Post by Lossentilien on Oct 6, 2004 7:12:25 GMT -5
Well I thought that this seemed a pretty good way of explaining Sodom-
Another interesting version-
www.christiangays.com/articles/sodom.shtml
As for God created Adam;
From here- epistle.us/articles/responses.html
More food for thought - www.gaysouthafrica.org.za/homosexuality/bible.asp
epistle.us/homobible.html Here you can read about their views on Sodom and Leviticus.
Cause I'm sure you'll want to read all that.
In regards to your insult at me saying you are wrong, it's not that I don't understand where you're coming from, it's that you claim to have no problem with gay people, as long as they go against what they are and don't act as they are. They are loved and can be gay as long as they don't practice it, that's the feeling I've received a lot.
What I don't understand, is why it's a sin. I simply do not understand how you can say that their very nature is wrong.
You don't hate them, but what they do is wrong.
Why is it? Because it was written thousands of years ago? If this is what you believe then live your life as it says you should in relevance to those times. It doesn't make sense for certain things to change, but for other more important things to become worse.
I am sorry if I'm offending you, it's only because you are offending me with what I see as cloaked intolerance and injustice. From my point of view, we should all be accepting of homosexuals full stop, not say all this about having no problem with them as long as they don't do what makes the problem.
THE TURNING: Well, let’s go through the Bible and take a look at some of the passages which people often quote when condemning homosexuality. Starting in the beginning with Genesis 19, we have the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot invites two men into his home, not knowing that they are really angels. Soon, a crowd forms outside the house, demanding that the strangers be sent out so they can be raped. Lot refuses, and offers his virgin daughters instead. ( Click here to read the passage). How do you read this in terms of an attitude towards homosexuality?
DiNovo: Well, first of all it’s important to remark that this passage is not about homosexuality. In fact, it has nothing to do with homosexuality. It’s about welcoming, it’s about the theology of hospitality, which is the great theology, biblically speaking, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelations. So, always and everywhere, the bible tells us to be welcoming and hospitable to strangers, especially strangers who are not like us. So here come some strangers into your town, so what do you do with them. The great sin of Sodom, for which it was punished, is the abuse of the strangers. It has nothing to do with how they were abused. That is irrelevant to the story. Anything could have happened. It is the fact that they were abused at all that is the point of the story.
It is not a question of sexual ethics, because it is absurd to say that it’s okay to send your virgin daughters out to be gang-raped, but it’s not okay to have strangers gang-raped. And that would be an absurd reading of it, but that would be a literalist reading of it, if you want to take it at face value, without any thought involved. I think there’s a great deal of prevarication when talking about this. People just throw Sodom and Gomorrah out as if they know what it’s about. They either don’t know what it’s about or if they’ve actually studied the bible in obvious detail, they’d see that it’s not about homosexuality. It’s a smokescreen.
THE TURNING: And yet, this story has cast an enormous shadow over Christianity. We speak of ‘sodomy’ because of this story. It suggests that church leaders over the centuries have considered this story to be about homosexuality.
DiNovo: I know, and isn’t that absurd. That truly is prevarication, it clearly speaks to an agenda of the church, and that agenda is about hegemony and control, and it’s always about control over those places where people feel the most vulnerable, and that’s in their sexuality and in their ethical dealings with each other. Where the church wields the hammer the most, that’s where you should question it the most. This is one of those texts that has simply been abused by the church.
THE TURNING: I guess it begs the question, had the angels appeared as women, what would have happened in the house?
DiNovo: Well, the same thing, it would have made no difference, except that sodomy wouldn’t be a part of our vocabulary. But another thing to point out about the biblical period: there was no such thing as homosexuality in the biblical era, neither in the Hebrew scripture era nor in the New Testament era. Homosexuality did not exist as a term or as a person. Homosexuality as a person was invented in the nineteenth century, as a pathology.
At the time the Bible was written, both the Hebrew scripture and the New Testament, homosexual acts were just variations of sexual acts. We remember that during the Greek era when the New Testament was written, homosexuality between an older man and a younger man was seen as a very common form of mentoring. It was average, it was not frowned upon. Where we see Paul and others in the New Testament railing about what seems like homosexuality, what they’re actually railing about is manipulation of youth. It’s really more pedophilia that they‘re railing at in that context, especially among the Greeks themselves and the whole Greek mythic structure. They’re railing against the Greek way of life. And part of that way of life was this initiation procedure with young boys, and it’s really pedophilia, and the kind of power imbalance which that implies is really the problem.
So, homosexuality is really a bad translation in this context. There were no ‘homosexuals’ at that time, there were only adults having sex in various ways, and one of those was having sex with their own gender.
DiNovo: Well, first of all it’s important to remark that this passage is not about homosexuality. In fact, it has nothing to do with homosexuality. It’s about welcoming, it’s about the theology of hospitality, which is the great theology, biblically speaking, from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelations. So, always and everywhere, the bible tells us to be welcoming and hospitable to strangers, especially strangers who are not like us. So here come some strangers into your town, so what do you do with them. The great sin of Sodom, for which it was punished, is the abuse of the strangers. It has nothing to do with how they were abused. That is irrelevant to the story. Anything could have happened. It is the fact that they were abused at all that is the point of the story.
It is not a question of sexual ethics, because it is absurd to say that it’s okay to send your virgin daughters out to be gang-raped, but it’s not okay to have strangers gang-raped. And that would be an absurd reading of it, but that would be a literalist reading of it, if you want to take it at face value, without any thought involved. I think there’s a great deal of prevarication when talking about this. People just throw Sodom and Gomorrah out as if they know what it’s about. They either don’t know what it’s about or if they’ve actually studied the bible in obvious detail, they’d see that it’s not about homosexuality. It’s a smokescreen.
THE TURNING: And yet, this story has cast an enormous shadow over Christianity. We speak of ‘sodomy’ because of this story. It suggests that church leaders over the centuries have considered this story to be about homosexuality.
DiNovo: I know, and isn’t that absurd. That truly is prevarication, it clearly speaks to an agenda of the church, and that agenda is about hegemony and control, and it’s always about control over those places where people feel the most vulnerable, and that’s in their sexuality and in their ethical dealings with each other. Where the church wields the hammer the most, that’s where you should question it the most. This is one of those texts that has simply been abused by the church.
THE TURNING: I guess it begs the question, had the angels appeared as women, what would have happened in the house?
DiNovo: Well, the same thing, it would have made no difference, except that sodomy wouldn’t be a part of our vocabulary. But another thing to point out about the biblical period: there was no such thing as homosexuality in the biblical era, neither in the Hebrew scripture era nor in the New Testament era. Homosexuality did not exist as a term or as a person. Homosexuality as a person was invented in the nineteenth century, as a pathology.
At the time the Bible was written, both the Hebrew scripture and the New Testament, homosexual acts were just variations of sexual acts. We remember that during the Greek era when the New Testament was written, homosexuality between an older man and a younger man was seen as a very common form of mentoring. It was average, it was not frowned upon. Where we see Paul and others in the New Testament railing about what seems like homosexuality, what they’re actually railing about is manipulation of youth. It’s really more pedophilia that they‘re railing at in that context, especially among the Greeks themselves and the whole Greek mythic structure. They’re railing against the Greek way of life. And part of that way of life was this initiation procedure with young boys, and it’s really pedophilia, and the kind of power imbalance which that implies is really the problem.
So, homosexuality is really a bad translation in this context. There were no ‘homosexuals’ at that time, there were only adults having sex in various ways, and one of those was having sex with their own gender.
Another interesting version-
www.christiangays.com/articles/sodom.shtml
As for God created Adam;
4. God created Adam and Eve NOT Adam and Steve.
Yes He did create Adam and Eve.
But He did create Steve…and Yvette as well…afterwards.
He created all people including gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgenders.
And all of these people He created…He loves.
Adam and Eve were the beginning of mankind, but that doesn’t mean that our purpose in life is to be naked vegetarians screwing around to multiply and fill the earth.
Yes He did create Adam and Eve.
But He did create Steve…and Yvette as well…afterwards.
He created all people including gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgenders.
And all of these people He created…He loves.
Adam and Eve were the beginning of mankind, but that doesn’t mean that our purpose in life is to be naked vegetarians screwing around to multiply and fill the earth.
From here- epistle.us/articles/responses.html
More food for thought - www.gaysouthafrica.org.za/homosexuality/bible.asp
epistle.us/homobible.html Here you can read about their views on Sodom and Leviticus.
Cause I'm sure you'll want to read all that.
In regards to your insult at me saying you are wrong, it's not that I don't understand where you're coming from, it's that you claim to have no problem with gay people, as long as they go against what they are and don't act as they are. They are loved and can be gay as long as they don't practice it, that's the feeling I've received a lot.
What I don't understand, is why it's a sin. I simply do not understand how you can say that their very nature is wrong.
You don't hate them, but what they do is wrong.
Why is it? Because it was written thousands of years ago? If this is what you believe then live your life as it says you should in relevance to those times. It doesn't make sense for certain things to change, but for other more important things to become worse.
I am sorry if I'm offending you, it's only because you are offending me with what I see as cloaked intolerance and injustice. From my point of view, we should all be accepting of homosexuals full stop, not say all this about having no problem with them as long as they don't do what makes the problem.