Stay tuned for more updates that may or may not occur.
So someone on Digg managed to unearth some Christian tracts about how homosexuality is wrong. Yeah... I'll bet you know the general response to that, and so did I. But what gets me is people who quote the Bible out of context in an effort to prove that it's somehow not... Actually... I'm not sure what their intention is. To disprove the Bible in their own shallow little way, I guess. But someone quoted the part of scripture where the men (God in disguise) visited Lot in the city and all the creepy weirdos tried to get Lot to send the men out so they could have "fun", and that Lot offered his daughters in their place. Blaaah. Very creepy, icky story. But, yes... That's what was quoted, and the guy was all "yeah, the Bible sure is moral... It must be okay to give your girls to homos." Good ol' context.
Let me just paste here what I replied with. I'm sure it'll get moderated into oblivion on Digg:
You "experts" of the Bible are anything but... Anyone who's read any form of literature would know that things have context. If you would read the ENTIRE story, you'd realize that Lot WAS an arrogant moron who was given the choice to live in that city full of weirdos because he wanted to graze his cattle in the best land. The city was going to be destroyed, so Abraham begged the visiting men (God in disguise) to spare Lot, so they went into the city to get him. Lot, in turn, begged the men to visit his house. Let's completely forget that Lot made a horrible choice so he could make more money, and that, yes, offering his daughters was a sick thing to do. Lot is never supposed to be a "good guy", but more an example that greed blinds you and makes you do some pretty nasty things.
But let's take quotes completely out of context so we can twist the intended meaning. That's like quoting the part where Frodo claims the Ring as his own in Mount Doom and saying he's the bad guy because of it. If you read the ENTIRE story, you'd know he'd not do that if he was in his right mind. But yeah... This is Digg. This place thrives on taking quotes out of context to prove a shallow point, doesn't it?
If you're trying to make the Bible sound bad (or even anything else), or you're trying to prove a point with scripture to let you do something? It's wise and just plain all-around common sense to read the scripture you're quoting in context, or you just make yourself look like an idiot. Of course Lot was an arrogant poop... He was not the "good guy" in the story. He's only in this story because Abraham asked that he be saved before the city was destroyed. That doesn't make Lot the starring moral character! On the contrary, he was the man blinded by greed, thinking it was okay to subject his family to that perverse city just so be could be rich. Yes! Lot was a (insert term for idiot here), and he was lucky to have extended family that cared about him or he would've been destroyed along with everyone else.
Update 1
It seems my little post has made quite the ripple in the Digg community. I got a response in a record time of about 2 minutes. Here's what was propositioned:
Yet: If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads. (New International Version) What context should that be taken in? Or is this one pretty clear on it's own?
To which someone responded:
Keep in mind the very same chapter says that married couples that have sex while the wife is on her period should be shunned, I don't think anyone believes that. Yet fundamentalists always quote the passage that is only five or so verses away as fact.
To which someone responded:
If you take that IN context, it's part of the Levitical laws that were laid down for the health and safety of the Israelites -- America isn't exactly the same as the Middle East a few thousand years ago.
To all of which I responded with:
Leviticus is Jewish law and only applies to the world before Christ's death, burial, and resurrection. After that, a new law for Christians was instituted and is contained entirely in the New Testament. While Leviticus is Jewish law only, it does still have some good ideas on health. However, there are a lot of areas in the New Testament that discuss "fornication" and how you should avoid it. Avoiding fornication includes, guess what? Marriage between 1 man and 1 woman, as put forth in 1 Corinthians 7. There are lots of other places that discuss fornication and how it's evil. I'd suggest finding an online Bible (King James Version) and searching for instances of the word. This really isn't the best place for me to be teaching a course on how homosexuality is, indeed, forbidden.
I will, however, give you readers a direct link to the online Bible I searched!
Then, in response to my very first comment, someone wrote (spelling and grammer intact):
"Abraham pleads with God not to destroy Sodom, and God agrees that he would not destroy the city if there were 50 righteous people in it, then 45, then 30, then 20, or even ten righteous people. The Lord's two angels only found one righteous person living in Sodom, Abraham's nephew Lot. Consequently, God destroyed the city."
So god thinks that Lot is righteous person!? I think u should read the entire story.
To which I also responded:
Being a righteous person in the Old Testament was a little different than being righteous in the New Testament, after Christ's death, burial and resurrection, where you could then become a Christian by means entirely different than the Jews were used to. It could be that Lot was the only person in the city who didn't participate in the evils going on there, or it could mean that he was the only one who believed in God. I haven't really been asked this question before, so I'll need to do some research on it. But there's no doubt that Lot made a terrible choice by moving into the city to begin with, and there's no doubt he moved into the valley to begin with because he wanted the best grazing land. But yes... I have read the entire story.
Ah... I think I need some insight into what being righteous meant back before the 10 Commandments and Jewish Law and the post-resurrection way of doing things. I really haven't bothered to, because, well... You don't do things the way they did it in the Old Testament anymore.