Why is Bigamy wrong?

[Aimless]

I'm lost here. Is it the letter of the law we're concerned with or the spirit of the law?

[wiggin]

In the case of determining what the Bible says, the letter. In the case of determining what we should do that's up to individuals and religions.

[Aimless]

In the case of determining what the Bible says, the letter. In the case of determining what we should do that's up to individuals and religions.

I was thinking more about Cain's post, where he's concerned with the letter of the law one second and then talking about focusing on the spirit of the law in the next. Trying to determine the spirit of the law, or the intent of the lawmakers, is a difficult task (in the sense that you don't necessarily end up with clear answers) even with modern legal codes. Looking at the examples you two are discussing, one might argue that the spirit/intent is to be merciful (never mind what merciful means) or that it is to eg. prohibit various degrees of homosexuality (without having to list every single possible scenario). I can buy either of those. But I'm not sure how we can use a literal reading of the law ("this specific act is prohibited") to support a rejection of the literal reading of the law. I'm sure I'm missing something, I have just gotten out of bed.

[Lewkowski]

Really? When? In fact, when have you ever gone 'round and round' on anything, rather than slinking off in shame every time you encounter any kind of serious or well reasoned opposition that you can't immediately fob off with some herp derp liberals liberals talking point you parroted from some bottom of the barrel conservative pundit who makes a living by affirming the prejudices of thick people?



Not there any more, AFAIK.



Because homosexuality makes them feel icky, and they're looking for some sort of wider justification for their gut reaction? Let me turn that on its head and instead ask you to ask yourself why if these fuckers are so "set in stone" about the bible they don't follow all the other prohibitions about, e.g. what type of seafood is ok to eat literally and to the letter? It's only something set in stone that has to be followed literally when that can be used as a weapon against people whose existence offends them.

So do you think the bible has an issue with homosexuality as a sin in the Old Testament? Wait are you even Christian? Serious question because I find it amusing when folks like Cain or Miang like to tell Christians their interpretation of the bible that runs counter to the vast majority of Christian thought on the matter.

And finally...

ADAM AND EVE NOT ADAM AND STEVE!

[Aimless]

So do you think the bible has an issue with homosexuality as a sin in the Old Testament? Wait are you even Christian? Serious question because I find it amusing when folks like Cain or Miang like to tell Christians their interpretation of the bible that runs counter to the vast majority of Christian thought on the matter.

And finally...

ADAM AND EVE NOT ADAM AND STEVE!

1. Does the bible explicitly ban Steve?

2. Cain is a Christian isn't he?

3. Is Christianiy defined by consensus between fallible (stupid, selfish, etc) humans, or by the Bible?

[wiggin]

1. Does the bible explicitly ban Steve?

2. Cain is a Christian isn't he?

3. Is Christianiy defined by consensus between fallible (stupid, selfish, etc) humans, or by the Bible?

1) From a perspective of Adam-Steve sex, yes.

3) I think this is a very interesting question. On the one hand, presumably religions are shaped by their practitioners, and esp. in the more decentralized Protestant faiths (and most non-Christian faiths) it would be hard to point to some standard or catechism to which everyone is supposed to follow. On the other hand, most religious adherents today are not particularly good at observing the rituals of their own religion - they will tell you themselves they are not 'religious' though they may be affiliated. How do we determine a consensus if most of the adherents don't follow some coherent standard of belief or practice? We could try to exclude those who think they're not making the cut, but that will ignore potentially important historical changes in the religion and cuts out a lot of people. Alternatively, we could dice things up into smaller and smaller denominations, but even that is pretty fuzzy.

At the end of the day, that's why I think deciding what 'Christians' or 'Christianity' thinks about something is largely an exercise in futility, but it's a hell of a lot easier to determine what the Bible says about something - in this case, Lewk is right that polygyny seems to be allowed but that male homosexual sex is not. I don't think that necessarily translates into any sort of policy recommendations, just a comment on a text.

[Ziggy Stardust]

ADAM AND EVE NOT ADAM AND STEVE!

Way ahead of you.

Adam and Eve. Not Adam, Eve, Christine, Jacqueline, Simone and Tessa.

Wait are you even Christian? Serious question because I find it amusing when folks like Cain or Miang like to tell Christians their interpretation of the bible that runs counter to the vast majority of Christian thought on the matter.

So the interpretation of the Bible is determined by means of democracy is it?

[Aimless]

Okay Eve and Ladysteve

[GGT]

....

At the end of the day, that's why I think deciding what 'Christians' or 'Christianity' thinks about something is largely an exercise in futility, but it's a hell of a lot easier to determine what the Bible says about something - in this case, Lewk is right that polygyny seems to be allowed but that male homosexual sex is not. I don't think that necessarily translates into any sort of policy recommendations, just a comment on a text.

Serious question for Lewk: You started out with Romney, Mormonism, and asked people in other countries (where Christianity isn't a powerful influence? ) why their freedom to have multiple marriages is also outlawed by "the state". Pretty soon it segued into gay sex and same-sex marriage, but that wasn't your original question.

Why do YOU think bigamy or polygamy was outlawed in any nation?

[Ziggy Stardust]

I like how this topic covers both Mitt and Newt.

[Steely Glint]

So do you think the bible has an issue with homosexuality as a sin in the Old Testament?

I don't know enough about the Bible to have an opinion. I just object to you making flippant remarks when you haven't had the courage to defend your beliefs when seriously challenged in the past.

Wait are you even Christian?

Serious question because I find it amusing when folks like Cain or Miang like to tell Christians their interpretation of the bible that runs counter to the vast majority of Christian thought on the matter.

herp derp appeal to popularity.

[Lewkowski]

I like how this topic covers both Mitt and Newt.

LOL. Gotta admit that was the best comment on the thread.

[CitizenCain]

I see what you're saying, but you're treating the Bible as a book in a vacuum and trying to apply some sort of forensic methods to determine the alleged sinfulness or not about a specific activity. The problem is you're ignoring the fact that forensic methods (including modern analytical methods) to the concept of sin, which is a religious one. Ignoring the beliefs Christianity or Judaism or Islam may have about the book, it's still clear that the book itself claims to be the direct word of Moses; from a perspective of sin, you really have to take it at its word to have a meaningful discussion. Do you see what I'm saying? A religious person may intellectually understand your argument if you base it on Biblical criticism, but they won't care one iota, as it is completely irrelevant to their understanding of the book and sins enumerated thereof.

Then please excuse my lack of clarity. I guess that's bound to happen when I'm juggling work in routing tables and a humanities-subject-matter discussion.

My argument is essentially this:

The letter of the law only, and explicitly, forbids male-to-male to sexual intercourse, period. Goin' lesbo or getting a blowjob from some guy (etc, etc) are not forbidden. Only male-on-male sexual intercourse. This is a very different rule than "homosexuality is a sin." Women are allowed to be gay anyway they want, and men are allowed to be gay as long as they don't stick it in the other guy's butt.

So, by the letter of the law, homosexuality is not forbidden, it just has a specific restriction on it for men. In Leviticus. Not in latter books, which may or may not mean anything depending on how you view that omission.

If you want to try to ascertain the spirit of the law, any reasonable, contextual interpretation of that prohibition is going to come down on the side of homosexuality is not a sin as well, so I think it's a safe thing to say that Biblically, homosexuality is not a sin, though male-on-male sexual intercourse may be, depending on interpretation... and if you interpret that statute as still being valid, watch those sideburns, make sure you never harvest more than 90% of your crops, don't eat seafood or pork, and wipe down every chair a menstruating woman may have sat in, etc, etc, and basically make peace with the fact that you sin hundreds of times a day and have thousands of rules to memorize on what constitutes a sin.

[...] So, absent textual evidence, your entire discussion about reasons will be speculative in the extreme.

Indeed, which is why we're left with "Levicitus prohibits male-on-male sexual intercourse," the literal reading of the law.

Furthermore, you have an even bigger issue - the closest relationships are largely missing from Leviticus 20 (compared to Leviticus 18). Do you mean to suggest that having sex with your mother, mother-in-law, and sister is allowed just because it's said in one set of laws and omitted in another?

Not really. This is where the people trying to conflate "thou shalt not lie with man as you do with woman" into "God hates fags" have a problem.

Listing out the dozen or so prohibited sexual relationships makes it pretty clear to any reasonable person that the meaning/intent translates to ~"incest is a sin." So, given that list, if the Law meant to say ~"homosexuality is a sin," would it not have at least specifically prohibited lesbianism too, if not listed most of the other various sexual acts than are verboten? The ban on putting your thing up another guy's butt looks much more like a stand-alone rule that exists for whatever reason, than a more encompassing group of rules, such as the list of rules which are reasonably compacted/abbreviated into "no incest."

(And given the facts that male-to-male intercourse is a great disease vector, the presence of male-to-male ritual sex in worship of other Canaanite gods, and the general attention paid to those two issues throughout the OT, I would put forward that the likely reasons for this specific prohibition are prevention of disease and/or a ban on worshiping other gods. Thus, why I wouldn't consider it to be relevant or applicable in today's world.)

do you honestly believe that you can follow a separate Deuteronomic code just because it's not a complete repetition of the laws?

Yes, actually. The Torah is, among other things, a historical account of the ancient Jewish people. Just because something was the Law 4,000 years ago does not mean the exact same thing is still the Law 2,000 later, or for that matter, today. (See above a little too... if we accept that pagan, ritual male-on-male sex had something to do with the original prohibition, the passage of time may well have made the original prohibition no longer relevant.)

The [American] criminal code gets revised many times a year, and if we pretend for a moment that the government actually honors its constitution, what's illegal today may be legal tomorrow, and what's illegal tomorrow may be completely legal today. I see no reason why the same standard ought not to apply to a text like the Torah, but I am also weird in that I see no reason why religion ought to necessitate turning off one's brain either.

Uhm? You said there was no Biblical prohibition against homosexuality, not that some homosexual acts may be allowed. That's what I was objecting to, and it seems you agree with me.

Maybe... semantics? "There is no Biblical prohibition against homosexuality" == "homosexuality is not a sin." [Male-to-male sexual intercourse being a different thing than "homosexuality."]

You suggested there was some magical reading of the original Hebrew that would change the meaning of the verse. I have yet to see any support for your position.

No, no. I said the original Hebrew was very specific and does not mean "homosexuality." It specifically, explicitly prohibits sexual intercourse between males. That's all. Not women, not other sexual activities, just intercourse between men. This is much more specific than prohibiting homosexuality or hating fags or however the bigots generalize that.

Uhm, you're reading something into omission again. Two points: a conservative viewpoint would argue that Leviticus 18 is only addressed to men, and that the equivalent female sexual encounters are also forbidden.

Yeah, stupid people say stupid things. You'll have that. To conflate the prohibition against a specific sexual act specifically between men, into a general one without any supporting evidence or even basic reasoning is absurd. Apply that standard and you can make anything mean anything you want it to, and language loses all meaning. If someone wants to make a case for why the male-to-male sexual intercourse prohibition actually means "homosexuality is a sin," and should apply to women and other sexual acts (Lewk, maybe), that's fine, but there's simply no supporting evidence or logical reasoning that case be used to effectively defend that position against the plan and specific language of the statute.

[CitizenCain]

I'm lost here. Is it the letter of the law we're concerned with or the spirit of the law?

My bad. My position is that either reading comes down to homosexuality is not sin. A purely literal reading would still ban male-to-male sexual intercourse, but nothing else. Any reasonable interpretation would probably discount that specific statute and say Yahweh hasn't cared about people being gay since around the time of King Josiah, ~650-600 B.C.

2. Cain is a Christian isn't he?

Cain has deliberately avoided saying either way.

Serious question because I find it amusing when folks like Cain or Miang like to tell Christians their interpretation of the bible that runs counter to the vast majority of Christian thought on the matter.

Speaking of amusing, how hilarious is it that you repeatedly get schooled on your professed religion, holy text and deity by two people you consider to be faithless heathens?

And isn't that something you ought to be praying for forgiveness for and endeavoring to change [repenting], if you truly believe as you claim, that Christ is your Lord and center of your life? Just a thought.

And, while you're thinking (or not), you might wish to think about the majority of Christians, who, since you brought it up, are not from a bigoted part of the world that still criminalizes [male] homosexuality. I think you'll find that the whole "hating homos" thing is a Southern attitude not shared by most Christians in other parts of the country or world.