Sunday, February 18, 2007

Supid is as stupid does...

The sort of people who star in this clip can be found here, at "liberalsmustdie.com".

If your entire premise is that "liberals must die," because your faith and beliefs cannot stand against a few pointed questions and a hard rain of facts - you are too damn stupid to breed, much less teach children.

Of course, us Libertarians may argue about Evolution, but we have great faith in Social Darwinism! A little too much, truth be told, and there's history behind us; there's any number of examples of wacky bible cults such as what infest our Body Politic at the moment that went down the toilet after the millennium-before-last.

Of course, if you really want to understand these folks - read their literature, and the folks that advertise in it, and who buy those sucker mailing lists.

Anyway, the hard core 6000 year creationist world view is depedant upon a literal - sort of - reading of the King James Bible - the most beautiful and least accurate translation there is. We have come a long way and found quite a few more original sources than King James's translators had.

Even IF I grant the "inerrency of God's Word" as presented in the King James - just for the sake of argument - I sure as hell do NOT grant the unspoken assumption of "inerrnency of comprehension" that's clearly being claimed. The folks depicted are clearly those who could not be trusted to assemble a bicycle from the instructions.

But let us go one step further. If you believe the Word of God is true, maybe you should actually take it at it's word. When it's silent on a topic, maybe YOU should be too. But these folks rely heavily on the Doctrine of Original sin - which is not explicitly in the bible. That was St. Augustine's bright idea. In fact, the various stories of Genesis have no conclusions to them, no explicit "moral." They are supposed to provoke questions, not supply definitive answers.

Further, if you are looking for condemnation of homosexual behavior, you will find the Bible a week reed. It's prohibited for "a man to lie with a man as a woman," which is in the Levitical code, and is apparently as tortured a phrase in Hebrew as it is in English. The law of Parsimony suggests that if God had wished to say that he disapproved of men having sex with men, he could have said so. Social context suggests that this was a prohibition of engaging in sex with Caananite temple prostitutes and priests - who apparently dressed as women. As for Lesbianism - the bible says not word one. Well, unless you read The Book of Ruth in a certain way, in which case it might be advocating committed same-sex relationships.

The "sin of Sodom" - google that for any number of perspectives - is most persuasively, from both text and culture, the abuse of strangers under the protection of Lot's household. At the time and even today, hospitality is sacred, an issue of importance beyond almost any other cultural imperative. hospitality and shelter were matters of survival.

I have immense respect for the Bible - and the Word in general. But I have far, far less faith in my fellow person's ability to read than I do in God's ability to write. Hell, that's a major theme with the Prophets. Where do these folks get the idea that their wackadoo world view, only vaguely connected to the Bible - is the result of any special understanding of God's Word? Because it's a truly "special" understanding, worthy of the "short bus." Don't take my word for it - ask any serious theologian. Or better yet, study a few dead ones; they aren't likely to be biased against these folks.

I commend to you St. Julian of Norwich. And I ain't even a Catholic. But then, more than a few of the catholic hierarchy of the day would have called her anything but "Catholic."



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