Is gay marriage really that different?

[Formaldehyde]

I don't know if it would be fair to describe it as something "most Christians" consider a "fairly minor sin." I think most would probably rank it at perhaps adultery level of sin, perhaps slightly less -- actually fairly serious, but not really warranting judicial sanction.

To me, that is fairly minor, especially when you consider how many Americans characterize having any sex outside of marriage as being adultery. Some states still word their adultery laws that way as well. I think it is actually much closer to that form of sin than cheating on your wife, since the latter typically entails the deliberate breaking of vows.

I think a good part of the reaction is due to the fact that it's a matter of lifestyle. If you cheat on your wife, or steal a library book, or whatever (To give a range of possible sins from serious to less so) then it's just an action -- it may be indicative of a lifestyle of adultery or petty theft, but perhaps not, and a lot of people who cheat and steal nevertheless believe that such conduct is generally wrong. In contrast, homosexual sex is generally part of a lifestyle which often includes the acceptance of sin as non-sin. Because it's pretty hard to not have the sex that you want, and to accept that want you want is morally wrong to get, not many gay people genuinely and permanently renounce it.

I don't think there is much question that those gays who are Christians either don't consider it to be a sin at all, or they think it is an extremely minor one. And they typically belong to churches where that is the prevailing attitude amongst the parishioners.

And as I mentioned above, many Christians live with unmarried sex partners in sin, or they perpetually hold grudges against neighbors, or continually covet their neighbor's property, or frequently cuss, etc. etc.

Fair enough. As I said, I'm fairly ambivalent on the legal issues involved; I can't really get behind either the status quo or what most people would like to change it to.

I think most Christians are rather ambivalent about matters concerning homosexuals. I think this is another case of the tail wagging the dog. It is being spearheaded by the same group which is so opposed to allowing gays to openly serve in the military, and who supported sodomy laws to even make such practices illegal.

 

[El_Machinae]

Mobby does have a point - fragments of some of the myths that made it into the Bible probably have very ancient origins that survived as raw material for the end product. The same could probably be said for 2001: A Space Odyssey though.

Not really. None of the myths are that old (i.e., 4000 years), unless you're really aggressive with the definition of 'fragment'. The myths try to describe 'old' events (i.e., Abraham, etc.), but their origins are going to be much more recent.

It's important to distinguish between events that are 2500 years old, and the ancient myths held by those people. Hell, even the most wildly ancient myths (say, 1000 years old) wouldn't be 4000 years old.

Remember, the myths are younger than the events they purport to describe. Many of those myths are going to be much, much younger. The problem believers have, is that they misinterpret the description of the myths with the chronology of the creation of the myths. The people back then might have had older myths, but they've been shed in the process of making the current selection of myths cohesive in their descriptions. i.e., myths regarding the fall of the Canaan city states would have been shed with the creation of the Moses myth. And myths regarding the ancestry of Abraham (etc) would have been shed by trying to tie Joseph into the myth of the Exodus. Genesis myths would have supplanted previous creation myths during the Babylonian exile. etc.

The oldest whole myth (that stands upsupported and thus doesn't hurt the rest of the myths) is Job. It's, what? 3500 years old, or so? To assume that it has its foundation in events 500 years (or terribly older!) old is ... unwarranted.

And, I betcha the Christians that are assuming that the '6000 to 4000 year old stories' are actually mistaking the timelines in the stories with the timelines of actual history. IOW, the Bible is tricking them. We don't have to quibble and debate which myth fragments might squeak past the 4000 year old mark, because the quote is not about myth fragments squeaking into actual ancient history. It's a general assumption that there're 'obviously' parts of the Bible that are really old. That's just not true. Very much of the OT is obviously not very old (if we're talking millenia), even though believers think they are.

 

[MobBoss]

You dont think 4000 years is 'that' old?

Okey dokey.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

4000/4,500,000,000 is around 8.8*10^-5 percent...

 

[El_Machinae]

You dont think 4000 years is 'that' old?

Okey dokey.

"That" is a specifying word, and not a statement of intensity, in that first sentence. This is probably obvious, given that I then specified the age that I was referring to (i.e., with an 'i.e.,').


Okey dokey! Now it will be less easy to ignore the gist of the message, but you'll excuse me if I'm not interested in dealing with additional comprehension issues. Stumbling through, one sentence at a time, is probably a waste of my time.

It might be better proof of my thesis (that the Bible fools believers) if you were to suggest which parts of the OT you thought were '4000 to 6000 years old'.

 

[MobBoss]

4000/4,500,000,000 is around 8.8*10^-5 percent...

I thought we were talking about human history...not geologic time.

It might be better proof of my thesis (that the Bible fools believers) if you were to suggest which parts of the OT you thought were '4000 to 6000 years old'.

Only the parts referring to Abraham and earlier.

 

[ParadigmShifter]

So about 2.6 million years ago instead? Or are we just talking about homo sapiens, in which case 4000/200000 is about 2%.

Or are we talking about the development of speech? Writing?

 

[MobBoss]

So about 2.6 million years ago instead? Or are we just talking about homo sapiens, in which case 4000/200000 is about 2%.

Or are we talking about the development of speech? Writing?

I thnk we were going for recorded human history. At least I was.

 

[El_Machinae]

Only the parts referring to Abraham and earlier.

What do you mean "and earlier"? According to the timeline in Genesis? That doesn't work. You're continuing to confuse the creation of the stories with the times that they're describing. Essentially, it's saying that Minority Report was written in 2054!

The story of Abraham didn't start until the generations around the time of Solomon's purported reign (or maybe a couple centuries later, but I am being generous). That's only ~3,000 years ago. The stories of Abraham were generated after the fall of the Canaan city-states and the re-estabilishment of the Israeli nation, and were part of the synthesis of creating the monotheism as well as making the Israelites the 'victors' of the Canaanite disasters, instead of the victims.

Ostensibly, the story could be younger than that, and is not part of creating the monotheism, but just its affirmation.

 

[MobBoss]

Actually, Abraham is generally accepted as living around the 1900 BC era, which would put it right at 4000 years ago. And there are indeed references to times prior to Abraham mentioned in the bible.

Simply because the histories were oral prior to them being written down doesnt necessarily discount them.

 

[civ_king]

*snip*
I think science feels people should have faith in the scientific method - that is, basing things on rational explanation and running tests.



I'm pretty sure there's only one meaning of unnatural... something not natural. Air conditioning, the internet, and all sorts of goodies are but only a fringe amount of people advocate getting rid of them.



I'm arguing against the pro-life perspective, which does hold it to be a child

The scientific method is different based on the field, also not all fields do tests as part of it

No, actually there are several meaning.

The pro-life movement doesn't claim a zygot is a child

 

[Tani Coyote]

No, actually there are several meaning.

Explain if you'd be so kind.

The pro-life movement doesn't claim a zygot is a child

...umm what? That's the whole basis of the pro-life argument, that it's life from conception, and thus abortion is wrong. They consider it tantamount to murder of an innocent child.

 

[BuckyRea]

I think homosexuals should be afforded the same legal rights as everyone else. I just don't think there's a particular right to have a government recognized marriage. (If you'd read my posts early in the thread, I tend to lean towards having the government get out of the affair entirely, for everyone)

An excellent point of distinction. I agree that there is not a "right to get married". But there is a right to equal treatment under the law and under the law right now governments certainly do recognize and financially support marriage as a straight institution.

I'll point out that there really is no such thing as "Gay Rights." Gay Rights do not exist. There are only human rights, and gay people ought to get the same treatment under the law that straights get.

 

[El_Machinae]

Actually, no. Abraham did not exist ~1900 BC. And the introduction of Abraham into the mythology occurred well after the Israelite writing began. For your timeline to work, the monotheistic priests would have had to fail to record the Abraham story for decades/centuries after they'd already recorded other stories (e.g., Job). By then, the priests had already muddled up the history of the Israelites merely from their Canaanite origins. To assume that they properly knew the story of some (1000 year old) dude better than they knew the history of the very cities they occupied is ... well, stretching credibility. They didn't know the origins of the ruins of the Canaanite cities, but knew some guy (centuries earlier) agreed to murder a kid? And then they failed to include his story into their system for decades after that? No, that's wrong. It's the modern equivalent of 9/11 truthers declaring that the Narnia stories are "grounded in reality"

And of course there are references to earlier times than Abraham in the Bible. But those myths each have a beginning time. The vast majority of those each have their roots well more recently than 4000 years ago.

I'm sometimes astounded at how little actual Biblical history the Christian community knows. Oh, they know the Bible well enough, sure. But then we see that the Bible not only fails to instruct the Christians regarding actual history, but that the Christians are then fooled into a false sense of what the actual history is.

edit: hell of a cross-post.
It's a weird compromise to suggest that we scrap the legal consequences of marriage instead of just nudging it to make it more fair.

 

[BuckyRea]

...umm what? That's the whole basis of the pro-life argument, that it's life from conception, and thus abortion is wrong. They consider it tantamount to murder of an innocent child.

I wonder if he meant merely that a child is a child, a zygote is a zygote, and both are alive enough to deserve not to be killed, either by abortion in the latter case or by shooting them out of a circus cannon into a swamp filled with hungry alligators in the latter.

 

[JollyRoger]

Actually, Abraham is generally accepted as living around the 1900 BC era,

Only by those that accept he lived at all. When is it generally accepted that Achilles lived?

Simply because the histories were oral prior to them being written down doesnt necessarily discount them.

I agree. Discount could very well be too mild of a word to use.

 

[El_Machinae]

Oh, the actual Abraham of the myth might have existed. IOW, there could be some dude who claimed that he was supposed to murder his kid (but then didn't), and who then started the story. That could've been orally recorded within a couple generations of the written recording of the story of Abraham.

But he's not the patriarch of the Hebrews enslaved in Egypt!

I should clarify. The man 'Abraham who tried to kill his son and worshiped Yahweh' might very well have existed. He could've been a central figure of the monotheistic synthesis in the generations around the time of Solomon. I doubt it, but it could've happened. Of course, he's not then the Abraham that's been redacted into the stories of Genesis, with its stories of Egypt (etc.). Bible readers don't know that the Genesis Abraham didn't exist, only actual historians seem to know that.

So, Christian claims to have superior knowledge "of the Bible" are funny. It's like a Trekkie insisting that the Gorn were discovered in the 2200s instead of the 1960s. And then suggesting their ability to engage in Trekke technobabble renders knowledge of actual physics in doubt.

 

[MobBoss]

Actually, no. Abraham did not exist ~1900 BC.

Hmm. The Jewish Virtual Library puts it at 1813 BC. The wiki on it spans him from sometime around 1996 to 1821 BC.

Is your mind so closed on the issue that you would simply discout such references out of turn?

And the introduction of Abraham into the mythology occurred well after the Israelite writing began.

Well, someones apparently been reading some anti-religion websites.

Look, why dont we just nip this in the bud right now. Your so anti-christian belief and emtional about it being 'mythology' there really isnt any point in discussing it with you.

 

[Traitorfish]

Your so anti-christian belief and emtional about it being 'mythology' there really isnt any point in discussing it with you.

If you find the idea of it being "mythology" offensive, then you're really not using the word properly.

 

[JollyRoger]

Hmm. The Jewish Virtual Library puts it at 1813 BC. The wiki on it spans him from sometime around 1996 to 1821 BC.

Is your mind so closed on the issue that you would simply discout such references out of turn?

Jesus is regarded as a religious and ethical master, a reformer, a man of faith. He is regarded by some as a "messianic" person, but obviously Jews do not accept him as the Messiah awaited by Israel.

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/christetal.html