Maybe what he meant was more of an extenuating circumstance kind of thing. Like a judge granting leniency for someone who doesn’t have a long record, or first time offender?
If his other actions aren’t bigoted, is he/she a bigot for following his religious codes, but the answer here has been a yes.
I can only agree with that, no one is born a bigot, it’s taught.
to quote it in full: Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor men who have sex with men 10 nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
Note that some right wing churches leave out the parts about the adulterers greedy drunkards & slanderers . If the gay aint going to Heaven, most of the greedy leaders of those churches will roast alongside them. Not to mention adultery- with or without poolboys.
Also in this case, the greek term was (and this is disputed) was referring to men who dress as women to whore themselves. Still, since Paul was down on any sort of extramarital sex, I am certain he wouldnt have been happy with any sort of gay sex.
You want to hide behind the skirt of religion? No dice. Because there is no such thing as official religions as opposed to made up ones. Modern day bible thumpers as exist today didn’t exist 150 years ago. Why should their religious rules have any sway in public policy? I could start a religion today and make up a tenet that says Baptists are heretics and should be shunned and starved out. Am I then supposed to be allowed to put a sign in my public store saying No service to baptists because my religion says so? It’s so fucking stupid to use religion as an excuse to not treat people with civility.
That’s kind of not strictly true - at least from the point of view of state-recognised religions. Not saying it’s right this way, but ‘official’ religions do exist. State religion - Wikipedia
Very well said.
My version of that … offered up for decades … is:
It’s a book. The libraries are full of books. Read something else.
It’s snarky, lazy, and reductive, but … I stand by it 
Well of course. We can trust the Christian god but you gotta watch out for that Islamic god.
I won’t dispute your other points because they are your opinion but that description absolutely is in the Bible. We use it flippantly now but the word ‘Lord’ means “Master & Ruler.” They weren’t just using a casual honorific when would they say “Our Lord Jesus.” They actually meant it. A quick Google search says Jesus was called ‘Lord’ over 700 times in the New Testament. Jesus is also quoted as saying lukewarm Christians make him want to vomit.
What isn’t in the Bible is a Christian defined as “being a good person” or as following certain rules. If you actually read the text there are very few rules at all and those which are there are put forth as helpful guidelines to avoid offending others:
For it seemed good to the Holy Spirit, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than these necessary things: that you abstain from things offered to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from sexual immorality. If you keep yourselves from these, you will do well.
That’s it. No other rules or regulations. Just follow those guidelines and consider Jesus as your ruler and master.
Cite please? And no, citing a word translated as “Lord” isn’t a cite.
I seem to remember Acts describing Christians as the disciples of St. Barnabus and St. Paul. I’m not sure what Dark_Sponge is thinking of.
ETA: Acts 11:25-26
“Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. So for a whole year Barnabas and Saul met with the church and taught great numbers of people. The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.”
(Saul = Saint Paul)
~Max
Here’s a couple:
In Luke 14:
…And He turned and said to them, 26 “If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. 27 And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple…33 So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple.
And in Matthew 10:
32 “Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven…37 He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. 38 And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. 39 He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it.
Okay, those are pretty good cites.
[backs away]
~Max
So, are you using the word “Christian” and “disciple” interchangeably? If folks go by that standard, there are vanishingly few Christians. The United States is not a majority-Christian nation, nor has there ever been such, with the possible exception of Vatican City.
It’s a bizarre standard to set for a religion that excludes the overwhelming majority of people who consider themselves members of that religion. That’s not how language works.
When you talk about “the description of a Christian written in the Bible,” there are exactly three verses you can cite:
- Acts 11:26 “The disciples were called Christians first in Antioch.”
- Acts 26:28: “Then Agrippa said unto Paul, Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian.”
- 1 Peter 4:16: " Yet if [any man suffer] as a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God on this behalf."
None of these are definitional, not even the first one (as it doesn’t preclude calling people other than the disciples Christians). Your claim is incorrect.
Paul had real hang-ups about sex, but if his proof-text was the line in Leviticus about not lying down with a man the “lying-down-of-women,” it’s clear that this refers to something pretty narrow, and we aren’t quite sure what, but being a temple whore who is a youth who dresses as a woman (something the neighbors were known to have), is a good guess. I have this from my uncle who is a Torah and ancient Near East languages scholar, and I have read this other places as well.
I can tell you what Hebrew word is used in Leviticus, but I don’t know how it was translated in the Septuagint. However, it would be interesting to know whether Paul uses the same verb from Septuagint Leviticus. It’s in Lev. 18:22. Does anyone has access to a Septuagint, Paul in the original Greek, and enough ability to read Greek to see if the words are the same? I would love to know.
We don’t actually know why it was objectionable; is it about having Temple whores of any gender? having sex in the Temple whether it even be between married couples? a lot of otherwise-acceptable behaviors are not permitted in the Temple. Or is it about cross-dressing, which is forbidden elsewhere to Jews? Or about sex-for-pay arrangements? Or is it just a matter of not doing things as a part of worship that we know the neighbors do? there are plenty of examples in the Torah where things are forbidden in Jewish worship, simply because worshipers of Molech, or Ba’al, or someone, do them.
Little side note: in regard to women, two women together without a man is never addressed in Jewish scripture; however, specifically addressed is two women with one man is: it is permitted as long as they are his wives, and they are not sisters. One can only presume this is because there will be “action” between the women in such a situation, and one wants to avoid the appearance of incestuality, even though this type, where there wouldn’t be conception, is not really why the taboo developed in the first place.
I don’t have any of those, but I quoted some commentary on the Greek by a distinguished biblical scholar above, in post #74.
He notes that the word used by Paul, ἀρσενοκοῖται (arsenokoitai) was not used in any earlier text, and I presume that includes the Sepuagint. The first known use of the word is in Paul, and there is only one known use afterwards by anyone else, in the 6th century. So it’s hard to know what he meant by it.
He tends to the conclusion that Paul was referring to sex with young male slaves or concubines. He notes that the modern concept of homosexuality didn’t exist in the ancient world.
They’re at it again in Colorado:
My take …
During college, I was an assistant to a wedding photographer. I probably worked at hundreds of weddings. I “participated in …” exactly none of them.
The caterers, florists, musicians, and janitorial staff, likewise, worked at these weddings, but didn’t “participate in” them.
Some of these ‘Christians’ act as if selling a wedding cake (or issuing a marriage license or designing a website) to a gay couple is the same as kneeling at the altar, gently cupping the coin purse of one groom in their left hand, and the other groom in their right hand.
Their silence is deafening, though, when it comes to the purveyor of guns used to commit crimes.
Are we, or are we not, “participating ?”
I would like to presume that the bakers who don’t want to bake a cake for a couple who they know to be gay, would also not want to bake a cake for a purveyor of guns used to commit crimes. Do you have information to the contrary?
(I concede that the baker might actually bake the cake for the criminal, either because the baker doesn’t realize that the customer is a criminal, or because the baker fears for his safety. My point is that the baker would prefer to decline in both cases.)
Why does it have to be so binary? There are degrees of participation. A photographer doesn’t participate to the same degree that a witness does, for example, but can you understand that some people might not want to participate even a little bit? How would you feel about being the photographer or caterer for the rally of a political candidate that you were very much against?
What is your point? That the web designer’s stated religious beliefs aren’t sincere or genuine? That you know more about their religious beliefs than they do?
Can you tie it in with the topic question,
~Max
That wasn’t what I meant. I meant that Christians don’t seem to be exorcised at the ‘participation’ of a Christian-owned gun store who sells a firearm to a person who then uses that firearm to commit a murder.
Of course I can.
Largely because I’m old enough to understand how the Jim Crow South functioned, and just how ‘sincere’ the beliefs were of White Southern Baptists who really and sincerely didn’t want to have to serve black people.
We have a reasonably defined list of ‘protected classes.’ Political beliefs isn’t on that list. For the moment, I’m comfortable ensuring protection to the protected classes.
I think I chimed in earlier on this thread, and expressed my feelings that sincerity of beliefs is like hiding behind the Bible for your own bigotry.
But we aren’t really legislating bigotry in stories like these. We’re defining “public accommodation,” and setting rules that must be followed when you open your doors to the public.
We do similar things in terms of health codes (think: restaurants), building codes, zoning, etc.
I honestly don’t doubt that a ‘sincere’ person could cite their religious text (and consequent sincere belief) of choice as a reason why they should be able to wash and sanitize dishes and silverware using 100*F water – much lower than code generally requires.
How is the public good best served, in a public accommodation, when those two things – the sincere religious belief of the restaurant owner and the dining public – come into conflict ?
I think the Colorado Sun story puts it in pretty sharp relief:
But if she did, he said her argument would mean she would refuse to create a website for a hypothetical same-sex couple named Alex and Taylor but agree to make the same one for an opposite sex couple with the same names. He said that would be discrimination under the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
ISTR that somebody else raised the ‘names’ issue way upthread. I think it was given as a hypothetical. I appreciate that it’s being raised as an issue in this article/case.
I can answer that. I was an American Sign Language interpreter for many years. I would interpret anything requested. If someone wanted an anti-abortion rally interpreted, or a hunting club meeting, this was my job. Deaf people have a right to access to everything. I was never asked to interpret at a KKK or other white supremacist meeting-- had I been, I might have suggested that they would be more comfortable with someone else. But if they were OK with me, having been informed in advance (if i were the only person available, for some reason), then I would do my job.