Counterarguments to Leviticus 20:13

[chequita guevara]

See my sig, 1st line.

[curtsibling]

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Curt, I can see you're just doing this for laughs, and you have no intention of being serious.

I am deadly serious.

It's you who are backing out.

Like Kenobi, you have no stomach to answer the hard questions.

Care to prove me wrong?

Originally posted by The Mad Monk
Please let me know if the situation changes.

Let me know when you have the courage to examine your beliefs.

Answer my 3 questions.

[DinoDoc]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Like Kenobi, you have no stomach to answer the hard questions.

Those stupid hypotheticals you seem so fond of?

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior

Originally posted by curtsibling
Their bible says they have.



Aaaah!!!!!!!!! The Ignorance!!!!! It's blinding!!!

Matthew 7:1
Judge not, that you be not judged.

Confronted with your own ignorance on the matter,

I am happily blind to your dogma, friend.

And I care not for your cut and pasted quotes of borrowed wisdom.

...you immediately turn to derision, and change the subject.

Good day, sir.

[The Mad Monk]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
See my sig, 1st line.

I see it.

[asleepathewheel]

Originally posted by The Mad Viking
Try to imagine, given the political ramifications and the conflict with the Puritans, that the translation paid for by the state was totally without political influence, accidental or intentional. I cannot.

Bottom Line:

Do not rely on the literal word of the Bible.

Look upon Jesus. Understand Jesus from your readings of the Bible. If he were among us today, how would he treat homosexuals? Do you think he would condemn them, and urge persecution?

Looking to the Bible to find snippets of words that justify for your own feelings (of intolerance) seems to me, a sin against God.

you provided some great information about the King James

I completely agree with the above, indeed it is how I try to live my life.

Whether or not the bible was divinely inspired or however it was derived, it was edited by men. And Men unfortunately edit things to reflect their perspective and their goals, even the bible is not immune to this. Synod of Hippo, Synod of Trent, Council of Florence, the Apocrypha, Gnostic texts etc.

[Ben Kenobi]

Perhaps some religionists here can go to some faith-website and cut and paste an answer to these?

1. Why do people have to pray?

Because God has instructed us to. Christ tells us to come to him, in prayers and petitions, to lay our burdens on him, rather than keeping them to ourselves. It helps Christians in that they know they are not alone, but rather have the help they need when they need it.

2. Tell me how the men who wrote the bible were acting on a god's orders, and not merely deluded.

How?

"The Word of the Lord came upon them."

But a much better question deals with how the Councils of the church decided which books were inspired and which were not. For the Old Testament, most of the books, they followed the Jewish agreement, on which were essential components to faith.

For the New Testament, they went with the Gospels, and the best letters to the churches. They excluded other works, some because of length, such as the Didache.

3. How many of you hold the creation theory as solid truth and not a morality tale?

I hold the former, and I did not shy away from that statement in the last thread.

Like Kenobi, you have no stomach to answer the hard questions.

Dude. You picked the wrong poster to flame with that accusation.

[Ben Kenobi]

So there is only an English Bible? No French, Spanish or Italian translation?

Do I say that?

No. I simply addressed one such case where most of the translations come from the English versions.

"The version we know today" - well, I guess that would depend quite a bit on whether you are Catholic or Protestant, wouldn't it?

Depends on whether you talk about the Old Testament or the New.

The Old Testament has a much longer history of the New, most of it having little to do with the Christians.

most of the Bibles in use have derived from the King James Version.

No. Most modern versions do not rely upon the KJV, because of some of the problems that you have brought up. They have access to older manuscripts unavailable to the compilers of the KJV, so they had the capacity to jump sources, to get closer to the originals.

If you know anything about translation, you know that some words cannot be accurately translated, because synomyms simply don't exist.

Yep. Some of the OT books have problems with this, particularly Job. We have lost some of the meanings of the hebrew words, so we do not know the precise equivalents. Job caused massive problems for the translators of the Latin Vulgate, hence modern versions will avoid the Vulgate when making translations.

However, I would argue that the theological points do not get lost in losing some of the synonyms. We do not need to know what type of wood was used in Noah's Ark, to get the why's and what's.

If you know anything about linguistics, you would know that language evolves to such an extent that in 700 to 1000 years, the SAME LANGUAGE becomes unintelligble

And that is an excellent case against the KJV. Can we really understand what the terms meant?

[The Mad Viking]

OK, so which modern version of the Bible do you use?

[Elok]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Faith is just an excuse to avoid answering the real questions.

A religionist just cannot admit he has not got a clue about the greater cosmos.

But the non-believer can see the obvious.

Religion and it's trappings are inventions to dupe people.

The obvious being...what? That in fact neither of us knows a thing about the "greater cosmos"? If you want an answer, stop being so deliberately antagonistic. Unless you are a prosecutor in a courtroom, getting us irritated is not going to produce favorable results in a discussion.

[Verto]

Originally posted by curtsibling
Ben 'Kenobist' managed to evade me in another thread.

Perhaps some religionists here can go to some faith-website and cut and paste an answer to these?

1. Why do people have to pray?

2. Tell me how the men who wrote the bible were acting on a god's orders, and not merely deluded.

3. How many of you hold the creation theory as solid truth and not a morality tale?

No quotes from 'bible.sheep.com' please.
I appreciate answers garnered from your own minds, you are educated, so show it!

Thanks for enlightening a poor heathen!

Despite your participation in that idiotic 'religionist' fad, I will attempt to answer as best I can your questions.

1.) Not only because we have been 'commanded' to, but because direct communication to God is very important; questions can be asked and answered; through prayer, we can ask for forgiveness and begin repentance. Comfort can be received through prayer.

2.)The men who wrote the Bible - you mean, the actual writers of the books, or those who compiled them into a single book? I will assume you mean the numerous authors of the various books. I suppose that, besides the archaeological and other evidence found that collaborates some scripture, one would need faith.

3.) I believe that Christ, acting under God, literally created this planet, as well as countless others, and all contained therein. I do not believe it literally took 168 hours, however.

[yavoon]

how about the fact that leviticus is a pretty useless document to derive present day morality from?

I'm sure this has been mentioned, but we might as well get our scientific theory from alchemists.

[Verto]

Originally posted by yavoon
how about the fact that leviticus is a pretty useless document to derive present day morality from?

Not if you are Christian, or obviously Jewish.

[yavoon]

Originally posted by Verto


Not if you are Christian, or obviously Jewish.

I would be hard pressed to find a christian who still followed leviticus. that doesn't mean they don't believe anything in leviticus(their views could come from elsewhere and merely coincide w/ some leviticus views). but that the document is not an authority on what they should believe.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

its a different hole, so its totally different.

[Verto]

Originally posted by yavoon


I would be hard pressed to find a christian who still followed leviticus. that doesn't mean they don't believe anything in leviticus(their views could come from elsewhere and merely coincide w/ some leviticus views). but that the document is not an authority on what they should believe.

I did not mean to say Christians follow the Law of Moses set forth by Leviticus. But, those rules were coming from Christ, and as such still bear some import, even though not all of them are ones we are commanded to follow.

[Elok]

Just in passing, as regards the bit about, "why are we allowed to eat shellfish now," etc., I would attribute that to the part in Acts where Peter is commanded, "what my hands have fashioned you must not call unclean." See also, well, the entire letter to the Hebrews. Dietary and hygienic regulations are not some sort of prerequisite to salvation within the Christian faith, i.e. "there is no 'circumcised' and 'uncircumsized' within us, only the body of Christ," or some such. Maybe Ben knows the exact quote, but it's from St. Paul. Note that I'm not trying to join the fray, just answering the question about why some of the Judaic customs are relaxed.

To answer Curtsibling's questions,

1. Prayer. By Orthodox doctrine, theiosis; the reunification of the human mind with God. According to our tradition, the pre-fall human lived in a state of natural and perpetual communion with God. We say the nous (sort of the eye of the soul) was turned towards God, and illumined. The fall drove us into confusion and madness. Prayer is an attempt to get back in the habit of contact with God. It's significant that the New Jerusalem in Revelation has no temple. Church is only an aid to guide us back to our natural state.

A more prosaic answer might simply be that we need to communicate with the man upstairs.

2. Some of it was written as a direct dictation from God, e.g. Revelation, and on those there's no "proof" that would satisfy you. Much of belief is sheer gut instinct. The epistles, of course, were written as advice to other churches, and only mindful of what God would wish for them to say. In short, no "proof." But then I've never really had cause to doubt.

3. Presumptively that wasn't directed at me. I *did* give you my "don't call me a creationist" speech, right?

[Starchild]

It's quite clearly about damning bisexuals to eternal hellfire. I mean, not lying with man like one does with woman? Hello sweety...purebred homo here. I've never lain with a woman. Don't particularly want to. So how can I lay with a man like I lay with a woman when I don't lay women at all?

[Spiffor]

Wow, I thought many gays started off their sexual life in a conventional, heterosexual fashion. Are many of your fellows pure-bred gays as well, or did most of them have sex with the opposite sex in the past?

[Ben Kenobi]

OK, so which modern version of the Bible do you use?

Mad Viking:

It's further up the thread...

I use the NIV, because it is the version that my pastor uses.

I also find myself using the NASB, which the Catholics like as well.

[Starchild]

It varies. Some gays have a relationship with a woman to hide the fact they're gay/convince themselves they are/see what it's like. None of those options have ever appealed to me.

To be perfectly honest, the idea of sex with women makes me feel a bit quesy. it's really kinda gross.

So I'm a purebred. There are a few. But I'm the bestest.

[Verto]

Originally posted by Starchild
It's quite clearly about damning bisexuals to eternal hellfire. I mean, not lying with man like one does with woman? Hello sweety...purebred homo here. I've never lain with a woman. Don't particularly want to. So how can I lay with a man like I lay with a woman when I don't lay women at all?

I'm not sure whether this is a joke or not.

[Starchild]

To be totally truthful puddin', neither am I.

[Verto]

Don't be such a tease.

[MrFun]

Originally posted by Jaguar Warrior
I seem to recall that there was a thread on this a while ago, but I searched for it and couldn't find it.

I'm in a class on the Bible which includes a pair of homophobes who love bringing the infamous passage up. I'd like to be armed with a few counterarguments (from the Bible, otherwise the teacher probably will just break up the discussion and that will be no fun.)

If anyone has good counterarguments from the Bible, or knows where the old thread is, their help would be appreciated.

MrFun, I'm looking to you as the board's gay Christian to help me out.

When I have time to refer to my own copy of the Bible, I will get back to you.

[Berzerker]

1. Why do people have to pray?

Good question, even Jesus said God knows what we need without prayer. Better question, why do so many people feel the need to pray in public when Jesus condemned doing so as hypocrisy - don't do as the hypocrites who pray in the synagogues and on street corners so others will see their piety...

2. Tell me how the men who wrote the bible were acting on a god's orders, and not merely deluded.

Depends on what they wrote. Does the Bible contain information they could not have had? If so, from where did they obtain that information?

3. How many of you hold the creation theory as solid truth and not a morality tale?

You mean Genesis and not the interpretations of "creationists"?
I believe Genesis, correctly interpretated in accordance with Sumerian/Akkadian mythology, is accurate. And we have proof to support that proposal...

[Shogun Gunner]

Originally posted by loinburger

That makes sense, but the question still remains as to how homosexuals are showing more disrespect to God than are, e.g., those who eat shellfish, or those who have sex with a woman in the week following her menstrual cycle, etc. If homosexuals are not showing more disprespect to God than the other sinners listed, then I don't understand why so many people gets their ass tied in a knot over homosexuality.

loinburger: I'm laughing at "people get their ass tied in a knot over homosexuality" that just cracks me up!

In fact, your posts in this message show a great bit of humor.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

Lev. 20:13 says not to sleep with a woman as you sleep with a man. well its different, since its a different hole.

[The Mad Monk]

Would you care to say that a third time? Some of our slower posters may not have gotten it the first two times.

[Ben Kenobi]

don't do as the hypocrites who pray in the synagogues and on street corners so others will see their piety...

Yeah, that's a really good passage. Christ says that they have recieved their reward in full from men. Praying behind doors, and out of sight, well then you recieve your reward from God. Which do you think is more beneficial?