al #fundie

al #fundie patheos.com

[Fundy is asked if the death penalty for gays described in Leviticus is good]

Yes. Why do you think they had such a penalty? A free thinker should be able to tell me why.

43 comments

old comment by SpukiKitty

I'll tell ya why, al....It was dreamt up by the Demiurge dwelling inside some ancient Hebrew's head....where all Demiurgic distortions of Divinity come from.

Also, most of the OT was written during or after The Babylonian Exile (either the exiled Hebrews forgot their history & sacred texts or they rebooted/made-up the whole faith to make them more 'badass'...hence all that genocidal crap) and the events of the Torah are NOT historical (ask any archeologist).

So, a highly-enlightened spiritual master/guru Jewish guy from Galilee came along, realized all this silliness that plagued his beloved Jewish faith & decided to give the Jewish faith another reboot, removing the "raging deity/demiurge/khorne expy/bigoted" stuff and making it a gentler, universalist faith for everyone. He may have given some props to the OT but only the parts that were still valid but still...reboot time.

Thus The Way or the Nazarene Path was born, the original "Reform Judaism". A necessary re-boot with it's own Moses/Aaron (Jesus), Elijah/Elisha (John The Baptist) & Twelve Patriarchs/Tribes (The Twelve Apostles). Thus Nazarene Judaism (Later to be called 'Christianity') was born!

But then the Romans got a hold of it, turned it into a separate religion, declaring the whole OT valid again while paradoxically vilifying the folks who wrote the OT and turned it into a raging demiurgic mess with peace-loving Nazarene-dressing. Christianity is a kind, peaceful, loving faith but the OT being thrown in is the "spanner in the works", hence, pogroms, inquisitions & jerks like you, al.

Actually this is little more than a round-about way to tell you, al, that you are a murderous, homophobic Demiurge-kissing Archon. You are bad & you should feel bad....and jump into a volcano.

old comment by quinky

At its heart, this is actually a really interesting question. Why do such normative rules exist? Who gains from them? How do they arise? And why do modern, enlightenment societies have far fewer of them than others?

I think it has to do with the fact that unless you accept a human being as having inherent value, you have to have some sort of way of differentiating between the group that you belong to and the group you don't. That's simple tribalistic behaviour. This is the reason the hebrews got circumsized, by the way - as a sacrifice to show how committed they were to the group and to each other. Anyway, in such a system, you CAN'T be very different from the norm, because in a sense, the norm IS the society. So rules spring up quickly that exclude you from the society (often on pain of death) if you don't follow the norm. This was a way to create a social bond, to have a common enemy, as well as having a way to weed out undesirables, of course.

Enlightened societies don't need that sort of forced normative behaviour. We can understand and respect people inside a much greater range of variation, because our society is not based on norms, but on values.

So that's why such a rule existed in an ancient tribe, and why it's unnecessary in the modern, enlightened world.

What? That's not the kind of free-thinker answer you wanted? Well fuck you.

old comment by Anon-e-moose

I can answer your question, with a question which you lot daren't answer:

And what two adult consenting men do, personally affects your 'God'... how?

A clue for free: A little numerical concept that wasn't invented until the ancient Mayans did so. It gives you as many reasons to justify your unjustifiable bigotry against said people whose activities personally affect you lot by the same amount, because - and here's the real answer, folks - so you'd better sit down al & co., as what I'm about to ask you will make your entire argument - if not you lot - collapse to the floor:

Unless you lot are all ultra-orthodox Hasidic Jews, who obey all of Leviticus to the letter: including not eating Pork & Shellfish, wearing poly-cotton clothing, working on a Saturday etc, then Leviticus - including that little titbit you base said bigotries upon, and cling to with a death-grip - applies to you Gentiles, i.e. Christains the exact same amount as per that number first invented & used by the ancient Mayans: ZERO.

Zero. Nothing. Nada. Nichts. Bugger All. Which are all the excuses you're left, o fundies.

@whatever

Seconded. With BS-evisceration as lethal as that, to quote Bob Morton (Miguel Ferrer) in the original "Robocop": 'Smart is so... sexy!'

Stop it, you're turning me on, SpukiKitty. b^_^d

old comment by JGC

The prohibition in Leviticus against "lying with a man as with a woman" addresses Israelites participating in non-jewish rites of worship which include temple prostitution. The old Hebrew word most commonly translated as 'abomination' is to'evah, which means "ritually impermissible": it's the same word most freuently used in the bible to condemn idolatry. If the authors intended to condemn homosexuality in and of itself, rather than in the context of religious observance, they would have used a different word, such as 'zimah' (which denotes 'morally perverse").

Note that in Leviticus 18:2-4, 18:24 and 20:23 the text states explicitly that the purpose of the rules set forth in chapters 18 and 20 are is to preserve the nation's Jewish identity at the time they were becoming vulnerable to influences from other cultures, especially Egyptian and Canaanite.

Note also that Deuteronomy restates many of the levitical prohibitions punishable by death-and where it restates the prohibtion about "lying with a man as with a woman" (Deut 23:17 the text uses the word "ka'desh", which literally means "male holy one" and explicitly denotes a male temple prostitute.

Nowhere in the bible is there a condemnation of homosexuality in and of itself, rather than (as here) within specific and narrow contexts.

al #fundie patheos.com

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