Neon Genesis

The argument against the neccesity of water baptism to secure salvation that I've heard at times in my life is that as the thief hung on the cross beside Jesus confessed his sins and accepted Jesus at hus savior before he died, jesus told him that today, he would see him in paradise. That suggests the man's 'salvation' was secured, without baptism.

Jenell

I also like what Paul has to say about baptism in 1 Corinthians 1:

Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and the same purpose. For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters. What I mean is that each of you says, ‘I belong to Paul’, or ‘I belong to Apollos’, or ‘I belong to Cephas’, or ‘I belong to Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say that you were baptized in my name. (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to proclaim the gospel, and not with eloquent wisdom, so that the cross of Christ might not be emptied of its power.

I accidentally posted this in the wrong forum. Can someone please move this to the Progressive Christianity forum?

I was raised in the Church of Christ and I was always taught to beleive that to be saved, not only did you have to believe the entire bible is the inerrant word of God and that the Church of Christ was the one true way to heaven, you also had to be baptized to be saved. Not only did you have to be baptized to be saved, but how and why you were baptized mattered. Baptism by sprinkling or being baptized as an infant didn't count. You had to be baptized fully submerged to be saved. You also had to be baptized for the remission of your sins. It couldn't just be a ritual for being accepted as a member of your congregration or whatever. Of course they would always add the disclaimer that it wasn't the water itself that saved you from your sins but the power of God yet at the same time it was still a requirement for you to be baptized in water to be saved. The notion that you would be tortured for all eternity for any reason let alone simply for not correctly following a religious ritual is ridiculous and I don't see how they can still hold onto such strict exclusive doctriens in modern times. And while I don't always agree with Dawkins on everything, I think he does have a point about baptizing children into Christianity and forcing your religion on children when they aren't old enough to understand such complex theology. If we reject the doctrine of hell as immoral and outdated, what role does baptism play in progressive Christianity? Should we reject the doctrine of baptism as an outdated exclusive ritual of dogmatic tribalism or does the ritual of baptism still have any symbolic benefit to progressive Christianity?

 

Aside from a theoretical construct, does anyone really embrace absolute relativism? I have never encountered them personally or in writing. As an example, does anyone claim that killing, lying or stealing is morally neutral in all instances?

 

 

Christine O'Donnell had said she thought it was wrong to lie to the Nazis to hide Jews from them and that she would not have lied to the Nazis.

There is a kind of pluralism called "religious pluralism", which says that all religions are equally valid as ways to God. If this is correct, then there is no good reason to do evangelism.

If you define evangelism as merely being "agree with everything I say or else" then yes, that form of popular evangelism is meaningless. But if we define evangelism as fighting for social justice and focusing on good deeds instead of right beliefs as in the gospel message of the liberation gospel, then evangelism is still an important duty for Christians to do regardless of what happens to us when we die.

 

To answer the first question, I can rely on three scholars: Robert Putnam, Morris Fiorina, and Rodney Stark. In different works, all three come to a similar conclusion: increased diversity involving distinct groups does not necessarily lead to toleration and acceptance. Stark wrote a book about American religiosity where he argues that America experienced a higher level of religiosity precisely because we had countless denominations (and no established church) competing with one another for members. As a general rule, this competition lead to sharper dividing lines and a stronger religious identity than it did in Europe. Multiplicity of faiths may mean the lack of domination by one, but Stark suggests it may make people dig their heels in a bit more. (You'd like this book; his data is amazing)

 

 

 

I'm not sure I agree that more diversity leads to greater intolerance and I don't think America would be the best example to use to prove the case. While America may have a high amount of religious diversity, that diversity is mostly of the fundamentalist Christian variety so it's not surprising that a greater amount of fundamentalist diversity leads to a greater increase in intolerance. But compare the U.S. to a nation like Canada where the majority of Canadian Christians accept evolution as a scientific fact and believe in universalism and Canada has far lower rates of crime than the U.S. and is far more progressive in regards to equal rights for minorities. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that an increase of diversity with fundamentalist religion leads to greater intolerance but not necessarily an increase in diversity of moderate religion.

You can say there are two types of relativism: anthropological relativism and philosophical relativism. Anthropological relativism merely describes the nature of reality as changing from culture to culture and says nothing about how we should react to such issues. Philosophical relativism takes it a step further and argues that because what is understood as truth changes from culture to culture, that there is no absolute truth and we should refrain from making absolutist truth claims to respect other people's beliefs. One can say that anthropological relativism describes the way things are whereas philosophical relativism deals with how things ought to be.

Pluralism accepts that everybody has different opinions, beliefs, and cultures and we can all co-exist with each other in spite of our differences. Relativism argues there is no such thing as objective truth and all truth is subjective and constantly changing. Under pluralism, you can respect another person's right to believe a different truth even if you believe in objective truth yourself. Under relativism, relativists believe respecting another person's truth beliefs requires you to never have an objective truth belief yourself. To shorten this to make it easier to understand, pluralism focuses on the legal rights of those we disagree with whereas relativism is a personal belief about your attitude towards truth.

The Book of Mormon musical isn't exactly a PC musical since it's a blasphemous satire of Mormonism and religion in general with irreverent humor but I think this song from it, Tomorrow Is a Latter Day, actually has a message I think progressive Christians could appreciate: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBeCWPmRCe0

My favorite PC books in no particular order:

 

A History of God, The Bible-A Biography, and The Case for God-Karen Armstrong.

 

Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary, The First Paul, Reading The Bible Again For The First Time, The God We Never Knew-Marcus Borg

 

Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography-John Dominic Crossan

 

The First Week and The First Christmas-co-authored by Crossan and Borg

 

The Gnostic Gospels and The Origin of Satan-Elaine Pagels

 

The Future of Faith-Harvey Cox

 

And I'm not sure if this is PC because I'm not sure what his religious beliefs are, but I think many progressive Christians could enjoy it but also Who Wrote The New Testament? by Burton Mack.

The Golden Compass is more anti-Christian than it is PC-themed, but I think the movie's anti-dogmatism and anti-fundamentalism themes can still be appreciated by many progressive Christians as long as you keep an open mind and aren't easily offended. Though the movie version waters down a lot of the more explicit anti-religious themes from the book, which may make it more accessible for open minded Christians but I highly recommend the book series too to finish the story since it seems they'll probably never finish making the rest of the movies. The movie Save Me is also an emotionally gripping look at the inside of the ex-gay movement from a gay Christian perspective. But unlike many movies that deal with the issue of homosexuality and religion, Save Me doesn't try to demonize the fundamentalists as being all evil hateful people but they try to take a more sympathetic but still highly critical approach and none of the characters in the film are portrayed as perfect or overly righteous.

Since we have the topic on favorite PC-themed songs, I thought it would also be interesting to post our favorite PC-themed movies. As with the PC-themed songs thread, it doesn't have to be a movie that's explicitly pro--PC but it can be any movie that you like that you think is also compatible with progressive Christian themes. Some of my favorites:

 

Contact-Though Carl Sagan was an agnostic and not a Christian, I think this movie version of his sci-fi novel can still have a lot of meaning to progressive Christians. Sagan takes a more realistic approach to the question of what would happen if we really did discover alien life and rather than focusing on sci-fi action, he focuses on what sort of impact this would have on society. He addresses the concerns of how would the discovery of intelligent alien life effect the conflicts between religion and science. Unlike other anti-religious movies and books, I think Sagan does a reasonable job of presenting both sides of the theist versus atheist conflict in a fair and balanced manner by having the main character, Ellie, be an atheist scientist who falls in love with a Christian philosopher. The movie addresses complex issues like whether or not God exists, the limits of both logic and faith at attaining the truth, and the role that religion plays in a modern scientific society. Though the movie is not an action film, the climax still has some very impressive special effects and visuals and if you're looking for something more than standard action alien flicks, I think Contact is still a very heart warming and touching story that can inspire people of all faith and no faith.

 

Disney's Hunchback of Notre Dame- Yes, this is a kid's movie but it's surprisingly a pretty mature and smart movie and it's one of Disney's darker and under-appreciated movies. Rather than having magical beasts and witches as the villains, the villains in this movie are fundamentalist Christians. Judge Frollo is not an evil wizard but he's a hardcore Christian extremist who uses his religious authority to justify wiping out the Gypsies and torturing his enemies and the movie even opens up with Frollo murdering a gypsy and almost murdering Quasimodo as a baby because of his disease. Frollo is all too similar to real life fundamentalists in that he acts all holier than thou throughout the movie but in reality he has his own inner demons and sins of lust that he struggles with. The movie has a timeless message that you shouldn't judge by appearances. Everyone fears and loathes Quasimodo because of his disfigured appearance but reveres Frollo because of his devout piety but in reality it is Frollo who is the monster and Quasimodo who is the man. As opposed to many Christian kid's movies that just dumb the bible down to indoctrinate kids into fundamentalism with, The Hunchback of Notre Dame is a powerful movie for all ages that reminds us that a truly living god would be big enough to love everyone regardless of their faith or social background.

 

The Da Vinci Code- Though Dan Brown's movie has a number of historical errors in it that annoy me as someone who enjoys reading about religious history, I still liked this movie and how it tried to promote the importance of feminist spirituality in Christianity and promote tolerance and acceptance of "heretical" Christians. And again, while the movie suffers from some historical inaccuracies, I think it does help raise awareness that the history of the church is more complex than many Christians like to think and that there are different ways of worshiping Jesus than "traditional" Trinitarinism out there.

Here is an article in which Michael Shermer discusses what he believes scientism is and his embrace of the label: http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-shamans-of-scientism

What is it about Hawking that draws us to him as a scientific saint? He is, I believe, the embodiment of a larger social phenomenon known as scientism. Scientism is a scientific worldview that encompasses natural explanations for all phenomena, eschews supernatural and paranormal speculations, and embraces empiricism and reason as the twin pillars of a philosophy of life appropriate for an Age of Science.

 

Scientism's voice can best be heard through a literary genre for both lay readers and professionals that includes the works of such scientists as Carl Sagan, E. O. Wilson, Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins and Jared Diamond. Scientism is a bridge spanning the abyss between what physicist C. P. Snow famously called the "two cultures" of science and the arts/humanities (neither encampment being able to communicate with the other). Scientism has generated a new literati and intelligentsia passionately concerned with the profound philosophical, ideological and theological implications of scientific discoveries.

 

Although the origins of the scientism genre can be traced to the writings of Galileo and Thomas Huxley in centuries past, its modern incarnation began in the early 1970s with mathematician Jacob Bronowski's The Ascent of Man, took off in the 1980s with Sagan's Cosmos and hit pay dirt in the 1990s with Hawking's A Brief History of Time, which spent a record 200 weeks on the Sunday Times of London's hardcover best-seller list and sold more than 10 million copies in 30-plus languages worldwide. Hawking's latest work, The Universe in a Nutshell, is already riding high on the best-seller list.

 

Hawking's towering fame is a result of a concatenation of variables that include the power of the scientism culture in which he writes, his creative insights into the ultimate nature of the cosmos, in which he dares to answer ersatz theological questions, and, perhaps most notably, his unmitigated heroism in the face of near-insurmountable physical obstacles that would have felled a lesser being. But his individual success in particular, and the rise of scientism in general, reveals something deeper still.

 

First, cosmology and evolutionary theory ask the ultimate origin questions that have traditionally been the province of religion and theology. Scientism is courageously proffering naturalistic answers that supplant supernaturalistic ones and in the process is providing spiritual sustenance for those whose needs are not being met by these ancient cultural traditions. Second, we are, at base, a socially hierarchical primate species. We show deference to our leaders, pay respect to our elders and follow the dictates of our shamans; this being the Age of Science, it is scientism's shamans who command our veneration. Third, because of language we are also storytelling, mythmaking primates, with scientism as the foundational stratum of our story and scientists as the premier mythmakers of our time.

Hi NeonGenesis,

 

I feel that we are probably talking past each other on some of the more fundamental points here. These issues tend to run deeper than theism vs. atheism or naturalism vs. supernaturalism. At base this is about the limitations of objectivity and whether there is any meaning and value (or reality) to subjective experience (or mind).

 

At this level, what counts as “natural” or “supernatural” is probably too subjective to be meaningful. To Michael Shermer, for instance, mental phenomena literally cannot have any reality/existence. If they did, it would be “magic.” What “natural” is to him means what exists when fully reduced to the concept of externalized material objects. Therefore, what I take to be entirely natural -- phenomenal experience -- Shermer takes to be “magic.”

As Thomas Paine said in the Age of Reason, the problem with subjective personal religious experiences is that they're only convincing to the people who have them and to everyone else they're hearsay. If you find personal subjective experiences of the supernatural to be helpful to your religious walk, that's fine for you, but you can't expect anyone else to believe it or get upset when a scientist disagrees with you if you don't have any objective proof. If subjective personal experiences are proof of religious claims, then any claim of a subjective personal experience is just as valid as any other no matter how dangerous it might be to claim it. If you're skeptical of Benny Hinn and other faith healers' claims to miraculously be able to heal people's diseases, then you'll understand why Shermer and other skeptics apply the same logic more broadly.

 

 

1) Everything that exists can be reduced to the concept of “object.” Effectively you and I don’t exist as subjects; all that exists is what can be externally defined, objectively, by the scientific method. You don’t have private experiences, there is no real subjectivity, everything that exists can be fully explained in terms of object-ivity; or in other words, what exists does not exist subjectively but only objectively.

And this is a problem because?

 

2) The scientific method can in principle explain everything it means to exist AND/OR science explains existence itself AND/OR science makes the only valid and meaningful statements about existence AND/OR only what is accessible to the scientific method exists (again, subjective existence and/or "existence beyond objectivity" does not exist and/or it is meaningless to speak of it, only what science speaks of exists and/or is meaningful to speak of).

Has there been some other method that's successfully explained the origins of the universe?

 

3) The humanities (literature, art, philosophy), then, also do not enjoy any autonomy, and must be reduced scientific objectification.

Do you actually know any materialists or what they actually think or are you just making stuff up about materialists at this point?

 

One of my main points here would be that invoking the metaphysical concept of matter does nothing toward solving any scientific problems. It is not an empirical or scientific concept but a metaphysical expectation. Science has never proven the materiality of anything.

Invoking God of the gaps arguments have done nothing towards solving scientific problems either.

 

A doctrine could scarcely be worse ethically than denying that subjects exist. Again, this goes beyond ‘religion’ per se and goes into sound philosophy versus scientism.

So disbelieving in personal subjective experiences is worse than religions that circumcise women, encourage terrorists to bomb buildings so they can get 72 virgins when they die, or religions encourage murdering abortion doctors and gay people? Yes, fear the dreaded materialists because we're far worse than religious terrorists because at least the terrorists believe in God. How inclusive and open minded of you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shermer was being very generous in that respect, then, I must confess. This does not mean Shermer necessarily finds any value in progressive faith, however, it might only mean something like “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” Shermer clearly is not an advocate of any kind of religious teachings.

It seems to me that you don't consider anyone who's not religious to be an enemy, in which case are you any different than the fundamentalist Christians? Perhaps you should listen to Jesus' own words about plucking the shard out of your own eye before you go around calling everyone else who doesn't agree with you dogmatic.

 

 

 

I agree that all ideas should be open to criticism. But I question the motives of those who want to deny people any sense of humanity - any subjectivity and private experience - through endless (and senseless) objectification. It seems downright cynical to me.

 

 

 

Shermer and Dennett are two examples.

 

Peace,

Mike

Now this is the last straw. As a materialist and someone who is also a spiritual atheist, I have tried to be nothing but kind and respectful to everyone on these forums and this is how you repay my kindness? I find your claim that materialists are somehow denying our sense of humanity to be bigoted, closed minded, and insensitive and hurtful and I for one demand an apology from you.

 

 

Just to be clear, I define scientism as the implicit or explicit belief (1) that there is no meaningful statement about reality, or, (2) there is nothing about reality, that goes beyond scientific objectification. Though such scientism rests on poor philosophy and is not true to the actual scientific method, it is at least a tacit assumption among many materialists today (at least the most outspoken ones, which, perhaps, is not a coincidence).

As a materialist myself, I don't see the problem with this view. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. To proclaim there is scientific proof of a soul or a supernatural realm beyond death that we live on in after we die or that there exist a supernatural creator god which intervenes with the natural world is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary evidence. If there is a supernatural realm which exists beyond the natural and materialism is such a poor philosophy that doesn't stay true to the actual scientific method, then why is there no evidence yet of the supernatural?

 

Their version of materialism, a form of eliminative materialism, involves the outright denial that subjectivity even exists; there are no experiences, only material brain states that we theorize and reify as 'experiences'.

I think you're oversimplifying materialism here. Not all non-believers in the supernatural deny subjectivity and both atheists and theists are equally divided over this issue. For example, on the issue of morality, some atheists like Jeremy Bentham and Sam Harris have taken the position that morals are objective and can be determined through science while there are other atheist philosophers like J.L. Mackie who took the position that morality is subjective and something that humans created rather than discovered and Nietzsche took subjectivity to such extremes that he believed there was no point to morality and meaning. On the other hand, many postmodernists take relativity to the opposite extreme to the point where you can't say anything objective about reality at all. Likewise, religious believers are also divided on the issue of whether or not morals are relative or objective and I don't think invoking God is a solution to the problem either.

 

I could offer several ontological arguments against such a perspective, and even more ethical ones, as the view they advance is intrinsically demeaning. I contend that their kind of materialism would be exceptionally damaging to society if society as a whole were to adopt it.

I could list off several examples where society would be worse off with religious morality too.

 

 

 

I have nothing against Shermer, et. al., personally. I agree that we should love them and I would not exclude them from the community - though I highly doubt the progressive faith community is something they're looking to get into.

 

Thanks,

Mike

I've heard an interview with Shermer on the Point of Inquiry podcast and in fact Shermer is a defender of progressive Christianity and has argued that atheists should work together with Christians who support evolution to combat intelligent design. I think it's unfair to give Shermer the short end of the stick when he's in fact willing to work together with progressive Christians on these issues simply because you have different theological conclusions.

 

Nothing is sacred, nothing is private, they will not be satisfied until everything and everyone are reduced to the category of object.

Why shouldn't all ideas be open to criticism? And which materialists think that everyone should be reduced to objects?

When Galileo disagreed with the church about whether or not the Earth was the center of the universe, the church accused Galileo of trying to destroy faith and placed him under house arrest. When Darwin opposed the literal belief in Genesis with the theory of evolution, Christian fundamentalists accused anyone who believed in his theory of worshiping Darwinism as a religion. New Age practitioners accuse medical doctors of believing in "scienctism" because they don't use dangerous and unproven "alternative" medicine to cure people. To quote Daniel Dennet,

The charge levelled at the New Godless is that, with their rigorous reasoning, testing and experimentation, they are making a religion out of the scientific method. "It's an all-purpose, wild-card smear," retorts Dennett. "It's the last refuge of the sceptic. When someone puts forward a scientific theory that they really don't like, they just try to discredit it as 'scientism'.

 

I'm not trying to be insulting to Mike and I have a lot of respect for him, but if you think there's proof that materialism is wrong or that God exists, you should present your proof to refute Shermer instead of resorting to personal attacks against him. Too many times we demonize fundamentalists as being the only Christians of being anti-science and again I'm not trying to mock Mike or accusing him of being anti-science, but we should be careful of our own biases and sacred cows. If we believe in the third point of Progressive Christianity of being inclusive of different world views, should we not be inclusive of Shermer's world view and taking it into consideration that he may have valid points instead of immediately shooting down his ideas before we give what he has to say a chance? Even if you disagree with Shermer and other materialists, should we not love him like Jesus loved his enemies?

I have to disagree as I think more talk about the issues will help build bridges and change people's views. One example is with my own mother. My mother was raised a fundamentalist Christian and she used to take the perspective that homosexuality was evil and that marriage should be between a man and a woman and that gays were part of a secret agenda to destroy Christianity. But recently my mother was watching the View and they were interviewing Lady Gaga and they were talking about Elton John being a gay father and showed clips of him with their baby. My mother was gushing over how adorable the baby was and then she said out of the blue that there was nothing wrong with gays wanting to get married and raise children. I think if we all just shut ourselves from the world and didn't ever discuss these issues with anyone then people like my mother would never get exposed to these kinds of ideas like tolerance and loving others and my mother might still have her old homophobic beliefs. The surveys all show that if you know a gay person, the less likely you are to be homophobic. This is why I think it's important for gays who are able to come out to come out and speak openly about these issues to let the world know we're just like everyone else, that there's nothing to be afraid of to change people's minds and hearts. If we don't fight these battles and share who we are with the world, who will? Nobody ever won a civil rights battle in an ivory tower. And for what it's worth, Rob Bell's new book Love Wins, which argues against the existence of hell, is number one on Amazon.com's list of top religion books, so apparently the debate over the existence of hell is still a hot topic (no pun intended) among Christians.

Of course I don't think you'll ever convert the hardcore believers but there is a subgroup of Christians who might believe homosexuality is a sin but could be converted to supporting LGBT rights like Philip Yancey and Tony Campalo who could help reach the evangelical community in a way that a hardcore liberal like Spong couldn't and we're missing out on all sorts of opportunities to build bridges if we just excommunicate everyone that doesn't agree with us on the moral aspect but might be an ally in the political aspect.

So what does everyone think about Spong's gay manifesto? As much as I greatly respect Spong, I have to disagree with his suggestion that we should just stop debating this issue and pretend it's already been resolved. On the one hand, as a gay man, I can understand Spong's frustration with homophobic Christians who claim to be representing the love of Jesus and I think there are some people you just can't have a dialog with on this issue like the Phelps and David Bahati. On the flip side, I think there are many Christians who are good people with good intentions but are being misinformed by their churches on the issue of homosexuality and I think it would be a disservice to the church to cut off dialog with these people simply because we disagree on this issue. I'm a member of the message boards at the site GayChristian.net and I like the healthy balance they try to take on this issue. They have two sides on the issue about homosexuality that they label as "side A Christians" and "side B Christians." "Side A" Christians are Christians who believe homosexuality is approved of by God and that it's possible to be a Christian and be in a same-sex relationship while "side B" Christians are Christians who think homosexual acts are sinful but it's not sinful to be attracted to the same sex. They have a lot of members on both sides of the issue and they've had Christian guests on both sides of the issue on their podcast to foster a dialog of tolerance and acceptance within the church. The one side they won't accept as part of the dialog is the side that claims even thinking homosexual thoughts is a sin and lies about how homosexuality can be changed but I think this is a more productive dialog then Spong's suggestion. Do you think we should continue having dialog with Christians who think it's a sin but still want to have this dialog or should we just stop debating it like in Spong's manifesto?

George,

Maybe not directly but let's look at this through a few scriptures. Let's start by clarifying what a pregnant woman is carrying. Isaiah 7;14, prophesying Mary being with child, Jesus. Since prophecy, by definition, indicates a future event, it can be inferred that a pregnant woman is carrying a child from moment of conception. Should we not protect the unborn child with as much zeal as a child walking this earth?

First of all, Isaiah 7 was not a prophecy about the Virgin Mary but it was a prediction given to King Ahaz about his child. Second of all, the entire virgin birth myth was based on a mistranslation of the Isaiah prophecy. Matthew based his reading on the Greek translation of the OT and so he mistranslated "young woman" as "virgin" and the whole virgin birth is based around this mistranslation. You're essentially trying to argue that abortion is murder because Mary would have murdered Jesus if she had an abortion and the messiah never would have been born. Even if Mary did have an abortion, the notion that God couldn't have found some other way to bring the messiah into the world is just silly and is putting limits on the power of God and this is just an argument from emotional appeal.

 

Now, on to Psalm 139:13-16. God foreknew everyone before they were even conceived, according to the Psalmist. So, if you believe God is our creator, why would one want to destroy the life which God creates?

So why did God drown all the babies in the world in the flood and why did he murder all the first born babies in Egypt?

Neon, this is fascinating. I hadn't heard this explanation but it does sound quite plausible and logical. I am especially drawn to it, given that it explains the inclusion of the words 'as a woman' in the prohibition.

 

Rabbi Benjamin

It also makes one wonder what the relationship was between the Roman centurion and his servant that Jesus healed.

Bishop Spong argued in his book Rescuing The Bible From Fundamentalism that in ancient times, it was considerable acceptable for men to engage in sexual relationships with younger boys as long as the older man was the top when having anal sex and this was especially common among Roman soldiers and their servant boys. So it was ok for a young boy to be the bottom when having anal sex with another man, but once he became an adult, the younger boy was expected to give that up and engage in sexual relations with women. A man who continued to be the bottom in anal sex as an adult was considered an abomination because he was degrading himself by allowing himself to be used as a woman and this is what it means when Leviticus condemns men who have sex with other men as if a woman and why lesbianism wasn't condemned. The sin was not gay sex itself but a man degrading themselves by taking a "woman's role" in sex.

 

P.S. Please forgive me if this is TMI. I wasn't sure how else to explain it with euphemisms.

I think this Jack Black video pretty much sums up every debate on homosexuality ever made:

There are also passages in the NT attributed to Paul where he says slaves should obey their masters and other passages attributed to Peter where he says women are the weaker vessel yet most Christians today do not believe in slavery and if you told a woman she was weaker than men, you would get a kick in the hard place. There's also some debate that Romans 1 doesn't condemn homosexuality but pagans who had sacred prostitution to worship Dionysus: http://www.gaychristian101.com/Romans-1.html

 

 

I'd like to add, though, that I believe God confirms what he calls as abomination by defining marriage as between a man and a woman (Gen 2:24) and he told Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply (Gen 1:28), something homosexuals cannot do.

 

Would that not add to the evidence why God called it an abomination in Leviticus in the first place?

 

Your thoughts?

This is the old "It's Adam and Eve; not Adam and Steve" cliche fundamentalists love to quote but my experience has been if your argument could be fit into the size of a bumper sticker, you should be skeptical of its merit. If God intended the Adam and Eve story to be a condemnation of homosexuality, surely he would have mentioned it then. Yet nowhere in the Genesis account is homosexuality ever mentioned or condemned. In fact, God explicitly gave Adam and Eve permission to do whatever it was they pleased to in the garden expect to eat from the fruit. Presumably, if God created other people in the garden of Eden for Adam and Eve to have sex with, God would have allowed them to engage in same-sex relationships as the only commandment in the garden of Eden was to not eat the apple. The Garden of Eden story has been used by fundamentalist Christians to justify all sorts of horrific actions. Because God told Adam and Eve that they had dominion over the Earth, many anti-environmentalist Christians have used this as an excuse to destroy the planet and waste our natural resources. Because it was the woman who sinned and not Adam, Christians have used this as a justification for why women should be considered inferior to men and why women should be banned from voting or from ever having any leadership roles or from having a job. Other Christians used the passage where God says to be fruitful and multiply as a justification for overpopulating the planet and banning birth control and abortion. On the flip side, the Genesis creation account doesn't say anything at all about grandparents and single mothers, so grandparents and single mothers must be sinners then.