Yes, well done. I’ll concede that Focus on Family has gays on the brain. I feel so utterly deflated after my years of support.
What are you talking about? “So much for judge not”?? I’m not claiming to be some Uber-Christian with all the right answers but Polycarp clearly is.
But as usual, since this thread didn’t go his way we can expect Poly to not return lest he “feed the trolls” so we’ll need dweebs like yourself to come in making lame attempts at defence. Keep up the good work.
Do you honestly believe that Polycarp does not think of himself as an expert? That he doesn’t believe he has a much better grasp of the meaning of the bible than any fundy preacher? Because you are an idiot if you think that. More likely you are just trying to wave some bullshit around.
Shepherd’s funeral wasn’t an isolated event. Before Dubya started supplying him with a steady stream of dead soldiers, Phelps made regular appearances at the funerals of dead homosexuals. The only two that got any real media attention were Shepherd’s and AIDS activist and writer Randy Shilts’, but they were far from the only funerals he defiled with his prescense prior to the war in Iraq.
I don’t speak for Polycarp , but I don’t see him as touting himself as some “Uber-Christian” with all the right answers. He is knowledgable about the Bible and he espouses his beliefs in a respectful manner. In this thread, he is expressing his dislike of a man who DOES set himself up as an “Uber-Christian”, and pointing out just how that man fails to meet the standard set by Christ. Seems simple enough.
If good work includes pointing out your own judgement of a poster you condemn for judging, then thanks.
Who has said that he thinks he has a better grasp of meanig of the bible than any fundy preacher? oh yeah-YOU did.
Hell, I have a better grasp of scripture than most fundy preachers.
Nice Christian tone you’re setting here. Dobson and Haggard would be proud.
I see the problem. You are a having an argument with someone other than me. I do not consider myself a Christian of any sort so I’m not really aiming for that “tone” you think I’m lacking.
It’s baffling that you and Zoe are expecting me to take this one OP in complete isolation from Polycarp’s posting history. Poly is not merely “knowledgable” of the Bible, he very often gets into detailed discussions of it’s historical settings, possible authorship and “true” interpretations of contentious tracts. How many people who consider themselves “not experts” would post like that?
If Polycarp had just posted about how he doesn’t like Dobson’s stand on some issue I never would have brought up this line of discussion. Instead, Poly decided to play some convoluted Bible-based “gotcha”.
Yeah, because it takes an expert to have a better understanding than some fundy preacher.
I don’t see Polycarp writing books and hosting radio programs.
I think this is because they actually feel threatened by homosexuality. I just found this out, but apparently they mean the term “culture war” pretty seriously. They (Dobson, his associates and his followers) believe that one side will win and the other will lose.
On this page on the website for his new book, he gives some reasons why he considers homosexuality to be such a big deal. I guess it could be debated whether he came up with all these things because he was already threatened by it, or if he’s threatened because of what he’s saying.
Are you asking for a cite where **Polycarp **specifically proclaims that he knows better how to interpret the bible than fundies? I don’t think that’d be easy to find. However, anyone who is being honest and has actually read Polycarp over the years knows this to be the case. Heck, eleanorrigby says it’s pretty easy to be smarter than the fundies. Even dumb old him has a better grasp.
I guess this was a simulpost with my #64 above yours - It goes quite beyond this one single OP.
Saw he and his phamily any number of times at the funerals of friends. As upset as I am about his latest targets, I’m rather pleased that I’ve not encountered any of the phuckers of late.
Nah, I’ll just let Polycarp’s record stand for itself. He’s a nice guy but clearly thinks he has the inside track on Bible interpreting. His loathing for the beliefs of “anti-gay” Christians drips from any post on the subject. Deny reality all you like.
Don’t get me wrong, most homophobic beliefs are repugnant to me as well. Thing is, pretending like you know what God ACTUALLY THINKS makes me want to puke - regardless of which side of the issue it comes from.
Bible knowledge isn’t astrology. It’s not all just subjective reading of tea leaves. It is possible for one person to have an objectively better understanding than another, and it is possible to objectively recognize when somebody else is distorting or misinterpreting it.
Polycarp, I have been reading your posts about christianity for years on this board, and you seem to have finally defended your christianity away. What I mean is, over the years, you have said things like “Well, the bible says this, but liberal christians can go against it” and 'The bible says that, but enlightened christians can disagree" and so on…
Dude, are you a christian or not? You seem more and more like you are interpreting christianity to your own mindset, and going away from what the bible says. You can’t have it both ways.
I guess I should expand my “Indeed”. It always seemed to me that the “anti-gay” interpretations of the bible were pretty solid while the “he doesn’t mind” interpretations were quite convoluted and fanciful, ie Polycarp’s stance. I do respect your knowledge of the historical aspects of the bible so I ask you: is that not a distortion? Did the men who wrote the bible honestly think that homosexuality was OK?
Please note that I’m not asking for your stance on homosexuality just your thoughts on the Bible’s stance.
I’ve done several threads on it. The short version is that every passage is at least arguable, particularly the stuff in the New Testament. There are words which are frequently translated as “homosexual” which have very unclear meaning in Greek. Do a board search for arsenokoitai to find my belabored discussions of the Greek.
The most honest answer i can give is that the New Testament does not contain any clear, unambiguous condemnation of homosexuality (my position is that those passages probably refer to pederasty). Leviticus might contain such a condemnation but it is argued by some that even Leviticus refers to cultic practices (male temple prostitutes) rather than a blanket condemnation of homosexuality. I’m not sure about that but there are “liberal” workarounds for it in any case (namely that it’s part and parcel of a covenant which was subsumed by the crucifixion – that it’s no different than kosher laws or ritual purity codes, etc.).
When people like Dobson say that they know for sure that Paul specifically intended to condemn all homosexual relationships, they aren’t telling the truth. They are using a selective translation as well as retrojecting an anachronistic understanding of sexual orientation onto the text.
I should add that there’s also nothing in the Bible that says homosexual acts are ok or speaks of homosexuality approvingly. We don’t really know for sure what the authors intended. Part of the problem is that the ancients didn’t have an understanding of fixed sexual orientations. They didn’t think in terms of “straighi” or “gay,” they thought only in terms of specific sexual acts. Paul was speaking of a specific sexual act when he referred to arsenokoita (a word which Paul seems to have coined himself) but we don’t know exactly was. What muddies it even more is that it would have only referred to one partner in the act, not both, and if that’s not enough, there are later attestations (non-Biblical) of the word being applied to heterosexual sex, even to men engaging in the "sin of arsenokoitai with their wives. It might have referred to anal sex or it might have had an evolving definition. The truth is that no one really knows what the word meant to Paul and interpreting it as an unambiguous condemnation of homsexuality is tendentious at best.
Actually, I know it’s been done in a number of threads, so if you have some favorites please link.
However, I am really curious how the laws explicitly stated in Leviticus such as “'Do not lie with a man as one lies with a woman; that is detestable.” can have been so seriously mistranslated. Does that mean a Christian can comfortably/safely have sex with all the other relations discounted for sex in Leviticus? It seems sex with my sister or mother is no more endorsed or condemned than homosexuality…
These arguments are a little problematic for those who believe the Bible is God’s transmitted word. God surely had the concept of sexual orientation throughout all time and space.
I’ve yet to see a thing, written in the bible, that isn’t arguable by somebody.
I would say the most honest answer is that the NT may not be clear and unambiguous but the safe bet is, that being down on gay sex, is the Christian thing to do. As for Leviticus, I think you should change your word “might” to “emphatically does” and your statement will be more accurate. Also I don’t see any reference to “male temple prostitutes” with regards to the condemnation near either Leviticus 18:22 or 20:13. Sure when Jesus died on the cross that might have opened the door for homosexuality and other previously condemned acts like bestiality and adultery, but nowhere does it say so.
They may not “know for sure” but I think an unbiased reading of the bible would indicate that probability is in their favor, particularly when taking into account the Leviticus verses.
Here’s a fairly decent discussion…
…with arguments from both sides, but the verses, those in Leviticus at least, are pretty darn clear, no less so when read in context.
I honestly hate to back the most antagonostic viewpoint but really, why should we accept that “lying with a man” related to gay temple prostitutes but all the other condemnations don’t relate to sister/mother/daughter-in-law/sister-in-law temple prostitutes.
I don’t think that Leviticus is mistranslated and I’m not necessarily convinced that it isn’t a bona fide condemnation of homosexuality. As I said above it is argued by some that it refers to Canaanite cultic practices and it is also argued by some that it’s part of a legal code which is no longer binding on Christians. This is a case whre I lean about 60/40 towards a general condemnation of homosexuality but the case for the cultic interpretation is not without merit.
