Uh, if you look at the history of Christianity, it's a savage, murdering, plundering, enslaving and raping fraud. But that doesn't seem to be part of their history. I doubt they would even care.

People who believe in fairies and monsters and invisible avengers can't really be reasoned with logically.

God said Lot and his daughters not and his sons!

Preaching to the choir here, Dan. But let's face it: when has logic and consistency EVER been part of the Christian playbook? Hell, it only took the Catholic Church - what? 450 some-odd years to finally publicly admit that Galileo's assertion that the earth was not the center of the universe was irrefutably correct. Give them a couple hundred more years and perhaps most of the haters will finally be forced to admit that homosexuality is as normal in humans as it is in the animal kingdom; but by then we'll probably have discovered some lower form of life on another planet for them to persecute instead.

Regarding the cherry picking: there's a line of logic common to these types of evangelical churches that where a particular principle or concept from the OT has been discussed favorably or otherwise reaffirmed by the NT, that principle is thereby "revived." Paul cares a lot about teh gayz, but not crop planting and all that arcane junk, so that's how you get the justification for adhering to the anti-gay stuff but not any of the other stupid fucking rules.

@3 Hello fellow SMBC fan :D

If they took the Old Testament at all seriously, they wouldn't have crucifixes. That's not even a lifestyle/societal commandment; that's basic theology, the very core of a monotheistic tradition with a God of negative attributes. And yet they ascribe form and human emotion to the Divine, leading to what according to the Pentateuch is undeniably idolatry.
"Turn ye not unto the idols, nor make to yourselves molten gods: I am the LORD your God." (Leviticus 19:4)

Oh, I left off disease spreading, too. Christian missionaries spread a lot of deadly diseases.

I like Rev. Adam Hamilton's approach (very popular United Methodist pastor/preacher). He says that Jesus was and is the definitive Word of God (John 1) and what Jesus said and did trumps anything else in the Bible that goes against what Jesus said and did. And Jesus lived his life reaching out to those who were marginalized by society.

There's also another interesting thing that conservative evangelical "Christians" do when using the Old Testament and the New Testament. If you point out that the Old Testament references are only to sexual behavior between males therefore leaving lesbians off the hook, THAT's when they turn to the one reference by Paul in the New Testament that mentions women having sex with women.

This is the classic example of confirmation bias. These conservatives are anti-gay and they turn to the Bible to support that bias that they already have. But you can find support for almost anything if you do a selective reading of certain verses from the Bible.

Pastor Gallaty looks a little ....gay. Just an observation though.

Power corrupts. Never mind that Jesus took the power away from church leaders because they had become corrupt. Church leaders are still trying to put themselves between the individual and God. And it doesn't matter what religion it is, those in power almost always choose to stay in power, at the expense of the people they lead. The problem isn't faith. It is the human desire for power at all costs that is the problem. Religion will get twisted every time.

Christians would never repent for discriminating against gay people like they had for racism because African-Americans could not change the color of their skin

You know what can be changed? That shirt. You're a fucking pastor preaching on Sunday morning - wear a goddam tie!

yeah, the rational -- which i wouldn't mind a liberal biblical scholar addressing -- is what @5 says above. the old testament is null except what is repeated in the new testament, the reasoning goes. paul says both that some sexual immorality still applies, AND also says, for instance, that most food is acceptable to eat. so they aren't entirely just picking and choosing, there is a shred of support for the theory. it would be nice, and maybe if i have the time some day i'll look into it, to write up a good response that speaks the language of fundamentalists and disputes their point. but most of the leviticus arguments i hear do not speak the language of fundamentalists because they have already been giving reasons as to why their view is correct. it's mangled reasoning, but it's enough to justify their opinion.

(it's actually even more nuanced than that, jesus said i have not come to abolish the law but to fulfill it. the idea is that the OT set a place of overly strict rules in place to accomplish a bunch of purposes: to provide a standard for living, to show what holiness to god should look like, and to demonstrate that NO ONE can follow these laws and therefore the grace of god is required. when you receive the grace of god you are no long bound by ANY of the OT rules, per se, but you will be led by the holy spirit and the NT as to what is the appropriate behavior for you. for some this means eating whatever, but for others it means only eating kosher foods. for some it means marrying for other is means remaining single. the laws that are repeated in the NT are the ones modern fundamentalists basically treat as the current holy law. the laws that are repealed in the NT as the ones christians mostly ignore completely, and those are that are not mentioned -- such as tattoos and fabric -- are generally ignored as well.)

My own feeling about this is that I could give a flying fuck what the Bible says. Even if Jesus said "Kill all the gays!".

Because I'm not a Christian. Christian laws apply to Christian people. I don't have to care what the Bible says about anything the same way I don't have to fast on Ramadan, and don't have to have a ritual bath after my period. The laws of a religion apply to the followers of that religion. Those who are repulsed by the laws of any particular faith always have the option of leaving that faith.

Whenever we argue this point with Christians, we are reinforcing their point that the laws of their faith should apply to those who are not believers. I think it's a mistake to continue this argument - it weakens our position, even though it's a good argument. Instead, the way to counter this shit is to say "I am not a Christian, and therefore the laws of the Christian faith do not apply to me. The laws I must follow are the secular laws of the secular state I live in".

These guys have to spout this stuff all the time just to convince themselves of it. Let's get real, most Christians don't believe the vast majority of Christianity or the Bible. Most don't even attempt to emulate Christ at all. It's like being a member of Freemasonry. They do the silly rituals and wear the funny hats, but they don't actually believe in it. It's just really a social club for like minded people with a lot of silly ritual laid over it for show.

I always thought we could interpret Sodom as an anti-rape parable, but that's just me.

Also that's pretty abhorrent that he called defending your personhood "goofing."

The paragraph after the asterisk is what I always think about when people use Sodom and Gomorrah as evidence that homosexuality is sinful. I've also seen plenty of Christians use S&G as a sort of catch all for "a place where all kinds of bad things happen." Once when a friend of mine said that the US had become the new S&G because of blah blah blah sex shaming blah blah blah, I said, if you mean that the US is doing a terrible job of taking care of their poor and homeless, which was the primary sin of S&G as stated by God in the bible, then yes, the US is the new S&G.

There's a great line in the Woody Allen movie "Hannah and Her Sisters" where a character played by Max Von Sydow says "If Jesus came back and saw what was going on in his name, he would never stop throwing up."

This is why I don't want the Kingdom of Heaven. If their God exists, he is a hateful fuck, and if there is a Hell, I'll go there, because I was given choice, and I reject the notion that anything a human could do in their lifetime deserves such a punishment as eternal suffering.

As a non-Christian, I always assumed that what the service leader said from the pulpit (the sermon) would be roughly the same in a Christian church as it was in my Reform Jewish synagogue. I was absolutely gob-smacked to discover that so many "sermons" "preached" by spiritual leaders are just anti-gay invective.

I simply do not understand why this is so dang important to these people. What does it matter? Why do they care?
Surely they must think that there are more important things to care about than who people want to have sex with.

I agree with agony @14. If you aren't Christian, don't bother debating part of the bible by using another part of it, because that gives the weight of authority to something you don't acknowledge as authoritative. They can spin their wheels all they want, but it doesn't have any meaning or carry any weight.

@16: No, because the sin wasn't rape, it was rape of strangers (the angels).

There's a lot of stuff in Leviticus that homophobes should be pummeled mercilessly with over the heads at every opportunity. They read Leviticus 20:15, but never seem to get to Leviticus 20:18, which would pretty much cast every practicing heterosexual couple into the wilderness. Leviticus's insanity over menstruation is, you should pardon the expression, in full flow in 15:19-30.

Even the most observant Jews giggle at that passage and dismiss it with a simple observation that as the Temple was destroyed, it's impossible to keep, so just, you know, nevermind. But what excuse do, say, Mormons have? They built their own temple. They could easily line up every month and sacrifice the necessary pigeons in atonement for their "sin" of menstruating, after living on the back porch away from their family's furnishings for the prescribed number of days.

Hey, agony @14 - you rock! This is such a basic point, but one I've never really thought about. Well done.

No Seattleblues weighing in?

@14 You are correct, but they don't see it that way. If you look at their history and you listen to them, you see that they think they have a right to impose their beliefs on you by law "greater than the laws of man". So while just saying "I don't believe your religion..." is nice, it doesn't register in their dim brains. They think they have the right to use any means whatsoever to force you.

"it's not their fault they're black."

Jesus will fuck up your mind. Avoid his fans as much as possible and speak slowly and use small words if you do have one howl in your personal space.

@14 wins this one. I refuse to let Christians believe that their Bible means anything to me.

'Uh, if you look at the history of Christianity, it's a savage, murdering, plundering, enslaving and raping fraud. But that doesn't seem to be part of their history. I doubt they would even care.'

--Naw. That's more the history of the white race.

Agreed with agony @14.

Oh, and @31 : it's not "their" Bible, actually ; it's only "their translation" of the Jewish Tanakh.