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The Daily Show Gives a Voice to the Voiceless

BigTreeDeac said:
You seem opposed to homosexuality because of your faith and are just deflecting with this perversion of natural order nonsense. Have the strength of conviction to admit it.
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What a strange post. "I'm an anonymous poster on an internet message board but I am too scared to say what I really believe, despite the fact that what I'm saying is something that 90% of posters disagree with anyway."

I do think the Bible condemns homosexuality--and pretty clearly so--but I am also willing to accept the possibility that that prohibition is a product of the times. However, when I think about homosexuality in the abstract, I come to the conclusion that it is a perversion of the natural order of sex. Thus, I am convinced that, in this case, the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality is the embodiment of a timeless truth. You may disagree with me, but don't try to lecture me about epistemology.

And somehow you have interpreted my statement regarding the "natural order" to mean "things occurring in nature." I'm not sure why you would do that, but that's not what I mean. It strikes me as pretty obvious that the male sex organ is designed--by evolution, creation, or something else--to fit inside of the female sex organ and promulgate the species. I would hope I wouldn't need to go into too much detail on that point, but I'd be happy to if you need a refresher. This is true for pretty much all animal species. I acknowledge there are anecdotal incidents of homosexual behavior in animals. I don't know why this is, but, then again, I don't know why cancer cells develop either. The wires got crossed somehow. Anyway, as humans, we should be able to transcend this. Yes, the male sex organ also fits in the anal canal, but it seems to me that the latter is designed--by evolution, creation, or something else--to be a channel of egress. Thus, to use it otherwise strikes me as a perversion--in the sense of impotent imitation--of the natural order of sex. The same is true of female on female sex, as Bake seems so fixated on--impotent imitation of the natural order.

Is homosexuality a sin of the same magnitude as murder? As Faithful said, from one perspective, yes; all individual sins are nothing more than a symptom of the disease of the capital "S" sin of setting our will/mind/self against God. But the same is true of things I do on a daily basis, so I'm going to be slow to judge. I think homosexuality is wrong--and I'm not going to shy away from that belief--but I freely acknowledge that I'm also a sinner in other respects and, thus, it's not my place to condemn.
 
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People are entitled to believe whatever they want, but the problem with Christianity is that it values faith over logic and fact. That's fine if people want to do that but let's all at least admit what it is. This is why I find it difficult to discuss the topic in general because there's a different underlying thought process behind religion and then things like science and observation.
 
Also the Bible does not condemn homosexuality as the concept of homosexuality was not existent in biblical times.

Completely unrelated to the topic of homosexuality but related nonetheless to the Bible is the fact that none of the authors of the gospel actually witnessed any of Jesus' miracles or anything as they were written 40+ (to up to 100 years) after the death of Christ. I don't know why people conveniently overlook this (probably because of the faith over logic aspect) fact but most biblical scholars agree on this concept.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
Also the Bible does not condemn homosexuality as the concept of homosexuality was not existent in biblical times.

Completely unrelated to the topic of homosexuality but related nonetheless to the Bible is the fact that none of the authors of the gospel actually witnessed any of Jesus' miracles or anything as they were written 40+ (to up to 100 years) after the death of Christ. I don't know why people conveniently overlook this (probably because of the faith over logic aspect) fact but most biblical scholars agree on this concept.
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Not completely true. There is general consensus that the Book of John was written by the John who was one of Jesus' disciples, which would make him an eye witness. This is one reason scholars believe that the Book of John is different than the three synoptic gospels. It is also fairly well established that Mark was a close associate of Peter, who was an eye witness.
 
Shorty said:
Not completely true. There is general consensus that the Book of John was written by the John who was one of Jesus' disciples, which would make him an eye witness. This is one reason scholars believe that the Book of John is different than the three synoptic gospels. It is also fairly well established that Mark was a close associate of Peter, who was an eye witness.
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IIRC, John is the youngest of all 4 Gospels.
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
Also the Bible does not condemn homosexuality as the concept of homosexuality was not existent in biblical times.

Completely unrelated to the topic of homosexuality but related nonetheless to the Bible is the fact that none of the authors of the gospel actually witnessed any of Jesus' miracles or anything as they were written 40+ (to up to 100 years) after the death of Christ. I don't know why people conveniently overlook this (probably because of the faith over logic aspect) fact but most biblical scholars agree on this concept.
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So you disregard any work of nonfiction written an author who didn't personally witness they events?
 
Deacfreak07 said:
IIRC, John is the youngest of all 4 Gospels.
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I think there is debate as to whether Mark or John was first. In any event, it is pretty clear that John did his own thing while Matthew and Luke drew a lot from Mark.

As far as homosexuality and the Bible are concerned though, the New Testament references to sodomites or homosexuals, depending on the modern translation you're reading, are mostly from Paul's letters. Paul was trying to encourage early Christians, who were being persecuted, and tell then how to live a Christ-like life. But he was doing so from a first century perspective. Twenty-first century Christians need to take that into account.
 
WFFaithful said:
If you pick up five different translations of the Bible, you will find slight differences in the wording for any given passage, but the main concepts are the same with all.
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the argument implicit in this post is bogus.
 
PhDeac said:
So you disregard any work of nonfiction written an author who didn't personally witness they events?
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Do you hold the Bible to the same rigorous examination you would give to other historical texts?
 
Shorty said:
I think there is debate as to whether Mark or John was first. In any event, it is pretty clear that John did his own thing while Matthew and Luke drew a lot from Mark.

As far as homosexuality and the Bible are concerned though, the New Testament references to sodomites or homosexuals, depending on the modern translation you're reading, are mostly from Paul's letters. Paul was trying to encourage early Christians, who were being persecuted, and tell then how to live a Christ-like life. But he was doing so from a first century perspective. Twenty-first century Christians need to take that into account.
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I think the consensus is that Mark is older than John. There are noncannonical texts that predate Mark (Q for sure, and I think at least the Gospel of Thomas).

The inevitable problem with biblical scholarship is that many believers have a hard time examining the history of their text without feeling like they are removing the foundation of a house of cards.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
I think the consensus is that Mark is older than John. There are noncannonical texts that predate Mark (Q for sure, and I think at least the Gospel of Thomas).

The inevitable problem with biblical scholarship is that many believers have a hard time examining the history of their text without feeling like they are removing the foundation of a house of cards.
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I am familiar with the theory that there is a Q source, but as far as I am aware,it has never been found.
 
PhDeac said:
So you disregard any work of nonfiction written an author who didn't personally witness they events?
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No but I do hold a text heavily dependent upon oral tradition which claims miracles occurred to a higher standard than a piece of nonfiction about an event which is almost certain to have occurred (corroborated through other sources of the time period, other texts examining the events, etc.).

Obviously the stories about the Vesuvius eruption in 79 AD don't solely include eyewitnesses, but neither does it claim something happened that never before has and never again has.
 
That's why four accounts were compiled in the Bible.
 
I would probably self-identify as a skeptical believer, fwiw. My problem with what makes up the bible as we know it is that if was assembled and preserved by an organization with various and sundry political agendas over the last 2,000 years.
 
PhDeac said:
That's why four accounts were compiled in the Bible.
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If we're being generous, even, three accounts are heavily reliant upon the fourth and the fourth in all likelihood didn't witness any events about which "he" (or more likely "they") were writing.

Given the general reliability of four separate accounts, which are taken literally as gospel, it seems pretty unlikely that what is recorded in the Bible is even 50% accurate. I would also posit that even if 99.9% of the Bible was in fact accurate, the .1% which was not was probably the portion dealing with any miracle which was alleged. Hell most of the miracles of the Bible were probably just a gross misunderstanding of the basic aspects of life. This was two thousand years before germ theory came about, there probably wasn't any wine to water miracle. I'm sure the Red Sea parted because there was a drought and someone was able to walk/swim across and the followers got caught in a strong current or storm (if there actually was something like this that even occurred at all).

I thought I read recently that there is no historical evidence at all that there were ever any Jews imprisoned in Egypt
 
Wakeforest22890 said:
If we're being generous, even, three accounts are heavily reliant upon the fourth and the fourth in all likelihood didn't witness any events about which "he" (or more likely "they") were writing.
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That is not the consensus understanding. John's gospel, written by an eye witness, is not reliant upon Mark, like Matthew and Luke's gospel are.
 
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