Miland:It illustrates that the bible may well not make sense unless read with a particular community's tradition, which may include the influence of religious experiences.

Perhaps, and, again, I am happy for you if you find truth in the bible, or in a parking coupon for all that matters. My concern stems from the fact that a certain text is used as reason to enforce a lifestyle; and that same text condemns and hails bits and pieces of that very lifestyle in different paragraphs. I hope it is reasonable to assume that as a basis, this text would be rather weak, if not straight unusable. The tradition of your particular community has to be at the very least sound and agreeable upon. But on top of that, because of the existence of different versions of the bible, all of them considered the real one by their own communities, the whole point is instantaneously rendered moot, at least in my humble consideration.

Peace!

Since understanding the Bible in its "right context" obviously is not standardized even among members of the same religion (plenty of Christian pro-polygamy groups use the Bible to justify their beliefs), why should we use this book as the basis of laws that are binding not only among Christians (who don't even agree among themselves!) but also among non-Christians as well?

I am basically a live and let live type of person. If consenting adults want to do something and it isn't going to hurt anyone, who am I to say they can't? If someone wants to have a 100-person marriage, and they are all consenting adults, why can't they? If someone wants to marry a pet - well, a pet isn't a consenting adult and can hardly legally agree to this contract anyway. You can't get married to someone who is comatose and unable to consent, even if you are one man and they are one woman, so it is absurd to bring animals into the mix here. If two gay adults want to get married, I see it as their right to do so. Significant rights come with marriage in the US, including tax benefits, hospital visitation benefits, inheritance benefits, etc. There are too many cases when a gay person is denied access to their partner of decades who has been hospitalized, simply because they are not "relatives".

With all of the debate today about the sanctity of marriage, with all of the lightning-fast celebrity marriages and divorces and annulments, we have a large population who truly believes in the deep meaning of marriage, but it unable to get one - gays. I find that cruelly ironic. It's ok for Britney Spears to get married drunk and get an annulment a day later, but a gay couple who are committed to one another and have been together for decades - they are denied a marriage. Marriage is about love, and it's discouraging for me to see so much hate coming from right-wingers on this topic.

When gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, I was living in Cambridge. They closed off the main road in front of city hall and had a public party at midnight, as soon as marriage became legal. They had a live band there, and they handed out free cake, it was a massive street party. These are people who believed so much in the institution of marriage that they had a huge celebration of marriage in the middle of the night. I watched it on TV - too lazy to walk over there, on a work night - and I felt so proud for the state of Massachusetts, which had finally done right by its gay residents. I was sorely disappointed this week to see that California went the opposite direction on this.

But just as laws against interracial marriage are now gone, these anti-gay laws will be gone eventually. I'm just sorry that the forces of intolerance are having their last hurrah. Gays are not animals or deviants or predators. They are our friends and our neighbors and our relatives, and our colleagues and our clients in business. They are not interested in "turning our children gay" any more than a Canadian neighbor is interested in "turning our children Canadian", or any more than a divorced couple is interested in "turning our children divorced". They want to live normal lives, like everyone else, with the same rights as the rest of the population. I wish people would see this. And what goes on in their bedrooms is no one's business but their own, just as what goes on in a straight couple's bedroom is no one's business but their own.

mnlg:

When the Bible describes Cain murdering Abel, is that an endorsement of murder?

Doesn't matter, really. Leviticus, one of my favorite books, has so many examples of endorsement of murder, slaughter and violence that really, Abel vs Cain is just a drop in the ocean. Just read here, but I trust you know the bible enough to know what I am talking about.

Capital punishment is not the same as murder. Massive long-term prison complexes are a modern luxury they did not have in those days, but crimes against society had to be dealt with somehow nonetheless. Leviticus was a set of laws that enabled that society to maintain the social order. If that isn't a satisfactory explanation, I would like to point out that according to parts of Leviticus that were *not* quoted in your link, if a person was to be put to death for their sins, they could make a sacrifice for atonement instead, and the blood of the bull (or whatever) would be accepted in place of the blood of the sinner. This is why bits of Leviticus taken out of context make life in those days seem much more brutal than they actually were.

Leviticus also certainly did not authorize privately undertaken vigilantism (aka murder).

It's necessary to interpret the Bible fairly; context is key.

Define "fairly". No, actually, never mind.

Actually I would like to explain what I meant, if that's ok. By "fairly", I mean in some ways similarly to how you would interpret "ordinary" writings. If the New York Times were to write in an article "Lamech took two wives", I'm guessing that that would not be seen by the writers of the Skeptics' Annotated Bible as an endorsement of polygamy by the NYT. But because it's in the Bible, it's somehow different. That, to me, seems like an unfair "interpretation".

trojo:Leviticus also certainly did not authorize privately undertaken vigilantism (aka murder).

You asked for endorsement of murder; and I think there's enough example of that in the actions of the god of the old testament and in the rules that were supposedly laid out by that same god.

Actually I would like to explain what I meant, if that's ok.

I understand what you mean with 'fairly'. However, "ordinary" does not seem to me to be a good explanation for that. What is ordinary now is much probably quite different than what was ordinary at the time of the compilation of the [various versions of the] bible. This evident anachronism should be reason enough to reconsider using such a material for lawmaking today.

The problem with interpretation, is that (almost) everyone thinks of their own as fair, or true; but more often than not, they are not reconcilable. Perhaps the differences are not that big of a deal as one might think them to be; however, theists are usually those who believe in the existence of an absolute truth, and yet so far there doesn't seem to be any sign nor proof of an universally agreeable truth; there are only, as you correctly say, interpretations, sometimes very diverging. I think that, in light of this, a sensible choice would be to consider any interpretation of religious experience as potentially partial or flawed and to keep it for one's own personal spiritual quest, without employing it as a tool to enforce a moral or a behavior for a whole community. Moreover, isn't it more satisfactory to know that respect and cooperation are being promoted in a society not for fear of retribution by a wrathful deity, but out of the awareness of the results and improvements that they will bring?

Thank you all for the replies, it was a very interesting read.

I would like to clarify, that i was not trying to compare homosexuals to animals, they are fully people just like you and me, who have different ideals.

mostly i just wanted to see what people think about these issues.

truthfully i don't care if homosexuals get married or not, i disagree with homosexuality, but that my personal opinion. And God gave people the freedom to do what they want.

The only time, i will try influence my believes on other people, is if i genuinely believe that someone innocent is being hurt. And i genuinely believe that's the cass with abortion(i know many in this form disagree with me), when it comes to both the well being of the child and of the mother(the mother is hurt also, not just the child). just as pro choice'ers are trying to fight for the right of the mothers (on this issue i don't believe we can find any sort of compromise other then trying to understand the other persons point of view).

so thanks again for the replies, i think i have a slightly better idea of what many some people believe when it comes to morality (although it kind of scares me, as my believes probably scare other people).

can't wait to see what more people have to say!

Peace!

mnlg:

trojo:Leviticus also certainly did not authorize privately undertaken vigilantism (aka murder).

You asked for endorsement of murder; and I think there's enough example of that in the actions of the god of the old testament and in the rules that were supposedly laid out by that same god.

Well, mainly I wanted to see where the Bible "clearly states that a man can marry as many women as he wants". I want to see that exact quote, or something reasonably close to it. Surely something so clearly stated is not open for multiple interpretations, yeah? A clear statement, by definition, is unambiguous. Instead I got "Lamech took two wives". Well, so what if he did? He was wrong. I'm not seeing the part of that verse that "clearly states that a man can marry as many women as he wants".

I brought up Cain and Abel as a parallel case of interpretation: if "Lamech took two wives" is a clear statement in favor of polygamy, then "Cain rose up and slew Abel" is a clear statement in favor of murdering people out of mere jealousy. Obviously both are invalid interpretations. One can say that everyone has their own interpretation, but surely it's fair to point out that at least some "interpretations" are just obviously spurious.

On the other hand, "the two shall become one" in regards to marriage seems clear enough to me.

As far as Leviticus goes, an individual deciding on his own initiative to kill somebody is murder, whereas someone being put to death by the authorities for a capital offense is obviously a different case. Not to mention the condemned under the law of Moses had the option of making atonement for his sins anyway.

Frankouche:Thank you for your response

- Why don't you directly elect your president? Won't you agree with that?
I wouldn't like to elect a "great elector" who will change my choice of president!

Well, first of all, electors chosen are known by party officials to be very, VERY loyal to the party so it doesn't happen very often. That being said, however, some states have it as a matter of law that the electors must vote for the candidate who won the popular vote in that state. Other than that, a rogue elector will never EVER be given any kind of job by the party they turned against, so that's usually a pretty big incentive to not go rogue.

erinja:And as far as I am concerned, the USA would be better off if the south had stayed seceded and become their own country. We would be better off without their politicians coming up to DC and forcing their views on the locals, and the CSA could be the third world country that it would undoubtedly be without the industrial base of the north to prop it up. Or else an autocratic theocracy funded by Texas oil money, where women bleed to death from illegal abortions and segregation is still king.

Wow, you're very good. You should write for the Onion!

trojo:I've lived in Alabama all my life, so what I'm about to say is based on life experience, and not Hollywood stereotypes or whatever.

What's funny though is the inconsistency of people who on the one hand claim to love their country, yet on the other hand are nostalgic about the Civil War. General Lee and Jefferson Davis were traitors, you know.

Traitors, really? Can you quote the article and section of the constitution that said (at the time of the secession) that states were not allowed to leave the union?

erinja:The Christian bible also says that a woman should be subservient to her husband, but lots of marriages don't follow that.

Um, no it does not. That some protestants say the bible says that doesn't make it true.

[/CIT=erinja] The bible also strongly supports polygamous marriages.[/quote]Um, no it does not. Not one place in the bible will you find any passage dealing with polygamous marriage and not find some kind of condemnatory or bad-consequence verbiage attached to the idea.