homosexuality

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LOL!Yeah I wondered if anybody was going to comment on that the first time around...

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I am also attempting to establish that the current religious obsession with condemning homosexuality as an immoral abomination has no basis in reason or intelligent thought

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What if it makes sense in a theological context?

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However, there are lots of things that can be "made to" make sense, or not make sense, in a theological context, depending upon one's interpretation of the Theology.

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I'll agree with that.

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I also suppose that it depends upon how comfortable you are with suspending your reason and intelligence in favor of said theology.

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Clarify your point. Are you saying that Christian theology should allow homosexuality?

I find it odd that the opposition is bring up Leviticus and the Law of Moses when they are almost irrelevant to Christianity. In Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 15 (especially verse 10) we Gentiles are told that we don't have to keep most of Leviticus. Verse 20 says that we should abstain from fornication, things strangled, and blood. However other books in the NT continue to give us guidance.A lot of things fall under the category of fornication (above). Romans 1:27 condemns homosexuality and various other un-Godly practices. However I have not yet found anything in the NT talking about mixed-fiber clothing....

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LOL... again. This isn't terribly spectacular.

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In another thread you claimed that if Israelite pracitices gave medical benefits, such killing a dove to cure diseases, this would be proof of the Judeo-Christian God. I pointed out that you would merely wave this evidence away by suggesting that the practice had natural benefits and the Israelites merely noticed these natural benefits and incorporated them into their religion; so that your beliefs about the non-existance of God are therefore non-falsifiable.I don't understand how you, who claims to be agnostic, and therefore, by definition, you lack the evidence to know anything about God, can possibly know enough to claim that Christianity is false?

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They keep it around and pick and chose what they want out of it and throw away the rest claiming that Christ fullfilled this and that. Nowhere in the NT does Jesus state exactly what is to go and what is to stay, so people pick and choose per personnal preference. It doesn't make sense.

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Actually, so far as I can tell, what Christians keep today generally is specified in the NT, and what they don't have to keep, is told in the NT. See my above reference to Acts and Romans.[This message has been edited by gene90, 12-17-2002]

I will admit that we try to infer a lot from the OT. Prophecies, types of Christ, etc.

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Yeah, gene, it would be proof, IF IT WORKED. I am perfectly willing to test it.

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But that at least some of the Israelite practices that do work are somehow not 'proof'? So basically, if it works it is not proof, but if it doesn't work it would be proof if it did?

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Surely you have to realize the difference between recognizing that keeping a wound covered helps prevent infection and "observing" that sticking pins in a voodoo doll cures disease.

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No, I do not. Especially considering a culture that was ingnorant of the Germ Theory of disease. The only difference is that one is demonstrable today, the other is not. You said that if some of the Israelite practices work it would be proof. Well here, some of them work. Rejecting one because it works along a mechanism that is known today is irrelevant -- because just as you assume that the Israelites learned about covering wounds through observation, if sticking pins in a voodoo doll did cure disease and they had voodoo dolls then they (by your reasoning) could (and therefore, according to your reasoing, would) have learned this not through revelation but through observation.I contend that your position on this matter is unfalsifiable.Added by edit: By the way, it is not my position that Israelite knowledge of sores or anything else is positive proof of God because I contend that they could have learned that by observation.[This message has been edited by gene90, 12-17-2002]

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This isn't specific at all.

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??? I beg to differ. It says that the Gentiles should not be troubled with the Law of Moses.

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Do Christians avoid things strangled?

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I don't kill my own food but it's my understanding that strangling is not used amongst the meat packing industry (too inefficient). If I were to know that that steak was strangled I wouldn't eat it.

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How many of you like you steaks rare?

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I don't. I want that thing cooked.

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Where I grew up it was common for kids to go deer hunting with there dads and drink the blood of thier first kill.

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Sick.

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What you haven't done is shown where this rule was lifted

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(In addition to the verses in Acts?)The Law of Moses has been fulfilled. We believe Leviticus was written by Moses. Therefore most of what is in Leviticus has been fulfilled.

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Anything else goes?

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No. I don't believe the NT is the final revelation of God. I also have an incomplete understanding of the Bible, I need to study it more to be sure. But I tend to think that the NT takes precedence over the OT, and that most of what is in Leviticus has been fulfilled.

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To Gene90, with all due respect, the Bible stands on its own.

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Such is like walking up to a Catholic and explaining that they need no pope, or telling the Amish that they can join the rest of us in 21st century any time they like.You're entitled to your religious opinion and I'm entitled to mine.

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Then we can ditch the thing?

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If you wish. I admit that your knowledge of the Bible is almost certainly superior to mine because you've been studying it longer.

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Yeah, no kidding. These same people castrated pigs with their teeth. Seriously.

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Umm ok. That's definately not cool.

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This said there is a reason this law was given, and some of the guidlines given by the law have excellent applications in our lives.

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See, we can say we don't have to follow the Law of Moses but then we have things like the Ten Commandments, which all Christian sects seem (Protestants especially) to follow and which seems to be a good guide in how Jews and Christians should act. So when we teach it to the kids we are kind of inconsistent. This is where I guess we "pick and choose".(Not that I think we should plaster it up in gov't buildings though)[This message has been edited by gene90, 12-17-2002]

Ok, I merely misunderstood you.

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The Sumerian, Babylonians, Egyptians and pretty much every one else had/have medical technology that works. Is this proof of all the various mythologies that go along with it?

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No. I am not trying to use "medical" practices to prove anything. I'm trying to demonstrate that the claim that the ancient Jews' treatment of sores came about through observation is unfalsifiable.I'm trying to show that your beliefs based upon the apparent failure of dove-slaughtering are unfalsifiable. Even if dove sacrifice did cure disease you would explain it away as observation, just as you explain away the treatment of soars.

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Ah.... but if those Isrealite voodoo dolls only work for the faithful

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Then you would claim that the Isrealites noticed that certain priests could cure diseases and so the practice came about through observation rather than revelation.And by the way, if this only happens by the work of the faithful, doesn't that sound rather like contemporary claims of miracle healings? And if only the faithful perform this, do you think repeatable, scientific evidence would be easy to come by? That is assuming God will perform for the test. It may or may not be impossible for you to prove, but very difficult at the least.

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and there is no mechanism that would explain it.

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For the sake of this argument a mechanism is unnecessary, we are simply assuming that covering sores helps and, hypothetically, that the voodoo dolls and dove sacrifice work.[This message has been edited by gene90, 12-17-2002]