| Machiavellian said: The problem with using the Old Testament is that before Jesus came, everyone was consigned to purgatory. In other words, you could not obtain heaven because no matter how good you believe you are you were never clean enough to be in the presence of GOD. Once Jesus came and washed away everyone sin then there is only a specific thing you must do in order to enter heaven no matter the sin you commit. In other words, you could kill a thousand people but still enter heaven. You could commit horrible crimes and sin but still enter heaven. One of the specific issues with most people is that they know absolutely nothing about the bible and thus are easy prey to people who use specific parts of it as an agenda. As I stated, many sins have been done in the name of GOD and nothing changes as of today. When people want to use Christian or Christianity for an agenda, all they have to do is fine some specific text that says something but leave out all relevant contexts. Now I grew up in the Church but in the Church I grew up in, studying the Bible was something that was pushed from the very beginning. One of the tenants of our Pastor is how easy people can be deceived into going against GOD because they allow themselves to be used by false prophets. Meaning, Christians allow themselves to be used by people pretending to be believers in GOD and following his will because they do not know the bible. We have many examples of such cases, Slavery. Many Christians accepted it because they convinced themselves that Black people were descendants of Cain. Inquisition, Witch Hunts, Crusades the list is long. One main example I love to debate is Trump. I will save that discussion for another day but he is pretty much what I consider as someone who easily play the role of appearing as a Christian but actually living as one well that is debatable. |
Okay. I mean I don't want to hurt you by disputing the central tenets of your faith, but I was raised in a staunchly Christian family myself and grew out of it precisely by learning the historical backdrop against which the Biblical scriptures were written, so rest assured it wouldn't be a difficult task for me to challenge your outlook. A tiny, tiny preview of that would might look like if I were to get serious about doing so though would begin with me pointing out that there was no such thing as purgatory in ancient Judaism and neither is there in today's. Jewish people didn't and don't believe in an afterlife. The words in the Old Testament that Christian writers choose to translate as "hell" all come from words that actually mean "death" or "grave". It might also entail me taking you further back in time to before an of the Biblical scriptures were written, when Yahweh appears to have been originally conceived of as the husband of the creation goddess Ashera. I think that would all be relevant context if we're truly wanting to fill in the gaps here. And much, much, much more. We can get into the nitty gritty of how to properly contextualize and understand Biblical scripture if you really want to. I suspect that somebody's feelings might get hurt though.
The relevant topic we're discussing here though is the treatment of gay people. You seem to be implying that homophobic bigots are not motivated toward those views by their faith, but rather deliberately misconstrue the teachings of the Bible into homophobic ones. You don't provide any concrete counter-evidence to contradict my case though. You substantiate your argument with not a single passage of those scriptures because there isn't one to cite. All references to gay and lesbian people and relationships in the Bible are factually extremely negative, ranging from condemnation to death in the Old Testament to condemnation to hellfire and comparisons to murderers in the New Testament. You choose to ignore and disregard those Biblical teachings because you are decent person with a conscience, not because you understand the Bible better than the predominant scholars thereon. That is the truth. And I think on some level, if you're totally honest with yourself and put away all sentimentality that you may attach you to your faith, you know it. The history of the laws and general treatment of gay people under Christian theocracies throughout history backs up my case that it's not an anomaly, but a feature. Even today, non-homophobic Christians are a minority of the total. Most consider being gay to be intrinsically sinful at minimum. Not an anomaly; a feature. You are the anomaly in that regard and I think you know it. (A welcome anomaly, I might add.)
Last edited by Jaicee - on 28 August 2023
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