What I hate the most is that his whole excuse is bullshit. The Bible dosen’t even know what being gay is, it’s only against bronze age booty thief power displays, it knows absolutely nothing about being trans, these people really need to start specifying that they are against ‘loving thy neighbor’ because they interpret out of context verses written in old English they don’t understand to mean they can hate people they don’t like or are currently pretending not to be one of.
There have always been gay people, and in every culture, though. While trans is a relatively modern concept, there have definitely been gender-variant people across cultures too.
The fact that it’s been vaguely mentioned at all in the Bible suggests it was a non-issue. Romans, for example, social advancement revolved around patronage… which involved gay sex.
The only modern part of things are the hormone medicines and surgeries we have now. And the language and terms we use. But people being trans, intersex, both sexes, neither, etc, etc is as old as humanity as far as we can tell. There are ancient examples of things like I think it was a grave of a person born female, but was buried with armor and honors of an exclusively male role, like a warrior something. Like a “Mulan” type thing. Which means either nobody knew they were born female or it didn’t matter.
I didn’t mean these groups didn’t exist, but no legitimate scholar has found any evidence of ancient Hebrews having any concept of sexual orientation or trans identity as we have today. They DID have 6-9 genders, and Jesus himself mentions 5 genders, so it’s not clear how people we call homosexual or trans today fit into that culture. Jesus mentions Men, Women, Eunichs by birth, Eunichs by choice, and Eunichs by force, and there were other designations by his culture, the Bible very specifically forbids one sexual act, a man penitrating a man. No mention of sex with eunichs of any variety, no mention of non penatrative sex, no mention of women having sex with women, it does forbid men dressing as women and women dressing as men, but it is forbidding only the deception of the act, where did men who decided they were in fact women fit in? Is that a deception? We don’t know, and we know rabbis of the day we’re capable of very nuanced application of law, there’s records of entire arguments going on for hours worth of legal analysis, like how to treat a man who’s testicles are crushed, or if his penis is damaged to prevent typical ejaculation, what the law requires, what common sense requires, we also know the law section of the Bible was never in fact a legal system used by ancient Hebrews, it was literally propaganda, and it’s largely draconian, and the legal system used in fact, wasn’t. Rabbis rarely if ever sentanced anyone to death, they viewed human life as sacred to God, so the risk of falsely executing anyone was considered too high a risk in almost every case.
My whole point is, if you honestly study the text, there’s clearly no stance on homosexual orientation, and no stance on trans identity, what isn’t ambiguous or lacking a mention on, is what ‘‘love thy neighbor’’ means and how to apply it to your life, and how high a priority it must be. It’s very clear. Treat others beyond baseline humanely, do all you can to help others, do more than is expected, and never fail to forgive even highly repeated sin, or face the judgment of God, as any negative effect you put on others, God will act as if you did that directly to him.
To throw that all out for the opportunity to act as if hate and abuse are validated by their religion is the definition of evil.
The number of outspoken atheists who started out diligently learning all they could about their faith, often to become a leader in their religion, is high. You don’t have to know much to find out a very old collection of mythology, propaganda, sermons, prophecy, and history is NOT a magical intruction manual from God.
Here’s John 3:16 in Old English: “God lufede middan-eard swa þæt he sealde hys akennedan sune þæt nan ne for-wurðe þe on hine ge-lefð. Ac habbe þt eche lyf.”
Fair enough, but it’s still not modern English and it’s easy to read a verse in the KJV Bible and think it means exactly the opposite of what it says due to language changes
What I hate the most is that his whole excuse is bullshit. The Bible dosen’t even know what being gay is, it’s only against bronze age booty thief power displays, it knows absolutely nothing about being trans, these people really need to start specifying that they are against ‘loving thy neighbor’ because they interpret out of context verses written in old English they don’t understand to mean they can hate people they don’t like or are currently pretending not to be one of.
There have always been gay people, and in every culture, though. While trans is a relatively modern concept, there have definitely been gender-variant people across cultures too.
The fact that it’s been vaguely mentioned at all in the Bible suggests it was a non-issue. Romans, for example, social advancement revolved around patronage… which involved gay sex.
The only modern part of things are the hormone medicines and surgeries we have now. And the language and terms we use. But people being trans, intersex, both sexes, neither, etc, etc is as old as humanity as far as we can tell. There are ancient examples of things like I think it was a grave of a person born female, but was buried with armor and honors of an exclusively male role, like a warrior something. Like a “Mulan” type thing. Which means either nobody knew they were born female or it didn’t matter.
I didn’t mean these groups didn’t exist, but no legitimate scholar has found any evidence of ancient Hebrews having any concept of sexual orientation or trans identity as we have today. They DID have 6-9 genders, and Jesus himself mentions 5 genders, so it’s not clear how people we call homosexual or trans today fit into that culture. Jesus mentions Men, Women, Eunichs by birth, Eunichs by choice, and Eunichs by force, and there were other designations by his culture, the Bible very specifically forbids one sexual act, a man penitrating a man. No mention of sex with eunichs of any variety, no mention of non penatrative sex, no mention of women having sex with women, it does forbid men dressing as women and women dressing as men, but it is forbidding only the deception of the act, where did men who decided they were in fact women fit in? Is that a deception? We don’t know, and we know rabbis of the day we’re capable of very nuanced application of law, there’s records of entire arguments going on for hours worth of legal analysis, like how to treat a man who’s testicles are crushed, or if his penis is damaged to prevent typical ejaculation, what the law requires, what common sense requires, we also know the law section of the Bible was never in fact a legal system used by ancient Hebrews, it was literally propaganda, and it’s largely draconian, and the legal system used in fact, wasn’t. Rabbis rarely if ever sentanced anyone to death, they viewed human life as sacred to God, so the risk of falsely executing anyone was considered too high a risk in almost every case.
My whole point is, if you honestly study the text, there’s clearly no stance on homosexual orientation, and no stance on trans identity, what isn’t ambiguous or lacking a mention on, is what ‘‘love thy neighbor’’ means and how to apply it to your life, and how high a priority it must be. It’s very clear. Treat others beyond baseline humanely, do all you can to help others, do more than is expected, and never fail to forgive even highly repeated sin, or face the judgment of God, as any negative effect you put on others, God will act as if you did that directly to him.
To throw that all out for the opportunity to act as if hate and abuse are validated by their religion is the definition of evil.
Yup it’s simply hateful, spiteful people being assholes. Inconsiderate pricks using religion as an excuse to be inconsiderate pricks.
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The problem is, if you read the Bible it will make you an atheist. Ironic.
The number of outspoken atheists who started out diligently learning all they could about their faith, often to become a leader in their religion, is high. You don’t have to know much to find out a very old collection of mythology, propaganda, sermons, prophecy, and history is NOT a magical intruction manual from God.
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I was once in a band called Bronze Age Booty Thieves. Our first album Power Displays didn’t sell too well…
I would unironically buy that if I saw it at a pawn shop.
Early Modern English.
Here’s John 3:16 in Old English: “God lufede middan-eard swa þæt he sealde hys akennedan sune þæt nan ne for-wurðe þe on hine ge-lefð. Ac habbe þt eche lyf.”
Fair enough, but it’s still not modern English and it’s easy to read a verse in the KJV Bible and think it means exactly the opposite of what it says due to language changes