From: Darrell Stec 

After serious contemplation, on or about Sunday 25 March 2007 2:52 pm CE
perhaps from jlrisdon{at}gmail.com wrote:

> On Mar 23, 11:48 pm, "ScottyFLL"  wrote:
>> On Mar 23, 10:31 pm, "J Young"
 wrote:
>>
>> We don't all take the word of your bible as truth.  In fact, the
>> majority of the world's population do not.
>
> Well, let's look at what the majority of the world's population has to
> say on the subject of homosexuality. The majority of people in the
> world are either Christian or Muslim, with an estimated 2.1 billion
> Christians and 1.79 billion muslims in 2006. These two religious
> groups consider homosexual acts to be a sin.
>
> There are also an estimated 376 million buddhists in the world.
> According to the Dalia Lama, homosexual acts are generally considered
> to be sexual misconduct, that is to say, homosexuals are considered to
> be wrong.
>
> So far, that's 2.1 billion plus 1.79 billion plus 376 million.
>
> The hindu position is more nuanced. It seems that in hinduism
> homosexuality is generally recognized but not approved.
>
> To this could be added the 14 million Jews who have similar beliefs
> with regards to homosexuality. A quick search on Wikipedia shows:
> Mythologist and author Devdutt Pattanaik summarised the place of
> homosexuality in Hindu literature: "though not part of the mainstream,
> its existence was acknowledged but not approved." In the Manu Smriti,
> an important Hindu law code probably compiled between 200 BC and 200
> AD, there are punishments for women who has sex with virgins and men
> who have sex with priests.
>
> For the sake of simplicity, let's split the hindu population in half
> on this issue, although it does seem most disapprove of homosexuality.
> Tht's another 450 million people. Scientology's founder wrote of
> curing homosexuals of this orientation, clearly indicating he
> considered it to be wrong. That's another 500 million people.
>
> Leaving aside the many other religions in the world, that's already
> 4.85 billion people who consider homosexuality to be wrong based on
> the writings in their religious texts.
>
> So, yes, you're correct. The majority of the world does not consider
> the Bible itself to be the Truth; there are only 2.1 billion
> Christians in the world.
>
> But any overview of the positions held by world religions shows the
> vast majority of the world's population agrees with the point being
> made by those Bible passages.
>

Well, actually you are wrong.  Most Christian do not even know what those
passages really say.  You might be correct if you say most Christians
belong to a denomination whose tenets say they believe what they THINK
those passages say.  Which is a completely different thing. And not all of
those Christians beleve what the tenets say anyway.

By the say, the next several passages say that people should be put to
death for mixing cloth blends, or more than one crop in a field, eating
shellfish, mixing different types of herds or different colored animals in
the herd.  Do you believe that?  Do you think most Christians or Moslems
believe that?  If not why not?  Why differentiate one purity ritual from
another?  You do realize that the one passage you think so oneous from
Leviticus is NOT a moral injunction don't you?  All the moral injunctions
listed in Leviticus are repeated in Deuteronomy but not the ritualistic
purity ones.

The crimes in Leviticus you think apply to homosexuality actual don't apply
to it.  They are purity infractions.  One involving making the male bed
unclean because of the sperm and bodily fluids.  The other is the
subservience of one of the males.  The Hebrew male was never to assume a
subservient position neither physically or mentally.

And THAT is what the Leviticus passage is talking about.  And as for
Corinthians, that passage is an incorrect translation.  There is no such
word in Greek or Hebrew for homosexual or homosexuality. Corinthians if
taken in context is talking about temple idolatry and in this case about
temple prostitution.  The prostitute could well be female because although
there is actually no such word in Greek that we find in that passage, it
could be a scribal error from two words that simply mean "man
fucker"  and that equally refers to a female prostitute (or any woman
that has had intercourse with a man).  Or it could refer to the male
prostitutes or even the temple priests that have intercourse with the male
worshipers so they could collect the seed and offer it up purified to the
gods on behalf of the worshipers. Again that passage is not talking about
homosexuality.

The Roman passage could be interpolated.  Much of that epistle is.

> Homosexual acts are disordered. They are, quite simply, wrong.

--
Later,
Darrell Stec      darstec{at}neo.rr.com

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