What the bible says about transgenders

Course, there was no germ theory of disease yet (would've been handy for God to clue people in) so they thought disease came from invisible spooks, hence the chapters where Jesus is a Ghostbuster, and hence the bit with the possessed pigs.

So the "unclean", bit was both about disease, and superstition.

I swear on my honor that I mean no offense when I say this but I'm aware that neither Paladin, Albert or Marso is a believer...but some aspects of their position sounds EXACTLY like arguments I've heard made from a religious perspective.

I'm not saying they are drawing from a religious worldview at all, but it does make me wonder if both they and the religious objection are drawn from a common cultural point of view rather than "nature" (or nature's God)

Still, I didn't think rick was doing anything other than at most hinting at a potential conflict on my part.

One thing I can say is I have definitely processed the hell out of all the religious arguments over the years.

^^^You're struggling with your hairstyles, too?

It's one of the big problems with Biblical interpretation, even though I was taught this very thing in a Baptist Bible College, a lot of people still do it -

The mistake is to try to apply culturally contexted passages to all of humanity.

The nature of the Bible is that it was FIRST addressed to the contemporary audience who first heard it - if it didn't apply to them they would see no need to rever and preserve it.

Therefore the proper first interpretation is: "What did this mean to the original hearer?""

And in order to do that you have to understand the context of the circumstances of the people you are considering. How did they live? what were their customs and beliefs? what of the broader culture around them?

Only AFTER you determine that can you begin to extrapolate it beyond those people.

In the case of the Levitical Law, the first understanding is that the audience was a huge band of desert dwelling nomads. There's no logical reason to assume the same behavioral commands would go to city dwellers in the Rome of Christ's day or NYC today.

Furthermore, the Bible is "God's Baby Talk" at it's very best, but the early hearers were much more, if you pardon the term, "primitive" in their understanding of the world. So the Scripture would have to be couched in terms they could grok.

For instance, when you live among a people which has never ever had any other understanding of "gods" than that they are capricious monsters to be feared, you would HAVE to speak in terms of judgment and obedience to even begin to get their attention.

All this, of course, presumes for the sake of argument that you are discussing the Bible as actually God's word. if it's made up by men then who the hell cares how you interpret it?

Well, I care inasmuch as misinterpretaions of "holy texts", are still causing stuff like Fred Phelps, and terrorism.....

Would be like you trying to clue a three year old into the nature of electricity. You can't do it. you just tell them not to stick a fork in the socket and spat there hand if they don't listen.

Oh yes. There's always an ugly middle stage when growing it out where you can't do a thing with it.

Yeah, but even a three year old can be told "Ghostbusting isn't a cure, medicine is!".

Well no, I mean if you realize it's the word of man, then what YOU think it means is irrelevant. Doesn't mean you can't still take issue with a guy like Phelps.

Um..NO.
One still has to dissect the bible in order to ascertain "where is this nut getting this shit? Ohhh...THEEERE it is".

I still disagree.

Take the quote from Leviticus in the OP

Fundie says: "It means transsexuals are SINNING!!"

Diacanu says: "It's the work of illiterate goatherders"

End of discussion. You don't HAVE to have Dicanu's version of what the goatherder was ACTUALLY trying to say because, shit, he's just a goatherder.

Knowing where the Fundie got the claim and what he thinks it means is important to be informed in the discussion, true - but you don't have to have a counter interpretation IF you dismiss the source out of hand in the first place.

He said he'd tend to that when he has the money.

Well, there you go.

Well, the counter interpretation is it's murky muddle from a desert-fevered brain, but, as you say above, it can be handy to know WHAT the fevered muddle was saying.

If the fundie says "this passage means flibbidy floo", and you look at it, and it really says "arglebargle fooferaud", then yeah, that kinda matters.

It's fevered muddle either way, but the latter is pulled entirely from the fundie's ass.

Course, my investigations into the bible show that sadly, the fundies are in fact getting it right, and the cuddly Flanders types are making stuff up.

But then that gets into a whole other thing.

What it says is that those same people had those same issues then as they do today. It's nothing new, and it's not a choice.

:IMHO!: Oh really? Do you want to spend that "magic week" with my daughter every month? THese Jews weren't just putzing around when they wrote this stuff!

[yt=A Jew on the Bible]EWqtpqQjNug[/yt]

Shit, well, let me throw the ten commandmends out the window.
I forgot those aren't supposed to be followed any more.

Nova, that mention of the guy who married you brought up a question in my mind. You have said a few times that you hope you can stay in a relationship of one sort or another with your wife. That said, do you consider what you are doing to be a breaking of your religious wedding vows?

From the J man himself. Matthew 5:19

Basically the laws passed down from God to the Jews still apply to Christians. That includes the diet stuff, shunning women on the rag, killing non-believers, stoning, and all the other fun stuff that Christians thankfully ignore.

That would depend on whether or not it ends the relationship I suppose.

No.

I couldn't agree more. It was written by some old guys who thought they knew what Jesus said, but they wrote it like 200+ years AFTER he died.

Thank you! Well put!!!

I don't have a problem with people being religious. If any of you want to believe in God or any "Higher Being," that's good for you. I particurlarly don't understand it. Religion was made as an answer for things people at the time didn't have an answer to. Now we have more modern science and we understand disease, the formation of the world, and much much more! I'm sorry, but I just can't come to believe Jesus walked on water, turned water into wine, and Adam made Eve by ripping out one of his ribs. Also, if God created everyone, why would he create evil, war, other religions that say their religion is correct, starvation, disease, the devil, and Hell? It doesn't make sense. Wouldn't God want to make a happy place not plagued by evil? I like the moral values of Christianity like treat others the way you want to be treated... but that's it. To me it's a bunch of bullshit created by people lacking the knowledge of science.

Feel free to disagree, but I'm not going to try and press my views on you. This is just my own opinion.

That's silly. The earliest parts of the New Testament were written by people who personally knew Christ.

What about the lines regarding taking her as your wife, and her taking you as her husband?

I'm not trolling here, but genuinely curious on how you are dealing with the religious implications of this.

I have (still) a pretty through dissertation on why god would have set up a system like the one the Bible describes, drawn from pretty obvious reasoning (once you postulate the existence of God at all) but I no longer care enough to go into it.

My personal way of dealing with it in my own life is this:

God knew what I was and what my situation was at the time and all along; he further knew the (false) presumptions I was laboring under when I married her - that I could expect him to take the "weakness" away.

Thus I do not feel that he will judge me for having failed to overcome that which he didn't judge harmful enough to take away.

It's not that strange a thing that a person makes a vow in good conscious and then circumstances dictate the necessity of doing otherwise.

That said, my vow was ABOUT holding her above all others and that is still something that is a reality.

Leibniz addressed this three centuries ago; to bring such things up as a talking point is tantamount to raw stupidity. If you want the detailed answer, you're going to have to -gasp- read a relevant work of western philosophy, something I doubt you're inclined to do. Allow me to give you the cliffnotes.

God didn't create evil; mankind did through original sin. He simply allowed man to create it, as the existence of evil is necessary for good. If there's no hardship, good is meaningless; it's only when framed against adversity and evil that greater good is possible. See the Theodicy.

One can, you know, disagree with Leiniz's rationalisations, totally unsatisfactory as they are.

Garbage.

Knocked down by Epicurus, and again by David Hume, and never counter-refuted except by mendacity.

Even some of the 'historical' parts of the Bible are being disproven.

Such as, since archeology started in Egypt, not one trace of the Egyptians owning any slaves at all has been found. Nothing to suggest the Israelites were there.