Okay, so I figure we could use a little experiment here. This'll be called "The Tangent Topic," and we'll use it as a detour thread, of sorts, for brief discussions that break off from the topics of our main debate threads. This will come in handy if we have mini-topics we want to settle for the purpose of use in another debate that are too indirect to fit the debate, but a thread specifically for them hasn't been opened yet.
Things we see in here might become full-fledged debates, or they might just get talked about and then get replaced by new tangential topics. So, in order to promote both of those outcomes, the limit for a single topic in this thread will be two pages of Serebii default (specifically, 40 posts). After that, the topic will be changed or closed, whatever suits our needs.
If this turns out not to be too useful, or not to work the way I envision it, we can scrap the idea. No biggie. =P
Things we see in here might become full-fledged debates, or they might just get talked about and then get replaced by new tangential topics. So, in order to promote both of those outcomes, the limit for a single topic in this thread will be two pages of Serebii default (specifically, 40 posts). After that, the topic will be changed or closed, whatever suits our needs.
If this turns out not to be too useful, or not to work the way I envision it, we can scrap the idea. No biggie. =P
Our first topic can be opened with the following post from JDavidC:
I think it is time for me to intervene with one of my more heavy-duty posts. Firstly, I'm going to define 'corruption' as altering the text of a book (or anthology of books) in such a way that original, intended interpretation is unlikely to be used, along with mistakes made by the original author(s) (and yes, the authors of the Bible, even if they were inspired by God, were still fallible humans).
Firstly, I'll start with this: http://preceptaustin.org/1thessalonians_521-22.htm
Even though the verse from 1 Thessalonians 5:21 may be intended to be in the context of dealing with prophecies, it works VERY well without any context. Also, the Bible itself is largely prophecy, written by prophets, so for any Christian reading this, why not put the Bible to the test? I'd strongly advise being very critical, rather than choosing to believe in something just because you want to believe in it (this opens the door to so many logical fallacies it really isn't funny, belief in something just because you want it to be true does not change whether or not it is actually true (barring smart-alec statements like 'This statement is something I want to believe to be true.'.). One of the biggest problems facing Christianity (including the attitude towards homosexuals) is that so many people don't seem to be aware that critical thinking and verifying whether statements are true is actually encouraged in the Bible. Far too many fall into the blind faith trap. Others fall into a more subtle trap (X, Y, and Z in the Bible are true, therefore this proves that everything else in the Bible is true, or at least, that everything else isn't worth a serious analysis to verify its truth).
As I've said before. There are MANY things that have happened to the Bible since its creation. Translation from the original languages alone has a massive potential for corruption. That is, it may be hard to translate the text in such a way that it can be easily interpreted in its original meaning. Not only that, but the Bible consists heavily of reports of historical/future events. With historical events, if you don't know your world history around the times that the actual events were occurring, then it's going to make it much harder to understand what's going on. Cultures would have been very different from the ones a lot of people are used to around here. Barbaric laws would probably have been the norm then, God or no God.
Is there any corruption? There are some things that may be investigated here:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/jim_meritt/bible-contradictions.html#contradictions
When investigating contradictions, you'll need to think very carefully to determine whether some of the contradictions are really contradictions, the Bible is not nearly as straightforward as many people would believe, especially when it comes to how God would behave, given his definition, and our limited understanding).
I'm going to look for a very clear-cut contradiction:
http://bible.cc/1_kings/9-23.htm
That link I found when looking at one contradiction gives you cross-references to contradicting verses. It seems the number of supervisors cannot be agreed upon in three different places in the Bible. The numbers mentioned vary widely in each case: 250, 550, 3300.
The fact that at least 1 corruption exists proves that the Bible was corrupted at least once, possibly even as it was being written. It is NOT an error-free document. People need to be very careful when reading it. Simply taking everything any Bible says at face value, without thinking about it critically, is a recipe for disaster.
At least two out of three of those verses must be incorrect.
Furthermore, people may write books in ways that are hard to understand. Consider the following:
Proverbs 26:4-5 (two consecutive verses!)
Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.
Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.
Yes, this is going to appear contradictory when you look at it. With some thinking, this can work: Don't answer a fool in the way the fool talks (e.g. don't argue (in the ad hominem sense) with idiots that will drag you down to their level and beat you with experience), but, if you can answer with logic, and without resorting to attacks/trolling, then you can correct said fool, so said fool becomes less foolish (I'm beginning to feel like Franziska Von Karma from the Ace Attorney series here...).
I've taken on Leviticus 18:22 in one of my previous posts: The act of two men lying down together in a woman's bed is what is forbidden. It's basically misusing the propery of the woman, almost certainly to commit adultery, that seems to be what is being condemned as a major sin. Going down the homosexual angle instead, given the fact that people, in general, do NOT choose their sexual orientation, means that a fatal logical contradiction occurs with God's character. Now, God is supposed to be omnipotent, omniscient, and perfectly good. When it comes to law, any law must ultimately be for the benefit of the society it is given to (more good than harm done, not necessarily no harm). Stating that engaging in homosexual activity is a sin would require very good reasoning, especially if there are people that are homosexual by NATURE. You need to ask yourself, is there anything ELSE going on that may be a sin? Condemning homosexuality as a sin does not make sense, given that such a relationship may be conducted with the only major difference being the genders of the people involved. The actual activity does not affect other people. Unless it can be proven that it causes significant harm that seriously outweighs the harm of forbidding it, then I don't see any logical reason for it to be a sin. I would like to note I am applying 1 Thessalonians 5:21 explicitly here. When I test to see whether it implies that homosexuality is a sin, I don't see any evidence supporting it, instead, I see evidence suggesting an alternative, which does make sense. In this case, it's a man cheating on his wife with another man, in her bed! Adultery and defilement of her property (which is what it may have been seen as back then) would be an 'abomination' as far as sins are concerned. Furthermore, I have seen, elsewhere, that the word translated to 'abomination' is translated better to 'cultural taboo'. That taboo would, probably, be misusing the bed.
Regarding Leviticus 20:13 - Same thing for the first part, both men are misusing the bed, and possibly involved in an affair. As for the punishment, maybe there's some reason that I can't fathom why capital punishment is so popular in those days, and whether lesser punishments would actually not work as well, for everyone, in the long run (cultural/technological differences?). It's the only possible reason I can think of for God instituting such severe punishments, without breaking his character that is established in the Bible. However, discussion of punishment for crimes is going on a tangent, so I'll stop here.
Firstly, I should note that the word lust pops up here. In this context, it would be a very powerful desire to have sex, in spite of rules and consequences. Also, lust itself is classified as one of the seven deadly sins. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_deadly_sins Next up, we have natural relations being exchanged for unnatural ones. Now, the question is, what is a 'natural' relationship, when you have two people that are not both heterosexual? In the case where you have heterosexual people, then one heterosexual man and one heterosexual woman is the natural relationship. To answer my question however, it's more tricky. Anything other than a man and a woman precludes the possibility of children, and the health risks may vary. To a lot of people, a relationship that does this sort of thing will feel unnatural, however, these people may be like that because they are heterosexual. What makes more sense, is people engaging in a relationship that feels unnatural to them (e.g. two heterosexual men engaging in homosexual sex), being very harmful. Trying to defy your own nature, and being someone you're not, may be part of the problem mentioned, and the real violation of nature. Going back to the passage, this may suggest heterosexual people abandoned their relationships and went for homosexual ones. Not only that, but this would mean they commit adultery doing so, and note that lust is used again when they engage in homosexual sex, rather than the sort you would get in a loving marriage. Not only that, but there was probably a lot of careless sleeping around (i.e. large sex orgies, which, again, is going to result in lots of people being unfaithful in marriage, i.e. adultery on a massive scale) to boot, with so many dire health risks, including severe STD spread (which would be a very severe punishment for lusting after people without thinking about the consequences).
To summarise my analysis of Romans 1:26-27, there was a whole lot of stuff going wrong. People breaking up their own marriages (which would suggest they were heterosexual in nature), then going into large-scale sex orgies with all the health risks those entail, in a way that violates their own heterosexual nature... OUCH.
Finally, regarding Lot and the 2 angels, along with Sodom and Gomorrah, bear in mind the angels never agreed to have sex with the humans that wanted to have sex with them. If the humans went through with having sex, it would be RAPE.
As for the Bible being changed or 'tampered with', all you have to do is look up a verse on the Internet like this:
http://bible.cc/leviticus/18-22.htm
Here comes a massive problem, that of losing stuff in translation, and putting your own interpretation on what you're translating from. In some cases, the quote has been changed to explicitly condemn homosexuality, and it omits the mention of 'lying down', which may well be referring to lying down in the woman's bed. Now, imagine this sort of thing being done MANY TIMES in a row, this may have happened with some Bibles, particularly those that focus on updating the language of an older version written in the same language. There is the possibility that some Bibles may have had this happen to them. It's also possible for people to, accidentally, or deliberately, distort the Bible in this manner when translating from accurate original copies to ones in their own language. Finally, you must bear in mind that there may well have been very deliberate distortions put in, and that they may be more widespread than you think.
The following is an example of an entire doctrine that seems to have crept in, where it should not have:
http://www.tentmaker.org/books/hell-explained-bible-threatenings-explained.html
Although that does not deal with homosexuality, there is a look into the problems faced by people today trying to read translated Bibles, that have, by necessity, been modified from the original. For the purposes of debating homosexuality, you need to bear this in mind if you are going to bring Christianity into the debate.
A final note, specifically to moderators, this post is aimed at making people who use Christianity in their arguments to examine their arguments against homosexuality, and to consider the possible traps they may run into when interpreting the Bible, including the cases where it applies to homosexuality, one of the topics on this debate. Sometimes the best way of showing that people need to be careful when reading the Bible is to use examples that do not involve homosexuality, in order to illustrate my point. My intent is NOT to start a separate discussion about anything that isn't related directly to homosexuality.
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