What Would it Take to Change your mind on ...

[qwazse]

"For instance, for those of us in the latter camp, it has been well-established that Ephesians probably wasn't written by Paul at all but was written much later by an author who was trying to prove to the Romans that Christianity wasn't a threat (as the Romans had taken Christianity out of the protected Jewish fold and deemed it an "unlicensed" religion). Just one example."

 

So, then, for those of you in "that camp", was the Roman's 1:27 opinion on homosexuality Paul's, or was it from some unnamed second century religious hack whose opinion we have license to disrespect because it was only held dear for 1800 years instead of 1900?

 

Sounds like wanting religion to follow instead of following religion.

 

Eagledad - Religion won't have to be outlawed -- just watered down.

[Vicki]

See, this would be why I'm not going there...so far, I haven't indulged in any obviously biased, inflammatory language - I haven't called anybody a hack nor have I accused anyone of disrespect.

 

And I won't.

 

But, for some alternative viewpoints which you can castigate and dismiss if you wish, go to

 

http://www.religioustolerance.org/hom_bibc5.htm

 

 

Vicki(This message has been edited by Vicki)

[skeptic]

Pack;

 

I can guarantee, you will know. Try catching piglets to castrate them, while the mother is in the pen. Keeping her occupied long enough to grab them a few at a time is an adventure to be sure; and she lets you know her feelings very loudly. The same goes for catching a 300+ lb hog to ring it, so it will quit rooting the gardens. When you finally corral it long enough to get the ringer on its snout, you think its previous noise was minor. Fun and games on the farm.

[Vicki]

Pack, an annoyed pig, very much like a human, will grunt at you first and if they get too annoyed, they'll actually try to run you down:

[evmori]

For instance, for those of us in the latter camp, it has been well-established that Ephesians probably wasn't written by Paul at all but was written much later by an author who was trying to prove to the Romans that Christianity wasn't a threat (as the Romans had taken Christianity out of the protected Jewish fold and deemed it an "unlicensed" religion).

[Vicki]

It's a good thing OGE is the OP on this one - he knew what he was going to get once it got past three or four pages!

 

Vicki

[Vicki]

>Ya gotta stop believing everything you read in wikipedia!>

 

Ah, yes, dismissing the other's statement as unfounded, this was not unexpected either, Ed.

 

Glad to see that seminary degree I earned wasn't completely for nought.

 

Vicki

 

[OldGreyEagle]

>Ya gotta stop believing everything you read in wikipedia!>

 

Can you back up your claim that Vicki believes this because she read it in Wikipedia?

 

Where is your documentation?

 

"If you aren't going to back up your claim then don't post it."

 

Sauce for the Goose...

(This message has been edited by OldGreyEagle)

[qwazse]

I'm sorry, V. I had no intention of saying you held low regard the scribes who worked most of their lives to promulgate a few lines of text for a few select readers while we so easily type as much for millions to read in a matter of seconds. To be fair your mention "progressive" faiths favor conferring full church rights to homosexuals shows bias. Why not "permissive" rather than "progressive"? But I digress.

 

I just don't see everyone adopting a liberal theology (nice link, by the way) as "what it will take" in OGE's start of this topic.

 

First a lot of people aren't buying it. For example, "non permissive" Presbyterians currently censure those who ordain homosexuals. That's because liberal theology at its worst presumes that who we are outshines who the ancients were. At its best it assumes the ancients would have liked who we've become. Regardless, it tells moderns "don't just pick up a Bible and read it! You need *our* help." As you know, the level of mistrust is more than palpable.

 

But if they did buy in, what about shifting sands? Let's say a religion globally changes its stance on what is normal sexuality, everybody falls in line. Who's to say they wont lead "the flock" in a different direction 50 years from now? That's what happened to the Roman empire for centuries.

[Vicki]

OK, OGE, I'll play - my primary reference is Dr. Dennis C. Duling. His c.v. is on

 

http://www3.canisius.edu/~duling/

 

Another includes the Rev. Dr. Deborah Krause, Dean of Eden Seminary who wrote a commentary on Timothy, referencing Ephesians, and from whom I took a class on the non-Gospel New Testament.

 

Yet another is Dr. Stephen Patterson

 

http://www.westarinstitute.org/Fellows/patterson.html

 

Vicki

[Vicki]

>I just don't see everyone adopting a liberal theology (nice link, by the way) as "what it will take" in OGE's start of this topic>

 

But that's not what I was talking about and I said so when I said in my initial post that I was going off-topic - my initial post was responding to a poster who claimed that it would require outlawing religion in order for homosexuality to be considered as not deviant or wrong. I was simply pointing out that there are a lot of religious people out there who would take exception to that statement.

 

I was not claiming that a liberal theological argument would change anyone's mind. I know better. I agree with those posters who have said that only personal experience will lead anyone to change their mind.

 

Vicki

[Horizon]

qwazse said:

 

"First a lot of people aren't buying it. For example, "non permissive" Presbyterians currently censure those who ordain homosexuals. That's because liberal theology at its worst presumes that who we are outshines who the ancients were. At its best it assumes the ancients would have liked who we've become. Regardless, it tells moderns "don't just pick up a Bible and read it! You need *our* help." As you know, the level of mistrust is more than palpable. "

 

I am a member of a Presbyterian Church (PCUSA) that is part of the Covenant Network (aka Progressives according to some labels). We have NEVER said "don't just pick up a Bible and read it! You need *our* help."

 

The Covenant Network has a site here: http://www.covnetpres.org/

 

As for what it would take to change my mind? It was already changed. I was raised by "non-permissives" who taught me to hate homosexuals, Jews, Mexicans and Blacks. I changed my mind once I got to know some real (as opposed to stereotyped) homosexuals, Jews, Mexicans and Blacks. My change was further solidified once I started following behavioral genetics news and research, along with research into criminal psychology.

 

It would take a ground shaking change in both science and my Christian faith to switch back to the bigotry of my youth.

[packsaddle]

Why does this whole discussion always resort to religion at its base? If this is the case, of course no one is going to agree on what it would take. That's because, "The purpose of religion isn't to bring people together." I just love this quote.

 

As for annoyed pigs, I guess I shouldn't have asked, me being a pig of the male chauvinist type - I should have known already. Besides, my nose ring didn't actually bother me that much when my wife installed it. I do kind of miss the rooting around though.

 

Hi Vicki!(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Beavah]

This thread is still going on? And now we've got singing pigs and someone has fitted packsaddle with a nose ring. Guess it goes with his new island habitat.

 

I will say there are two Christian camps - those who believe in the "inerrancy" of scripture and those who believe that the Bible was written by human beings in a particular place and time and that it helps us to understand applications to our time and place if we study it from that perspective.

 

Yah, forgive me for sayin' so, but only two Christian camps? That seems like a remarkably simplistic analysis and yet another straw pig.

 

I think there are dozens on dozens of Christian views, eh? From literal fundamentalists (which you mischaracterize as "inerrancy") to da real "inerrancy" communities who aren't fundamentalist, and on and on up to da UCC, UU, and then liberal academics who feel the Bible is a nice, quaint storybook and then make up their own stories about it.

 

And I'm never quite sure what to make about "da bible was written at a particular place and time." Of course it was. So was Einstein's paper on General Relativity, or Jefferson's writing in da Declaration of Independence. Doesn't mean that the content isn't still accurate and applicable today.

 

So let's revise Eagledad's statement to "you'd have to ban the vast majority of traditional religious practice which has been around for more than 50 years." Which, as quaze suggests, is a remarkably brazen thing for folks who've only been around da last 50 years to do.

 

Kinda like da bankers who say "let's ignore all da stuff from 30 or more years ago about business ethics and prudent financing and regulation. It's so dated and un-modern"

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Vicki]

B, I'll forgive you and it's not simplistic. If you meant straw man and were just being funny, well, whatever.

 

But, >So let's revise Eagledad's statement to "you'd have to ban the vast majority of traditional religious practice which has been around for more than 50 years." Which, as quaze suggests, is a remarkably brazen thing for folks who've only been around da last 50 years to do. >

 

is just wrong. Current "progessive/permissive" Christian thought goes at least as far back as Erasmus'(a contemporary in the late 1400's of Luther and Calvin) espousal of free will. Not to mention Kant, Hume, and Locke (The Enlightenment) in the 1700's. You know better.

 

Of course, there's those pesky Anglicans (and, later, Methodists) who insisted that blacks should be allowed to be baptized and worship and, further down the road, agreed that women should be allowed to vote in assemblies. Radical changes in worship practices. Oops, that started gaining momentum in the late 1700's.

 

Vicki

(This message has been edited by Vicki)