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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: w0z who wrote (546209)	2/27/2004 4:56:05 PM
From: Orcastraiter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

3. <"You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination." Leviticus 18:22. "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of them have committed a detestable act; they shall surely be put to death...." Leviticus 20:13> "These passages are translated very differently, in various versions of the Bible. All translation is interpretation. The cultural biases of the translator inevitably creep into the translation." Yes Bill, translation and context are very important to understanding the meaning. My Bible has wording which is quite different from the book of Leviticus presented above. The Bible that Pat Robertson uses even includes the word homosexual, but that word was not used when the Bible was written, and it is his translation. Orca

To: w0z who wrote (546209)	2/27/2004 5:09:41 PM
From: Gus	Respond to of 769670

<font color=gray>...no doubt learned scholars from the School of Politically-Correct Relativism</font> LOL. If the dictionary doesn't work then try subtext or implied meaning. If the subtext doesn't work then the subtext of the subtext should work, if not there has to be more subtext that accomodate the preconceived notion because there just has to be. It never really ends...............until Derrida's sheep arrive at the abbatoir with the welcome sign: Nietzsche is the one who's dead.

To: w0z who wrote (546209)	2/27/2004 5:32:56 PM
From: cnyndwllr	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

RE: "Ah yes...no doubt learned scholars from the School of Politically-Correct Relativism. Please provide your reference and translators' credentials." Let me get this right. We can't agree on what Bush or Kerry did 30 YEARS AGO in an age where we photo, video, write, record keep and store HUGE amounts of information. But we can repeat whole chapters of words spoken 2000 YEARS AGO with no question as to their authenticity and accuracy. This even though they were restated from memory, translated and retranslated, and edited over and over again for thousands of years by MEN who had their own hugely biased agendas. But it gets better, now we believe that those written interpretations and recollections are the TRUTH by which all things must be decided? Assuming you believe that the words of the bible were once the TRUTH, what could possibly make you believe that in the many hands they've passed through since, in the many translations, interpretations and DISCRETIONARY changes they've gone through since, the accuracy is as great as you believe? That, and that alone, is an act of faith that seems to me to border on insanity. Why can't we simply take the best of a wonderful and wise teaching and use our given talents to find the right path? Why do we need to have it laid out for us so that we need make no choices for ourselves? I can't believe that such a narrow path was scripted in the grand scheme of things. If there is a God and an afterlife for the pious, then I believe that those that wrap themselves in faith and scripture and judge others meanly and narrowly, will find their just rewards. Unfortunately for them, I don't think they'll like those "just rewards."

To: w0z who wrote (546209)	2/27/2004 6:33:41 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

re: the Bible and homosexuality: <Who said that? I didn't> Correct. I said it, not you. Ask any gay or lesbian (and I mean talk to them, don't talk at them), and they will tell you, that in childhood they assumed they were heterosexual. That's the norm, the default position, in our society. Most of them had their first sexual experience with members of the opposite sex. Many of them got married and had kids. Then, only then, did they reluctantly and painfully conclude that they were not heterosexual. It is not a choice; there is no free will involved. For a homosexual to deny that they are a homosexual, is like a left-handed person denying that they are left-handed, and forcing themselves to write only with their right hand. <True Christians believe the entire Bible> It took several centuries after Christ for that decision to become the consensus. In the early Church, till well into the 4th Century, this was one of the great theological debates: Is the Old and New Testament God the same?. It was Lumpers vs. Splitters. Eventually, the Lumpers won, and, in the usual fashion of the day, the losers, Marcion and the Gnostics and others, along with their writings, got burned. But my reason for ditching Paul and the Old Testament, is not historical. It's practical. I believe in the Enlightenment: Kant and Jefferson; reason and science; democracy and peace. I see no conflict, between the Word of Christ, and those Enlightenment ideals. But the Gods of Abraham and Joshua and Paul cannot be reconciled with the Enlightenment. "And Joshua turned back at that time and took Hazor and smote its king with the sword, for Hazor formerly was the head of all those kingdoms. And he put to the sword all who were in it, utterly destroying them; there was none left that breathed, and he burned Hazor with fire" (Joshua 11:10-11). Lots and lots more, just like that, or worse, in the Old Testament. Ask me to revere the God of Joshua, who carried out this ethnic cleansing of the Canaanites, and I can't do it. Make that a litmus test, and you drive me away from the Church. Which is exactly what has happened to vast numbers of people in today's world. Do you know, what a tiny fraction of the populations of places like France and Italy, go to Church regularly? I think there are more practicing Muslims in France, than actual practicing Christians. The Seculars have won vast converts, because the Old Testament Christians have driven so many people away from Jesus. <...the School of Politically-Correct Relativism> That can be said of every translation, from the King James Version on. What makes one version more "objective" that others? If you truly wanted to read the original and unchanged Word of God, you'd have to learn ancient Hebrew. But even that wouldn't work, because Christ spoke in Aramaic, while the earliest copies of the Gospels are in Greek, a language He never spoke. At this point, the Literalists wave their hands in the air, and say, "God suspended the laws of nature temporarily, did a magic trick, and a miracle occurred." Which is not very convincing, and hasn't been since the Age Of Reason began in the 1700s.