You had me at hello you big sweetie. kisses
I’ve read this and re=read it and re-re-read it…
I’ve worked in locked mental wards with people who had literally eaten their own shit and, in one case, sliced out their eye with a razor blade, and on my most serious and sacred oath I think they would have seen that statement as one of the most vile, misogynistic and… crazy… things they’d ever heard.
My definition of natural is “occurring in nature” or “commonly occurring”, both of which are true of homosexuality.
The story of Sodom (or as Christians perhaps call it, “the world’s first flaming fags”) was written down, AT THE ABSOLUTE EARLIEST, several centuries after it allegedly happened. For perspective, this would be the equivalent of the story of Jamestown and Pocahontas and the Protestant Reformation all being written down today after being kept alive orally since they occurred- things may have changed juuuust a bit in the telling, don’t you think? Just as it might be just a teensy weensy bit more than coincidental that damned near exactly the same thing happens in Judges 19, only with mortals only, without any mention of Sodom? (Almost as if they’d never heard of it, or as if the two tales had the same source, isn’t it?)
And the “ya’da” debate has been discussed dozens of times on these boards and thousands of times on the Internet as has the “sin of Sodom” (which I am continually amazed at how Fundies know BETTER THAN GOD HIMSELF what that sin was), but… just the logic of it-
Why would God bother to destroy a city of homosexuals? Wouldn’t it be a rather self-limiting problem? I mean, wait a generation and you’re going to have a city with no population and empty yet fabulously vintage decorated apartments. Doesn’t raining down fire seem just a bit- overkill?
And how can people who honestly believe in sky fairies, in the inerrancy of a book THAT CAN’T EVEN AGREE ON WHAT ORDER CREATION OCCURRED IN or WHO JESUS’S FATHER WAS OR WHO HE WAS DESCENDED FROM or HIS LAST WORDS or other things that you’d kind of think were a bit important, and people who can accept a book THEY KNOW JACK-SHIT ABOUT THE HISTORY OF in which bird sacrifice is a good cure for mildew and uncle-niece marriage and raping female prisoners is “natural” and slavery just ain’t no thang and God kills babies because he’s pissed at their parents and watches with complete disinterest as Flood waters fill the mouths of babes and bunnies alike but at the same point, SMILE, HE LOVES YOU!… but you call homosexuality evil and sick and an illness…
Fucking God, how are you people possible? Did 90% of American women handle Propecia in their pregnancy for 200 years that we are cursed with 250 MILLION morons? Or is it just that Hitler was right when he said “What look for rulers that men do not think…”
Sorry, this was ineloquent and rambling and rantish, but shit, if it was the finger of God carving “ONCE AND FOR ALL THE SIN OF SODOM WAS NOT HOMOSEXUALITY!” on the surface of the moon in letters visible to all mankind in their own language it wouldn’t be 2 minutes before Fundies were ignoring it and absolutely convinced of their own correctness. Thank God our corporate owners love money more than Jesus and our demagogues are more hypocritical than holy or we’d be another Afghanistan.
Fag.
I picture you at your keyboard, with a loud chuckle after winning a huge pot at a table of tough players and in the mood of burying grudges.
If I’m wrong, I don’t want to be right. 
Sadly, the New York Post reported recently that the couple have split after six years and that bitch Silo has taken up with a female hussy. I guess bisexuality is natural, too.
Sorry, Miller’s picture is of a different gay pair. But Silo is still a bitch.
Penguins are not naturally monogomous anyway. They usually change mates every year. At least that’s what they said in March of the Penguins.
Good grief. Let’s put this canard to bed right now. ONE of the sins of Sodom was inhospitability. This is taken from Ezekiel 16:49
However, this is BY NO MEANS the only sin of Sodom. Because their list of sins is continued in the very next verse.
They also committed abomination before the Lord. This refers to homosexuality. The NIV translation of Genesis 19:5 reads:
The KJL version carries the same meaning. The men of the city wanted to rape the angels that came to Sodom. This is not a sin of inhospitability. This is sodomy. It was for this sin (along with the others listed, including inhospitability) that caused Sodom to be destroyed.
I don’t understand why a board that purports to fight ignorance insists on burying its collective head in the sand over this issue. Right or wrong, the Bible makes it clear that the sin of Sodom was not just inhospitability. And to argue that the term sodomy is being used incorrectly because it doesn’t really mean anal intercourse because the sin of Sodom is inhospitability is gross ignorance.
KJV. (Preview is my friend…)
Sig request!
Evil sinful penguins. Did they not read “cleave unto blah blah blah”? That’s it. penguins are going to hell. Now don’t EVEN get us started on Bonobo chimpanzes. 
You are wrong. Is it just possible there are other abominations they could have been doing? As far as KJL, does that mean King James Bible? If so, I’m just not interested. Give me someone who can read the original texts in the original language and context. Forget King James. That version is just a far later imitation that was modified so as to please the ruling people of the time. By the time the townspeople had “inquired” about the angels, their fate had already been sealed. They were already judged and doomed. So stop putting the cart before the horse. It’s a false argument and is bull shit. Deliberately ignoring part of the story and then harping on the other, and using as the “reason for destruction” something that happened after there was already a different reason given is LYING.
Maybe some REAL scholars can get in here and show you where in your King Janes bible, pasages were obviously and deliberately changed. To hell with King Jimmy.
You really should read the thread before you post.
- The decision to destroy Sodom had already been made before the angel* story. That incident had nothing to do with why Sodom was destroyed.
- The word translated as “know” in that verse did not have a sexual connotation in that verse. The people of Sodom simply wanted to interrogate the angels, not fuck them.
- The incident was not why Sodom was destroyed.
- Ezekiel says that the sin of Sodom was inhospitality. There is nothing anywher in the Bible that says that the sin was homosexuality.
- By what process do you conclude that “abomination” means homosexuality?
- Your NLV translation is just flat wrong.
- The KJV sucks too.
To the more educated and intelligent people on this board - I apologize for my numerous typos. It’s just that willfull and deliberate stupidity in the face of evidence, fact and logic make me want to reach out and smackh someone.
The term for “know” — yadha — is used in the sexual sense only 10 times in the Old Testament and all of these cases are heterosexual. Yadha is used in the sense of “get acquainted with” 924 times. Thus the odds against the homosexual usage of this term are nearly 1000-to-1, and many modern Biblical scholars have now abandoned this theory.
Lot was a ger, a sojourner, a resident alien in Sodom. He had certain civic obligations in return for the protection which the city offered him, and there are indications that he was unpopular in the city. He did not have a right to open his house to foreigners, and the citizens of Sodom were merely demanding to see the credentials of these two foreigners, that is, to “know” whence they came and their intentions.
The cities were destroyed for not recognizing the obligations of hospitality, and the whole story is a moral allegory on the dire effects of inhospitality.
My remark - The crowd gathered at Lot’s door have all the markings of a lynch mob, in the finest spaghetti western tradition, rahter than some sort of kinky “love in”. Is it coincidence?
The sins of the Sodomites may have been great and grievous in the eyes of a wrathful god, but the Bible does not cite homosexuality as one of them (cf. Genesis 13.13, 18.20). Jeremiah 23.14 suggests adultery and lying, and Ezekiel 16.49-50 suggests pride and sloth and idolatry. … it is remarkable to the point of being an inconceivable omission that Sodom is never mentioned in any of the Biblical condemnations of homosexuality. The Apocrypha demonstrates the standard interpretation: Whereas the men of Sodom received not the strangers when they came among them, so the Egyptians made slaves of the guests who were their benefactors" (Wisdom 10.8, 19.8, and Ecclesiastes 16.8). …
The major point here, of course, is that what amounts to a deliberate lie — about Sodom and Gomorrah — was created in order to justify prejudices.
“This was the sin of Sodom, your sister: she and her daughters had pride, excess of bread, and abundance of tranquility, and yet she did not strengthen the poor and the needy.”
The people of Sodom had grown haughty and cruel due to their abundance of fertile land and material possessions. They did not wish to share their wealth with anyone else, and therefore all these were destroyed together with them.
In the ancient Hebrew world, hospitality was not an option but a sacred duty. This was because travel between cities was dangerous and often life-threatening (see Exodus 22:20; Lev. 19:33-34; compare to Matt. 25:35, 38 and 43). In this light, any mistreatment of Lot’s guests would have been seen by the original readers as a serious sin against the obligation of hospitality (cf. Deut. 23:3-5). Note that even Lot points this out when he pleads with the men of Sodom in v. 8: “Do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof.” To the ancient Hebrew, one characteristic of the righteous was the way they received strangers (Genesis 18:1-5).
Chazal (Sanhedrin 109) offer detailed descriptions of Sodomite customs:
- This last bit is the example I used in my earlier post, which the “holy judges” are choosing to ignore. The people of Sodom were deliberately setting strangers up to die from hunger and then looting the corpse. I didn’t make that up.
From these vignettes emerges a picture of a town in which evil behavior was officially sanctioned as its way of life.
On a human level, all that they did was deny the poor and the wayfarer their basic comforts. On a divine level, they caused so much cruelty and misery through their immoral legislation that they deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth.
The scriptures themselves never understand the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah to be homosexual behavior. Ezekiel (16:49-50) says that the sin of Sodom was living in pride, plenty and thoughtless ease; they ignored the poor and needy, and committed abomination. Isaiah (13:19) condemns Sodom for its injustice, while Jeremiah (23:14; 49:18, 50:40) defines the sin as moral laxity. In the so-called apocrypha, Ecclesiasticus (16:8) also views the sin as pride: “He did not spare the people among whom Lot was living, whom he detested for their pride.” Wisdom (19:13-15) describes the sin of Sodom as unwillingness to receive strangers. In Luke 9:51-56, Jesus refuses to call down fire on a Samaritan town at the request of James and John who want it punished, as was Sodom. What was the great sin of the Samaritan town? It was their refusal to show hospitality.
Yes. It is possible.
If you don’t want to use the KJV, fine. How about the NIV? It agrees with me. As well as several others. As well as the original Hebrew.
So is deliberately quoting Ezekiel 16:49 and “forgetting” to quote the inconvenient to your position 16:50.
I have.
Correct. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I was just trying to make the point that homosexuality was on the list of reasons why it was destroyed.
This is ignorance. If they wanted to interrogate them, they could have spoken to them through the door. They wanted to be able to physically interact with them.
Not this incident. But the sin mentioned here is evidence that the sin of homosexuality existed in the city.
Except the ever so inconvenient Ezekiel 16:50. And, of course, Genesis 19:5.
It is referred to as abomination in the Bible.
I didn’t quote the NLV. I quoted the NIV. I can quote various other Bible translations that agree with me, if you would like. However, I am sure you, the fount of perfect knowledge, will say they are wrong too.
Doesn’t that say exactly what you already said? “And they were haughty, and committed abomination before me: therefore I took them away as I saw good.” That wouldn’t seem to support your point unless you can prove abomination means gay sex, which you guys are already arguing about.
Or in the NIV I found online, 16:49-50 say “'Now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.
They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.”
That just restates the same thing. “Detestable things,” “abomination”… how are you sure of what this specifically means?
Nice try at distraction. He can be a blowhard but he is rock solid on the Bible.
And I like the part about homosexuality being an abomination because God said Sodomites committed abominations, and and abomination meaning homosexuality because it is called that in the Bible. That’s a pretty short track you are circling around.
Twin -
I am not going to budge, not one inch. Believe whatever you want. Just don’t tell me that it’s right. I will stick to my interpretation of Sodom. They were destroyed for inhospitality, selfishness, arrogance, greed, cruelty, and murder. Their society was built upon it, it was their official policy. They revelled in evil, in all its forms. They had NO redeeming qualities. Lot argued with God to spare them. The conditions were simple. Boiled down to its simplest, it was “just give me one good reason to let them be” (the search for someone - anyone - who was righteous). Lot might have said, if it was true, that they worship false gods but are generous. He could have said they really really like boys but the are kind to strangers and small animals. Something. Anything. These people were so completely evil that there was not a single good thing to justify their further existence. And again, the whole “thing” with the mob and the angels was after the decision had already been made. The angels were there to get Lot out of town before the destruction happened. If anything, it was just one more nail in the coffin, and I maintain that it was not a “sex gang”, it was a lynch mob. They wanted to know who the strangers were, why the strangers were here, and probably planned to kill them. Lynch mobs don’t question people through the door (one of your arguments). They drag them out by force.
Twin, darling, I mean no offense, but were you born this stupid or did your mom apprentice you to a retarded kid?
Nobody forgot to quote it; it simply doesn’t help either case. Spitefulness and greed and refusal to help strangers WAS abomination. So were eating shellfish or insects or birds of prey, worshipping idols (guess what the people in Sodom worshipped, incidentally?), offering sacrifices with blemished animals, etc. etc. etc… Abomination was hardly a synonym for homosexuality, and THE PREVIOUS VERSE ALREADY SAID THAT THE SIN OF SODOM (singular) was the abomination of greed/hubris/inhospitality. What part of that is so hard to understand?
You didn’t succeed.
Sure. That’s the same way police do it today. They want to interrogate somebody for a crime, they talk to them through their door… (get the net, I think we got a live one)
Yeah, you tend to want to do that when you’re interrogating suspicious strangers.
This is a sealed and walled city with many enemies. (One of their wars, in which Abraham was their ally, is described in Genesis.) A stranger in their midst (Lot) has two visitors who are decidedly “different” and who nobody has seen before… and again, the land has been at war and has enemies. Is it greatly surprising that they would want to know just who these men were and what the hell they were doing in Sodom? They probably suspected them of being spies, but whatever they suspected them of, they wanted them under control.
As are the things mentioned above and many more besides. This is a variant of your argument:
*Martha Stewart was convicted of a crime.
Child molestation is a crime.
Therefore, Martha Stewart is a child molester.*
It’s veddy veddy bad logic.
I rarely agree with Diogenes on political matters- he’s way to the left of me- but on matters of scriptural authority he’s damned near a Jedi Master. You are aware that he has studied this in depth, that he reads Classical Greek, that he’s way more skilled in this than you or I will ever be, neh? Trust me- you’re out of your depths if you take him on- just tip your King over now.