A nonbeliever's SECOND reading of the Bible

A nonbeliever's SECOND reading of the Bible
Hunc tu caveto.
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Showing posts with label gays. Show all posts
Showing posts with label gays. Show all posts

Thursday, April 08, 2010

 

Deuteronomy, Chapter 23 has more sets of obscure rules.  Here they are:

Preserving the Male Genetic Line

1. A man whose testicles are injured must not be admitted into the congregation of Yahweh.
2. Bastards (male children without fathers) cannot be admitted into the congregation of Yahweh.
3. Moabites and Ammonites may never be admitted into the congregation of Yahweh, even later generations.
4. But the third generation of Edomites and Egyptians can be admitted into the congregation of Yahweh.
5. Any male who has a wet dream is unclean until the evening (and after he's washed himself).

These four rules seem to be geared toward assuring that the male Israelite genetic line is preserved. Men with injured testicles cannot reproduce and bastards can not carry their family line.  Wet dreams, I'm not sure but I suppose they thought it was 'unclean', which I suppose it is.  But to wait until nighttime to come back to the camp?

The Moabites and Ammonites dared to go to resist the Israelites, but the Edomites are the descendents of Esau, who was the brother of Jacob, one of the founders of the Israelite people.  So, the logic is that the Edomites are technically related to the Israelites.

The mercy to the Egyptians follows different reasons, though.  It is because the Israelites, even though they were in captivity by the Egyptians, were "strangers in their land."  Maybe someone else can explain the reasons in that one.

DooDoo-Ronomy

So that Yahweh doesn't step in human feces, it is advised in Deut. 23:12-14 to carry a shovel with you and poop outside of the camp.  Some people call this Doodooronomy.  This raises an interesting question, did the Israelites think Yahweh has a physical body that can actually step on crap?

Freeing the Slaves

Here's a nice rule.  Deuteronomy 23:15-16 says that if a slave runs away from his master, the Israelite shouldn't return the slave, but rather let him stay with him in his house.

Intolerance in the Bible
Whores, Dogs, and Sodomites shouldn't be allowed inside the house.  Whores and Sodomites I understand; but dogs?  Dogs is the Israelites' derogatory word for homosexual.  Essentially, it's like saying, "Don't let those flaming faggots live in your house!"

Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Leviticus, Chapter 18 is all about sex. And it's not just about regular old hetero-sexual male-female sex - Chapter 18 covers all the OTHER stuff - the taboo stuff. It lumps homosexuality right in there with bestiality and incest.

First on the list is seeing relatives naked. It doesn't say anything about sex, it says you can't "uncover their nekkedness." I support that, it would be kind of awkward to see Uncle Billy's willy or Aunt Gina's 'gina; but is it necessary to even write this down in the Holy Bible? This is common sense stuff that should be applied to all people in casual polite society. But yea, there's crazy, gross and disgusting people out there that God created, and I guess He thought it would be a good idea to remind them not to do what He apparently knew what they'd do anyway.

The reasoning behind not uncovering the nakedness of relatives is that they are all of the same flesh. How's that even a reason? It should've said that sex with relatives has a higher chance of creating retarded offspring, or that sex with relatives is a breach of trust, or even "That's disgusting, man."

Second of all, don't even LOOK at a menstruating woman -that's just disgusting! (18:19) Bestiality (sex with animals) is also covered in Chapter 18.

Out of the blue, there is a reference saying not to pass your offspring to the fires to Molech. Basically, don't sacrifice your kid to Molech (who is a Sumerian god).

And then finally, we get to the rallying cry of the religious right. Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. "

That's one third of their party platform, which can be summed up as follows: "God, guns, and gays."

Take note that the religious right regularly break all those other laws (keeping slaves, killing a non-virgin on her wedding night, looking at menstruating women, etc.), but they sure like to focus on this one! That's just goes to show that following the Bible literally is impossible - we all pick and choose, no matter how fundamentalist we are.

In fact, I'd argue that fundamentalists are the worst because while they do their fair share of cherry-picking, they can't even justify the reasons to favor one verse over another. Liberal and moderate Christians and Jews are at least reasonable enough to recognize there's a problem, but they'll still believe (albeit in a wishy-washy way).