The True Sin of Sodom

[AlecBGreen]

It was not, as some fundamentalists might believe, homosexuality. It was this, as written by the prophet Ezekiel:

“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."

Just a public service announcement from a concerned liberal Christian. Spread the word.

[moobu2]

1. So the Christian/Jewish God burned the entire city to the ground

Killed every living woman, child, baby, fetus, grandma and grandpa, including those poor needy folks, and turned a woman into salt and some other nasty crap? Still a screwed up story to me no matter how it gets changed around.

[struggle4progress]

7. I would have expected you to regard the story as a fable

[darkstar3]

9. Fables usually have a moral to the story. The moral here would be?

Mess with God, he'll fuck you up?

[struggle4progress]

10. Sorry. I didn't mean to confuse you: "fable" has multiple meanings

[darkstar3]

11. Enlighten me,

as "fable" has always been used for one particular meaning in my experience.

[struggle4progress]

13. .

... This biography is largely a self-laudatory fable ... This boast of a cure is a Medical fable ... http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/fable
... We grew The fable of the city where we dwelt ... It would look like a fable to report that this gentleman gives away a great fortune by secret methods ... He Fables not ... http://www.allwords.com/word-fable.html
... the fabled Paul Bunyan and his blue ox ... http://www.thefreedictionary.com/fabled

[darkstar3]

16. So, here we have yet another example of the fact that the internet fucks up meanings,

and another example of poor word choice.

Fable has a historical meaning that both you and I are familiar with, just like every child over the age of six. But thanks to the fact that internet dictionaries catalog usage, and poor usage at that, we have "fable" being used as "fabrication, falsehood, legend, myth" and even more synonyms. Each of those words has their own specific meaning as well, but since that doesn't support your usage above you won't care.

So since fable can now mean mtyh, legend, falsehood, fabrication, or other actual words under your chosen definition, why don't you tell us what you really meant if it wasn't about moral stories?

[trotsky]

12. Why don't you enlighten us simpletons by telling us which definition you meant,

and how it differs from the first person's use of the word "story"?

[madrchsod]

2. old ezekiel was describing the today`s republicans !

according to some the people of sodom and gomorrah were a nasty bunch of people who refused to offer shelter to travelers. both places were just down the road from each other and they may have been destroyed by a natural gas explosion.

prophets used natural occurrences as a lesson

[Mariana]

3. That won't faze the fundies a bit.

You know they'll just claim that the "detestable things" that Ezekiel wrote of of were homosexual acts.

[thereismore]

4. I used to be a liberal Christian too. There are good nuggets in the Bible

like this one, but overall, the god of the Bible is one unpredictable sadistic misogynistic cosmic prick. I am a liberal atheist now. Free at last.

[snagglepuss]

5. This reminds me of a comment about the 7 deadly sins I read the other day

in Wikipedia "the seven deadly sins are so named because they destroy the charity in man's heart". However the writer went on to say that those actions also give "opportunities to sinful behavior".

That sloth, gluttonly, greed, lust etc destroy charity is an interesting angle.

[LAGC]

6. The Bible is such a hateful book.

The Christian God is so petty and jealous, punishing entire towns and villages because of the "sins" of a few.

I used to be a Christian too, but shit like this finally opened my eyes.

[darkstar3]

8. Lewis Black has a great rant on this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGrlWOhtj3g

The whole 11 minute video is funny, but the important bit is the first four minutes or so. Take a look...

[AlecBGreen]

14. very funny!

I worry for Lewis. All that anger is hilarious but it cant be good for your blood pressure!

[darkstar3]

15. Lewis' anger is beside the point.

Did you happen to catch the part about "it's not their fault, because it's not their book!"?

[AlecBGreen]

17. yes I heard that

what is your take on that?

[darkstar3]

18. Now don't play coy.

I posted the video, pointed to the part that I thought was important, and did all of that in response to your OT quote post. What do you think my take is?

[AlecBGreen]

19. I dont honestly know what your take is

Im not smart enough to try to trick you, I was just curious. But yes, I was being coy hoping you'd tell me your thoughts without me having to ask :)

As for my feelings, I dont see a problem with Christians claiming the OT as part of their spiritual heritage.

[darkstar3]

20. I do.

According to the teachings of many a Christian church, Jesus fulfilled all prophecies and broke all covenants in the OT while forming a new covenant with God in the NT. Studying the OT for prophecy context is one thing, but the concepts of sin, God's wrath, moral law, and many other "lessons" often gleaned from the OT by fundie pastors with a hard-on for smiting are completely out of phase.

My point, I suppose, is that the idea of "liberal Christian" and the reinterpretation of the OT don't seem to go together.

[AlecBGreen]

21. I agree with some of what you say

Just a few points:

#1) Jesus didnt break covenants, he reaffirmed them. He didnt undo the law, he went over it. According the Paul the law still stands but we are no longer in bondage to it. Does that mean we can break it with impunity? NO! Its just that we no longer need to fear if this transgression or that will separate us from reconciliation with the Father.

#2) ...the concepts of sin, God's wrath, moral law, and many other "lessons" often gleaned from the OT by fundie pastors with a hard-on for smiting are completely out of phase. If by out of phase you mean incongruent with Christs message, I tend to agree with you but only so far as what I said in ^ number one.

And yes, there are many who seem to have a hard-on for smiting. They are the same as the kids in my school who take pride in their "I-dont-give-a-f***" attitude. They relish confrontation for its own sake.

#3) the idea of "liberal Christian" and the reinterpretation of the OT don't seem to go together. Could you reword this? Do you mean that I, a liberal Christian, am disingenuous when I 'reinterpret" the OT? You are of course entitled to your opinion, its just that Im not sure what you are getting at.

[darkstar3]

22. No, I don't believe you disingenuous.

Thankfully, though we spar here often, disingenuous is certainly one word I would not apply to you. What I meant in my prior post was simply that I don't believe the reinterpretation of the OT is something a liberal Christian need concern themselves about. It's not your book.

[AlecBGreen]

23. I feel otherwise

There can be no understanding of Christ if we abandon the OT. To understand our present & future in Christ, we must understand the past.

[darkstar3]

26. You misunderstand.

Read above. I'm not suggesting that you completely throw out the OT. It is necessary to a certain extent to understand what prophecies Jesus supposedly fulfilled. My point is that I don't see a reason to try to interpret the "true sin of Sodom" from other OT sources, when God's entire view seems to have changed with Jesus' arrival.

On a side (or not so side note), I've always thought of the OT as a rather conservative book. It's full of messages that are authoritarian, full of bloody retribution and conquering, squeemish on the idea of sex, and hateful to those who are not the chosen people. Liberal Christian and Old Testament just don't really go together in my mind.

[AlecBGreen]

24. p.s.

Sometimes I like to look back at the thread-tree and all the subject lines @ the beginning of a post and try to put together what the conservation must be like. Ours for this one got me chucking. You said "I dont believe you're disingenuous" and my reply was "I feel otherwise" Hehehe

[darkstar3]

25. Funny.

Sometimes I do the same thing. :hi:

[_ed_]

27. Who cares either way?

It's a myth.

[dimbear]

28. It's good to know the history of the OT. The first Christian Bible didn't have one at all.

(Marcion, he hated everything Jewish.) Most Christians don't know that the present day Hebrew scriptures were made canonical in response to Christianity, with the fixed goal of preventing any Christian additions. The Hebrew canon was closed distinctly after the time of Christ (c 90 CE, date uncertain.) Nevertheless, Christian writers (around the time of Jerome) adopted the Hebrew scriptures in an effort to legitimize and add historical weight to their upstart religion, and they took pride in adopting the scriptures then in use by the Jews. They took the precaution of reordering the books to emphasize the messianic passages and reworded here and there, but that's the gist of it.

The writers of the NT had a far different idea of what constituted the Hebrew scriptures, and it would profit any curious Christian to study carefully the book of Jubilees, the six books of Enoch, and so on. They show the development of Jewish thought that is reflected in the supposed novelties of the NT.

[AlecBGreen]

29. thanks dimbear!

:hi: