The Bible told me to...

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http://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Man-70-Stoned-to-Death-for-Homosexuality-Police-118243719.html

Point 1. There seems to be much more to the story of their relationship than is discussed in this video clip. The written article adds only more murkiness. Perhaps the younger man was being abused, perhaps it was greed, much of it is speculation at this point.

Point 2. I think it is relatively obvious that the young man was disturbed, either clinically or as a response to the relationship he had with the victim.

Point 3. Without more information, much discussion on this story is speculation and speculation based analysis is pretty pointless. There are a few facts and they alone warrant discussion, at least they do to me.

Point 4. He is totally correct in saying that the OT calls for the stoning death of homosexuals.

Discussion:

Even if the young man was deeply disturbed and even if it could be reasonably argued that he would have found another reason to kill this man, isn’t this still a very real condemnation of his Holy Book - that he derives his motivation from an accurate reading of its text?

People point to Catcher in the Rye as a book that has been inspiring to people, some of which have gone on to commit terrible crimes - including murder. Is this not the same thing?

No.

Catcher in the Rye is not held up by significant portions of our culture as the moral guidebook from the ultimate divine authority. Catcher in the Rye itself makes no claim of authority of any kind. Catcher in the Rye doesn’t explicitly call for (or glorify in) the killing, torture, rape or slavery of anyone let alone whole groups of people.

Disturbed people will find motivation for their crazy just about anywhere, true enough. However here we are, as a society, revering a book that explicitly calls for it. We endorse it and we give it special influence and privilege. Even if it could be argued that it is a “misinterpretation” – it’s not. Even if the same book says we should NOT kill. When the book is given unique and divine authority- its words, all of its words, take on the virtue of that authority, all of its words not just the ones we like.

The Bible is not anymore evil than any other book, as long as it is just a book. Once we start saying that passages such as the ones that justify the stoning of disobedient children are divinely inspired or the inerrant word of God that is something altogether different.

Many Christians, Jews and Muslims don’t hang their religious faith on the less popular and more bloody/bigoted passages in the Bible. Many of them will say those passages are irrelevant to their understanding of God and his message. That’s great. I applaud that. It just doesn’t change the urgency of this problem. The folks that hold these relatively moderate religious views do not make up a large majority of the faithful, especially not in America, as we often want to think

We cannot ignore that many people DO take these passages seriously and it’s NOT a small fringe group. The majority of Americans still oppose equal rights for Gays, the vast majority of them with biblical justification.

(55% oppose Gay marriage, and 51% oppose civil unions :
http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/relationships/same_sex_marriage_poll_040121.html

That is just one of many statistics that support the Religious Right in their agenda to create a fundamentalist theocracy in this country.

I’m not saying all people that revere this book are bigots or violent, or even a majority. I’m saying that the book itself can be reasonably interpreted to endorse those things and it takes a more creative interpretation to disavow those messages. I’m saying that this book has too much influence in modern America and should be dismissed as a divine book, let alone an inerrant one. It is time for us as a society to renounce the special status of this book. Allowing us to more freely preserve what good messages are there (Charity, love, forgiveness) and dismiss the destructive ones. As long as the book is holy we will have to argue to establish any passage as immoral or irrelevant. Without that distinction each story, assertion, or value stands on its own, for better or worse, as what it is - the wisdom and understandings of an ancient culture, sometimes noble, often barbaric, simply what it is.

Indulge me a moment of even deeper and less founded speculation:

If it turns out that this killing was motivated in part due to a young homosexual being conflicted by his nature vs. his faith, as too many suicides have been, there also is a condemnation of the aspects of our culture that use this book, (as he did) to justify hatred against homosexuals, against self.

Here is my question: How can we call this book (the Bible) a good book or a moral book without disavowing the “naughty bits”? If we disavow the naughty bits how can we claim divine authority for any single part of the book without establishing divine authority for all of it?

Traditions Today #2: Noah and the Flood

Considering the heated and in depth discussion that my last post got going (thanks Mike D.)I would say that this series is a supreme success. 

Seriously though, I doubt that I have enough readers to get something like the discussion I would like but I think I’m going to run with it anyway. I also realize these may be exhausted topics for some of the more active apologists, and disbelievers alike, but I hope some will find it worth a read, and a comment. Maybe at some point these will prove a useful collection of musings on the morality and relevance of the Bible. That has a much better chance of being true if it’s more than just my meager thoughts being documented here. 

Up next, one of the worst stories of them all, Noah and the flood. 

Not that most people need a summary of this one but I thought I would hit the highlights. There are a couple things here that often get overlooked in Sunday school:

1.       Genesis 6:2: The sons of God marry the daughters of man – this is an affront, there are different thoughts on how but let me just point out they marry. The only real way this could be an affront that I see is that those who were worthy (angels, or worthy men chose to commit themselves to the unworthy women of the land). Note that we are only in the 6^th chapter of this book and the women once again are the vessels of destruction for worthy men. Poor, silly men.

2.       Genesis 6:3-6: More discussion of the evil and wickedness of men. “the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually”. Giants are mentioned here for the first but not the last time. 

3.       Genesis 6:7:: God decides to destroy all man, beast and foul – “for it repenteth me that I have made them.” God regrets making man? Is he second guessing himself?

4.       Genesis 6:8: God looks on Noah and finds favor in him decides not to kill him or is family. 

5.       Genesis 7 & 8: The ark, the flood. Since this is a discussion of the morality/relevance of this story we don’t need to get too much in to the logistic arguments for or against the possibility of the flood. Let’s just assume it could have happened. Everything but Noah and his family and preserved species on the ark dies, horrifically. Children, infants, kittens everything. The thought of any child panicked and gasping for air is monstrous, but all the children of existing humanity?

I have a really hard time with this one. Not just this one, but it makes my top 5 for sure. I will be less antagonistic on most topics but on this one it’s difficult to strike even the pretense of objectivity. It might have to do with the fact that I personally took part in the teaching of this story to my children, and other children, toddlers on up.

This is one of the first stories children learn. This is the one that invariably is depicted in cheery cartoon scenes.  We teach children that God’s morality is perfect and that he was directly responsible for the most complete genocide ever to occur. They are too young to question so they simply accept that it makes sense that some people deserve to die, if they are wicked enough. 

This is a story that should give them nightmares (and for some it does) but most children take it in stride, why?

What is the moral lesson here? Death is better than wickedness? Was God sparing those innocent children before they could be corrupted? I really would like someone’s perspective on this one. Is this defensible? If so, how?

Secondly, aside from the morality of it, is there anything to take from this story that is relevant to us today? If so how do you apply the lessons of this story in your life?

I look forward to your comments, I really hope people are willing to participate in a discussion on this one, sooner or later.

Little Mormon trivia: 

According to Mormon Doctrine Noah was also the angel Gabriel. Gabriel lived his earthly life as Noah.

Little belated Mormon trivia that should have gone with last post: 

According to Mormon Doctrine the Garden of Eden was actually located in present day Missouri. The references to Ethiopia and the Euphrates River, is explained by these landmarks being located there prior to the super continent Pangaea being split up buy the great flood (so I guess it’s a little topical) and the renaming of geographic areas and landmarks after. 

I guess this brings up a bonus question. For someone to believe in this Eden revelation by Joseph Smith, doesn’t the flood have to be a literal, historical account? If it was more metaphorical how then would the names be preserved? I can see how the creation story might be allegorical and therefore not present a challenge to a faithful LDS member that also accepts the science of evolution, but this little tidbit doesn’t seem to work the same way. This one pretty much requires young earth theory. If I am wrong in this, I preemptively apologize and I look forward to being set straight.   

Thank you for making it through all that. I would love to hear your thoughts. Thank you.