disparages them all), but many who take your stance feel this way.


Edit for post thought: Richard, if the Old Testament Law doesn't apply to Christians, then please take a look at A Defense Theory: An Analysis of Six Critical Texts Used To Condemn Homosexuality, on the above link. I plan to look into it deeper, because this isn't just an issue of condemning people based on the Bible and walking away. I don't care if I know you or not, you deserve to be valued as a human being, and I feel that the evangelical vitriol against gay people goes against this.

The author claims that the words used in the Old Testament for homosexual acts and the word Paul used have two completely different meanings. I know I'm ignorant of the Bible and all, but can you explain what he is saying to me? Besides saying off the bat that it's incorrect, that is.