Quote:
Originally Posted by jaycee
You're right on the money here! 
I find it astounding that people make various quotes from the Bible, working out what's acceptable and what isn't from it, and telling us we're all sinners with sin being an unavoidable part of being human. Can't they think for themselves and work out how to be nice and genuinely ethical with rationality? Or don't they have any?
And why not quote some other holy books, like the Qur'an or the Vedas? They seem just as internally inconsistent with the contradictory logic they employ throughtout their writings. Perhaps it's because Christianity is correct, because if you believe it hard enough, Christianity must be true. 
About the only religion I can tolerate anymore is Buddhism - despite the odd fault here and there (e.g. children born disabled are people that have done something terribly wrong in their past life), it seems a much more pleasant religion than any others (i.e. while other religions have a habit for turning out both good and bad people, buddhism doesn't seem to do the latter, so far as I know). I doubt I'd argue for a strong philosophical, rational basis for everything as passionately as I do nowadays if Buddhism was the only religion people might choose to follow that I had to "contend" with.
Please excuse the length of my rant!  |
Well, the Bible has changed many, many times over the years. You look at most of the copies of the Bible people have in their homes, and it is missing many of the other books that are out there - a group of dudes, several times over the years, has sat down to decide what Christians needed to read and didn't need to read, and they dumped off what they felt didn't jive with what they wanted you to read.
Mind you, it is possible to go now and read many of those deuterocanonical texts today, whereas it wasn't so easy to do so even 50 years ago. If people were able to read these texts with open eyes, then I think they'd be blown away at the sheer amount of material that was left out of the Bible, as well as the interesting and often completely contradictory information they provide.
And ignoring all of that, you have the problem of all the many different versions we have available now, each using their own unique language in a lot of cases. You have the King James Version and then you have the NEW King James Version and then you have the 21st Century King James Version. You have the New International Version and then you have the New International Version (UK) and then you have the TODAY'S New International Version. And on and on and on. They're all worded differently in spots. The translations differ. And depending on what version they were translated from, then you just get farther and farther from the translations that were used for the first slew of Bibles. A lot of people think that "dogs" in one of the previously quoted verses refers to homosexuals, but for all we know, 2000 years ago, they could've been talking about whatever was equivalent to today's popular teacup chihuahua. Who knows?
Nobody.
When you read the Bible, whatever you are reading is not the straight gospel truth coming from the lips of your deity of choice. You're reading a book that has been changed and modified to suit the needs of whoever was doing the writing at the time, over and over and over again, for hundreds and hundreds of years. So much for the word of god. You're reading the word of men. And men? Aren't exactly known for being super smart or rational or even reasonable a lot of the time. I'm just sayin.
And yet somehow, people think this book is the be-all, end-all final word that gives them the right to turn around and cast judgment and aspersions on someone else just because they happen to love differently than they do.
That is not being righteous. That is being self-righteous. And it is bull****.
Furthermore, I am tired of people couching their flat-out judgment and aspersions against others with, "But I said I sin, too! I'm admitting my faults! I'm humble!" like that somehow makes it okay to say someone else is an abomination and going to hell, again, just because they love differently than you do. What a crock.
Anyway, even the Dalai Lama has voiced aloud his issues with homosexuals, though that is mostly down to cultural mores rather than anything Buddhism actually says. I don't know any Buddhists that think what you said about disabled folks, nor do I recall anything like that in the texts I've read (and I've read a lot of them), but I mostly hung out with Soto Zen guys, and they are markedly lacking in the mumbo jumbo and the hocus pocus, unlike, say, the Theravadans.
Quote:
Originally Posted by carrie721
i haven't completely fleshed out my thoughts on the origins of homosexuality, but i definitely fall more on the "nature" side of nature vs. nurture.
|
I figure it's nature. After all, I didn't have to "choose" to be straight. It's just how I am.