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http://www.newsweek.com/id/172653

[davenotdead]

what an awful article. that woman would be torn apart by any intellectual/writer/professor of english or theology

[akprodr]

Huh? Why?

I certainly think one of the early points is especially valid: marriage is essentially a religious institution. I've come to believe that the government has no business with marriage at all. The state should only issue a 'statement' of union. It is essentially a business agreement.

[pbradley]

Also Leviticus is filled with tons of out dated religious law, even by orthodox Jewish standards.

[davenotdead]

from the first three paragraphs it wasn't clear what she was trying to say.

one of the comments said it well. i cant find it now because there are a ton of comments... but she also threw around a bunch of baseless sentences in her first paragraph. it looks like a college freshman paper.

for the record, i stopped reading after the third paragraph

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by pbradley

Also Leviticus is filled with tons of out dated religious law, even by orthodox Jewish standards.

"For if there was a law that could save and give life, verily righteousness would come from the law, but the law condemns all to sin and to death, so that life does not come from the Law. Grace be unto God that I am no longer subject to the law, but to the faith of Jesus Christ." The Apostle Paul

[atsonicpark]

The Bible is an outdated book that was written for a community that existed hundreds of years ago and has very little relevance in our lives in this day and age. It's like someone worshipping a fucking "I'm Rick James, Bitch!" t-shirt or something 500 years from now.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

The Bible is an outdated book that was written for a community that existed hundreds of years ago and has very little relevance in our lives in this day and age. It's like someone worshipping a fucking "I'm Rick James, Bitch!" t-shirt or something 500 years from now.

Thats not true at all. The bible is a collection of communal stories, proverbs, social norms, milieu etc etc.. but it constantly evolves. The NIV translation of the bible reflects the thoughts of contemporary people, just as the translations of each era reflect the audience. If anything, the bible is one of the few religious texts that has had such an evolutionary history, and is in fact a composite of the way people have been thinking for two thousand years at least..

If it a valuable book just for its cultural and historic factors alone, let alone religious implications, and any lover of literature understands that there is no more human a book than the bible, it is a thorough review of the entire spectrum of the human experience. It is taking it as some kind of rule book that gets you twisted, in Orthodox Christianity the rule books are separate from the Bibles.

[atsonicpark]

Well, aren't you willing to believe that something occassionally gets lost in these translations? Whatever value you can get from the Bible (and there IS value), I still wasn't aware that people actually cared about versions of that book that are being re-edited and re-written constantly to fit our times and our language to be more easily accessible and understandable to people. The message might be the same all in all, but entire sections are deleted or inserted into these things. And, yes, the Bible has some interesting stories in it, and IS culturally significant and even occassionally teaches good life lessons and shit... So do a LOT of stories. That still isn't a reason to base a religion or your LIFE on it like a lot of people do. In all reality... The Satanic Bible probably teaches a person how to live a better and more fulfilling life.

Culturally significant, sure, and I've read the entire thing from beginning to end about 10 years ago, so I'm pretty familiar with it. But in all reality, it hasn't changed who I am a single bit.

[davenotdead]

I'm sure some stuff does get lost, but I know people who would know about it if there was significant loss or something drastic was changed. The thing with the Bible, is that its so big culturally/historically, etc... that I am sure that it has been positively scrutinized whenever someone recognized a change in a different translation

[atsonicpark]

Your Bible set off my smoke alarm.

[pbradley]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

It isn't even "our time" that reinterprets religious text but, instead, it is our own individual concern which we bring when we attempt to derive meaning from a text. There is no one interpretation of the Bible today, there wasn't a single interpretation yesterday, the early Christians themselves drastically disagreed over the faith. People who read the Bible as condemning homosexuality as a sin do so because they will it.

[acousticrock87]

The Bible has been through a billion translations, was written and compiled by a ton of random people, and is thousands of years old. Obviously, it's not applicable as the "infallible Word of God" that hardcore Christians claim. The fact that it's so ambiguous in places and apparently contradictory, which it is--even if it can all be explained, it's technically a flaw in itself. If it were the flawless word of God as it were intended for today, and yesterday like pbradley said, there would be no need for debate--it would say what it needed to say to our culture without the need for an elaborate school of arguing theologians.

I think the Jesus part of the Bible is a legitimate outline for living a good life, and I personally believe that he was divine, for my own reasons, but it's not a set of make-or-break laws. It's healthy to talk about right and wrong, and sort out your life, to try to be selfless and all that, but the majority of Christians miss the point entirely and today it often does more harm than good.

I have a ton of Christian friends who "don't hate gays, but don't agree with their lifestyle," (aka they're judgmental bastards who want to think they're still good people) and that's about what I say to them when they try to justify hating homosexuals. They usually respond with something like, "But the Bible says blah blah blah." It's a brick wall with this shit.

Gays are great and from how I've read the Bible, I think Jesus would agree. I don't need to argue about what Paul "really meant" to form an opinion. So whatever.

[SuchFriendsAreDangerous]

Originally Posted by pbradley

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeneutics

It isn't even "our time" that reinterprets religious text but, instead, it is our own individual concern which we bring when we attempt to derive meaning from a text. There is no one interpretation of the Bible today, there wasn't a single interpretation yesterday, the early Christians themselves drastically disagreed over the faith. People who read the Bible as condemning homosexuality as a sin do so because they will it.

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to pbradley again.

[jon boy]

this thread was created for that suchfriends fella to endlessly talk.

[atsonicpark]

I don't understand how a Christian could not realize that God creates gay people -- therefore, how is God's creation immoral? People can't help what they're attracted to.. they just are. Any Christian that tries to suppress two gay people who are in love are, in a way, forcing them to commit adultery (obviously, they don't want gays to be together at ALL, not just marriage). It's just endless bullshit.

[Alex's Trip]

Originally Posted by atsonicpark

I don't understand how a Christian could not realize that God creates gay people -- therefore, how is God's creation immoral? People can't help what they're attracted to.. they just are. Any Christian that tries to suppress two gay people who are in love are, in a way, forcing them to commit adultery (obviously, they don't want gays to be together at ALL, not just marriage). It's just endless bullshit.

To quote one of my friends "Satan can't control your actions, he can only control your perception. His greatest tool is deception."

I just think all guys are hot because Satan tricked me with his big sexy sin stick.

[!@#$%!]

why people waste so much time discussing the potential meaning of the words of a fictional character is beyond me-- unless they are interested in linguistics, then it's fun.

[atsonicpark]

^^^ End of thread.

[afterthefact]

To say that the Bible has turned against it's readers is to say that those readers are also adhering to everything the bible says, and that's not true. It is true, the bible does condemn homosexuality. You may like it, you may not, but it is in there. (Romans 1:27) Now with this in view, that the bible condemns homosexuality, Hebrews 13:4 would indicate then that marriages of the same sex would also be wrong.

(Let me clarify this real quick as well, I do understand that there are many many here that do not believe in the bible, and my purpose is not to attack homosexuals, or those that are not but believe in their rights. My only purpose in this is to tell what the bible says on the matter.)

But when it comes to voting on such matters and getting involved with such things as fighting gay marriage through this political systems, it would go against the principles at John 17:14 and John 18:36, namely that a true Christian would try to avoid political involvement in order to stay "no part of the world" and that they would instead look towards God's Kingdom to solve mankind's problems, not human government.