United States Christianity, History, and US Politics

[LindyAF]

Unmixed organicness is Godliness?


Seriously - good for you. I'm all for voting with one's wallet for what one feels is Right.

Shirt I'm wearing right now is 100% cotton and made in the U S of A. I don't live up to it 100% of course- when I get gifts that are partially synthetic or from 3rd world countries I do wear them, for instance. But IMO it's better to try to live up to your ideals and occasionally stumble than it is to decide that if you can't keep to all of it you shouldn't even try.

I want to stress that this isn't a religious restriction, though- my understanding is that Doc and the others who have pointed it out are right, the restriction on clothes of mixed fibers was part of the Mosaic Law which was rescinded.

 

[Cherico]

I really don't get the hyper-focus on "don't wear clothes made of two seperate kinds". The only cloth I wear that is mixed, are my jeans with 75% cotton and 25% synth or whatever. If this is so important, then I will try to find only clothes with 100% singular cloth.

Its done to make it easier to clean your clothing and maintain decent hygine in a inhospitable desert when your job is to attempt to sheperd sheep creatures who by the way are not docile at all in real life and are actually full of high octain mischeff.

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

Its done to make it easier to clean your clothing and maintain decent hygine in a inhospitable desert when your job is to attempt to sheperd sheep creatures who by the way are not docile at all in real life and are actually full of high octain mischeff.

My question was more in the direction of "Why do fedora-atheists always focus on that specific part?", but hey! Yet another example on why the rules of the Bible are actually fairly practical!

 

[LordsFire]

My question was more in the direction of "Why do fedora-atheists always focus on that specific part?", but hey! Yet another example on why the rules of the Bible are actually fairly practical!

Fedora atheists focus on any old testament minutiae they can, because they must remain on the offensive at all times, otherwise it will become apparent they have no ability whatsoever to defend their own ideology.

 

[Laskar]

Fedora atheists focus on any old testament minutiae they can, because they must remain on the offensive at all times, otherwise it will become apparent they have no ability whatsoever to defend their own ideology.

Well, yeah. But that particular passage and the prohibition against eating certain kinds of seafood get brought up so often that "Polyester shellfish" is a meme.

My question was more in the direction of "Why do fedora-atheists always focus on that specific part?", but hey! Yet another example on why the rules of the Bible are actually fairly practical!

Several reasons. First of all, fedora atheists generally don't read the bible, and almost universally haven't read Leviticus. There's not that many people who are willing to dig through pages and pages of legal edicts in a book they loathe just to find the bits they disagree with. They focus on the edict against mixed fabric because that's usually what they heard other fedora atheists talk about.

Second, it's a very specific and odd edict, so when you hold it up alongside other edicts, it makes them all seem arbitrary and trivial by association. Fedora atheists love to use this one weird trick, because subtly mocking biblical morality is easier than arguing against it. Of course, it's not so weird in context, and the edicts aren't that similar either, but fedora atheists have this weird thing where they insist that biblical moral codes should survive the harshest of scrutiny even after all context has been stripped away.

 

[Cherico]

My question was more in the direction of "Why do fedora-atheists always focus on that specific part?", but hey! Yet another example on why the rules of the Bible are actually fairly practical!

How many people are illiterate when it comes to history?

To really understand Leviticus you have to imagine yourself as a semi nomadic herdsman in a very hostle world. You have to imagine that you dont have modern medical technology that you live in a world surrounded by hostle powers many of them stronger then you. You and your family is trying to survive in this world and you do not have the benifit of modern know how only trial and error, and oh yeah the price of error is sickness and death.

How many of the fedora crowd have that kind of empathy?

 

[Urabrask Revealed]

How many of the fedora crowd have that kind of empathy?

Probably one, and he became born again christian after seeing the behavior of the other atheists.

Snip

Bad faith arguing, basically.

ideology

Atheism is indeed a hollow sad ideology.

 

[Bacle]

How many people are illiterate when it comes to history?

To really understand Leviticus you have to imagine yourself as a semi nomadic herdsman in a very hostle world. You have to imagine that you dont have modern medical technology that you live in a world surrounded by hostle powers many of them stronger then you. You and your family is trying to survive in this world and you do not have the benifit of modern know how only trial and error, and oh yeah the price of error is sickness and death.

How many of the fedora crowd have that kind of empathy?

I want to thank you for pointing out something most people forget when it comes to arguing about the Bible; the Old and New Testament were written by and for people who were often semi-nomadic, with thin margins of error for survival, that are not usually literate, and had very different lives from people today.

Thus, the entirety of Christian/Jewish scripture needs to taken in that light as well; it was not written or meant for educated people originally, it was meant as a partial oral history/partial survival handbook for peasants and laborers of certain tribes/groups. The only 'educated' people that really were into it (and often the ones who edited/amended it to fit thier needs) were the priests and kings.

 

[Buba]

the Old and New Testament were written by and for people who were often semi-nomadic, with thin margins of error for survival, that are not usually literate, and had very different lives from people today.

Yes and no. But mostly no.
IMO the New Testament was written for an overwhelmingly urban, lower middle class public.
Now, as to the Old - it indeed has roots in the oral tradition of semi-nomads. However, after the Hebrews conquered Canaan this tradition was written down - and redacted many times - by an urban, priestly elite. After the conquest of Canaan the Hebrews - soon to break up into Israelis and Jew - were semi-nomads no more.

 

[Captain X]

Ok that was banned by the ancient Judaic law code at the time. Now christians here will tell you some things don’t apply.

Then why does basically everyone use it as justification for their anti-gay bigotry? See this, right here, what you and a few others are doing, comes off as someone going

after the fact.

But you know what let’s ignore that for the argument let’s pretend everyone is still bound by all the applicable commandments. Now what is the penalty imposed for mixed fabrics? I don’t think it’s death not every crime was punished with death. The more serious the crime the bigger the punishment. Murder is serious because the penalty is death, homosexuality also carries the death penalty that shows god is severely opposed to it. While theft in ancient Israel was punished with a fine of double the value of the item stolen. So thieves are less serious to God then sodomites and murderers.

Which is pretty fucked up if you put even a little bit of thought into it. But that's besides the point. The point is, you're already picking and choosing, so it doesn't pass muster to claim you're simply following "God's law" when you've shown you won't in other instances. All you are doing is searching for an excuse. You know how I know? I used to do the same exact thing. I was very much the anti-gay bigot myself when I was a Christian, and I'd cite you every passage that had something to say on the matter and just kind of ignore all the other stuff, because teh geys wanting to get married and force Christians to cater their weddings for them was what I cared about at the time.

What kind of autiste thinks that he can pull the text out of its tradition of jurisprudence?

The entire point of my argument is the context that it's in. If you're going to cite a passage, I'm going to look at the rest of the book and see what else is in there, and if you hold to that as well.

My question was more in the direction of "Why do fedora-atheists always focus on that specific part?"

Well I'm not quite an atheist, even if I do own a couple of fedoras, but I'll answer that anyway since everyone else just wants to talk the piss. The reason I, a former Christian, still focus on that particular passage, is because of how obviously absurd it is, and because no one, not even good, church-going, God-fearing folk pay it much mind in this day in age, yet in that very same book is the go-to rationale for any argument they might have against anything relating to homosexuals.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

The entire point of my argument is the context that it's in. If you're going to cite a passage, I'm going to look at the rest of the book and see what else is in there, and if you hold to that as well.

Thats right fedora tipper, the context is more than the book. 2000 years of tradition, teaching, and jurisprudence. Your cold read of the text.

Which do you think is more authoritative for believers?

 

[Captain X]

Thats right fedora tipper, the context is more than the book. 2000 years of tradition, teaching, and jurisprudence. Your cold read of the text.

Are you just ignoring the fact I was a Christian myself until fairly recently? That's cute.

Which do you think is more authoritative for believers?

I really don't care. That is immaterial to the argument I'm making.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Are you just ignoring the fact I was a Christian myself until fairly recently? That's cute.

Yes. You argue like one.

I really don't care. That is immaterial to the argument I'm making.

No. Your argument is nonsense on its face. Christians ignore the legislation about ritual purity because that law is abrogated. This is standard Orthodoxy and Orthopraxy going back to the Apostles and the First Council of Jerusalem. Stop pissing on our legs and telling us its raining.

 

[Captain X]

Yes. You argue like one.

Only in your imagination.

No. Your argument is nonsense on its face. Christians ignore the legislation about ritual purity because that law is abrogated.

Then why do so many Christians keep going back to that book to make their arguments?

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Then why do so many Christians keep going back to that book to make their arguments?

The Moral Law remains in force, the condemnation of Sodomy remains as Divine Legislation.


From the Douay Catholic Catechism of 1649
CHAPTER XX – The sins that cry to Heaven for vengeance
Q. 925. HOW many such sins are there?
A. Four.
Q. 926. What is the first of them?
A. Wilful murder, which is a voluntary and unjust taking away another’s life.
Q. 927. How show you the depravity of this sin?
A. Out of Gen. iv. 10. Where it is said to Cain “What hast thou done? the voice of the blood of thy brother crieth to me from the earth: now, therefore shalt thou be cursed upon the earth.” And Matt. xxvi 52, “All that take the sword, shall perish with the sword.”
Q. 928. What is the second?
A. The sin of Sodom, or carnal sin against nature, which is a voluntary shedding of the seed of nature, out of the due use of marriage, or lust with a different sex.
Q. 929. What is the scripture proof of this?
A. Out of Gen. xix. 13. where we read of the Sodomites, and their sin. “We will destroy this place because the cry of them hath increased before our Lord, who hath sent us to destroy them,” (and they were burnt with fire from heaven.)
Q. 930. What is the third?
A. Oppressing of the poor, which is a cruel, tyrannical, and unjust dealing with inferiors.
Q. 931. What other proof have you of that?
A. Out of Exod. xxii. 21. “Ye shall not hurt the widow and the fatherless: If you do hurt them, they will cry unto me, and I will hear them cry, and my fury shall take indignation, and I will strike thee with the sword.” And out of Isa. x. 1, 2. “Wo to them that make unjust laws, that they might oppress the poor in judgment, and do violence to the cause of the humble of my people.”
Q. 932. What is the fourth?
A. To defraud working men of their wages, which is to lessen, or detain it from them.
Q. 933. What proof have you of it?
A. Out of Eccl. xxxiv. 37. “He that sheddeth blood and he that defraudeth the hired man, are brethren,” and out of James v. 4. “Behold the hire of the workmen that have reaped your fields, which is defrauded by you, crieth, and their cry hath entered into the ears of the Lord God of Sabbath.”

 

[Battlegrinder]

I want to thank you for pointing out something most people forget when it comes to arguing about the Bible; the Old and New Testament were written by and for people who were often semi-nomadic, with thin margins of error for survival, that are not usually literate, and had very different lives from people today.

Thus, the entirety of Christian/Jewish scripture needs to taken in that light as well; it was not written or meant for educated people originally, it was meant as a partial oral history/partial survival handbook for peasants and laborers of certain tribes/groups. The only 'educated' people that really were into it (and often the ones who edited/amended it to fit thier needs) were the priests and kings.

Aside from @Buba's point in that that's not the intended target audience of either the old and especially the new testament, I'd again ask why you think that's relevant. Lots of people have very different lives from us today, that doesn't mean it's morally acceptable for them to steal, cheat, and murder from one another. People in ancient Greece had very different lives than us, and we still use thier morality tales to teach lessons to our children (for that matter, you claim to use The Art of War as a moral touchstone, despite it being written for a very different audience than you with a very different intended goal).

Then why does basically everyone use it as justification for their anti-gay bigotry?

Because, as you've been told repeatedly and seemingly refuse to acknowledge, that edict was not repealed by the new covenant and we are still bound to it.

Also, I'd like you to point to some examples of "basically everyone" using this as justification, because I've skimmed a few church websites discussing homosexuality, and they don't align with your characterization of their arguments.

 

[LordsFire]

Then why does basically everyone use it as justification for their anti-gay bigotry?

1. You're mischaracterizing the level of use it gets. As others have already pointed out, there's New Testament verses used to make the point about sexual ethics.
2. 'For their anti-gay bigotry.' I don't know if it could be any more transparent that you're not coming into this argument from an unbiased position.
3. If you 'used to be a Christian,' that by no means that you were at all competent at theology or scriptural study at the time.

For reference, I can think of exactly one Christian I've known who quoted that verse about sexual ethics, rather than the new. Even when quoting the old testament for this argument was more common back in the 90's, it was more people making the argument 'Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve,' and that's because it's a memorable rhyme, not because it was a significant argument.

 

[Battlegrinder]

Yeah, I'm sure that verse gets cited occasionally, but I'm also sure it gets cited by the...less intellectually rigorous types of activists. It's not reasonable to judge all Christians by that standard, any more than it is to judge all atheists by the "hur hur, magic sky man no like mixed fabrics" bunch.

 

[DocSolarisReich]

Yeah, I'm sure that verse gets cited occasionally, but I'm also sure it gets cited by the...less intellectually rigorous types of activists. It's not reasonable to judge all Christians by that standard, any more than it is to judge all atheists by the "hur hur, magic sky man no like mixed fabrics" bunch.

If strip-mall low-church nondenominational evangelical larping as 1st century Jews was all there was of Christianity, I would reject it as well. Luckily this isn't the case, even in the world of Protestantism.

 

[FriedCFour]

Then why does basically everyone use it as justification for their anti-gay bigotry? See this, right here, what you and a few others are doing, comes off as someone going

You’re super intent on fighting a strawman lol. Most people in actuality who have read the Bible can cite the New Testament verses that say the same. The Bible is also meant to be read as a whole. It’s abundantly clear from the entirety that God made woman for man and vice versa, that you are called to have children and that you aren’t meant to have sex outside of marriage and marriage is between men and women. All of it in its totality clearly leads to this, and you also ignore all secular arguments against it too and just claim the secular arguments are actually just religious arguments. You’re a clown.