Biblical inerrancy is bullshit. The Bible, especially the Old Testament, is not the literal word of God. That's bullshit. It's the word of countless old geezers passed down from one to the other, embellished a bit here and there to suit whims and biases and fancies of the day with plenty of space left over for even more bullshit.
And people who believe the word from God is that gays should be put to death, well they have shit for brains. They probably also have prehensile tails. We developed an institution for them. It's called the zoo.
Lewis Black has a great sketch on the Old Testament and how it screws up Christians. Embedding is disabled but you can access it here.
How much mayhem have those damned books and the people who devour them inflicted in the name of their gods over the centuries? Those fundamentalists who come in equal parts of piety and murderous brutality. And they've been dining on a diet of straight bullshit.
It's time to rein this in. We need a law defining terrorist organizations to include any religion that justifies the killing of a person for any lawful practice relating to ethnicity, gender, political or sexual orientation. Preach any of that shit and - bang! - your precious tax privileges are gone, rescinded, over. You go on the terrorist organization list, you get regular visits from the anti-terrorism folks and your leadership, they go on the "no fly" list.
For Christians, the Old Testament in the Bible is intended to be Preface. The real stuff is the teachings of Jesus (Joshua to non-Greeks).
ReplyDeleteI have not found Jesus condemning homosexuality anywhere in the Bible.
As for Paul/Saul's letters - true scholars would understand that the modern English translations are just so much commentary. And, that in their original settings, there was no acknowledgement of homosexuality as understood in today's society.
But that's the central problem with modern xtianity, particularly the fundagelical version. They've come to emphasize the OT at the expense of the New. Closer to orthodox Judaism.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I think it's long past time to pull the tax exempt status of all churches. Just as The Lord's Day Act has been done away with so should this archaic foolishness.
@ UU4077 - Are you then suggesting that evangelical fundamentalism is Christian apostasy?
ReplyDeleteUntil 2015 my MP was a Christian fundamentalist/chiropractor. He believed the Earth was 6,000 years old, all the bullshit. He believed in Biblical inerrancy and that the OT was the word of God. Was he even a Christian?
This is not a matter of semantics either given that fundamentalism has taken hold in America's officer corps and its military academies (save for the Navy). That's scary stuff.
It becomes clearer and clearer every time they open their mouths, Mound, that these evangelicals have fashioned a god in their own image - spiteful, intolerant, racist, xenophobic and, last but not least, quite unhinged.
ReplyDeleteThey don't call the bible, the book of revelations for nothing Mound.
ReplyDeleteToday's fundamentalist Christianity is nothing like "original" Christianity. Even "original" Christianity is nothing like "original" Christianity as there were dozens of forms of it in the early days. Constantine - via the Council of Nicea - drove the final nail in changing that. It was for political power. And, we didn't necessarily end up with the best version of it.
ReplyDelete(With reference to a previous post, I have read Chris Hedges and have a great respect for his opinions. I have also studied Theology. However, my take on it would make me a liberal heretic to most "Christians" - especially "conservative, fundamentalist" ones.)
Mound did you know your blog has an unbearable soundtrack?
ReplyDeleteI say the same thing its time to outlaw bublic displays of religious affection.
As a former fundamentalist, evangelical christian (now atheist for several years) I can make the following observation about christianity, and, by extension, all other religions. It all boils down to and extends no farther than belief, and belief is not fact. The veracity of any religious claim - regardless of creed - has never been, and likely never will be, established to the point of factuality. Some will claim that biblical or koranic archeological discoveries give support to their claims, but all those have ever established is the existence of places, believers, or certain figures or references to them, and are of no more significance than setting a work of fiction such as "Breakfast At Tiffany's" in 1950's New York or "A Christmas Carol" in Dickensian England. And because none of them can point to any factual aspect of their beliefs - especially when it comes to the so-called supernatural - those beliefs and the texts that inspire them are then open to any and all interpretations in the broadest sense.
ReplyDeleteIt's because of these broad interpretations of things that amount to nothing more than fables that I feel that absolutely no quarter should be given to those who want to make public policy based on their religious beliefs, especially when it comes to denying basic rights to others. Religion, in many ways, is simply an effort to exert control on others by a few who are suspicious or fearful of "the other" or of change, who want to maintain a grip by excluding freedom.
To those who want to inflict their beliefs on others, who want us to live as they do, or as their god decrees (who, is all too often a spiteful, vain, power hungry male - what a coinky-dink!) I offer up two words they fear even more than "gay", "lesbian", "bi-sexual", "transgendered", "queer", "liberal", "science", or "evolution"...
"Prove it".
N.