I'm not going to debate you, I'm tired of debating hypocrites on this, I'm going to tell you.
ANYONE WHO PULLS Sodom and Gomorrah out at me to bash LGBTQ+ People will have to answer for just how fucked up the incestuous straight sex in the story is, the "righteous" straight guy offering up his little girls to be gang raped. Raping them himself and fathering children with them (blaming it on them, as rapist Dads of today still do)*, as he is still to be considered "righteous". Not to mention that that piece of shit presented as righteous isn't the one who gets turned to salt for doing those things while his wife does for doing what any human being of any intelligence would do, look to see their home town burning down.
I'll put it in your face every time you try that.
As I said, I don't believe any of it ever happened, it's got every aspect of folk legend to it. And folk legend in a deeply wicked and evil culture and social context. I'd as soon believe Hollywood on antebellum slavery or the ol' way'est.
Either you believe the subjugation of Women, the sexual sacrifice of Girls is against the eternal law of God or you don't, I do believe that. Clearly too few of those who were experts in Scripture and religion - no doubt all male and mostly straight men - haven't so far. I think what Lott did was evil then and it's evil now and he was a piece of shit just as some father who peddled his daughters in porn and raped them himself would be. Scripture that calls someone like that "righteous" is not credible. Any tradition that claims that is the case now needs to be monitored for pedophile rape. That the story doesn't acknowledge that makes it not only useless as moral instruction, it impeaches its credibility as such.
That a bunch of early scribes and priests decided to put it in that fascinating mess of a book, Genesis, without noticing that the "righteous" Lott both offered his little girls to be raped and that he was still not struck by lightning or turned to a pillar of shit for getting drunk and incestuously raping his daughters - no doubt he was the one who claimed they got him drunk and made him do it, sounds just like a rapist-father on trial now - that the scribes and priests who kept that piece of tripe in Scripture didn't see fit to point out he was a sex criminal only indicts their moral judgement and character.
I think the failure of the many centuries of those who comment on the story to point out the moral depravity of it and that it has no credibility as moral authority must take Scripture less seriously than I do because I can't believe they haven't condemned it out of consideration as authoritative thousands of years ago.
Maybe in the centuries that have passed when that story was read and cited and commented on in which those things didn't definitively discredit the claims in the story and those made about it in regard to gay sex, they weren't much bothered by what he did to his daughters. Which shows just how depraved that patriarchal habit of thought is and how pernicious it is, even today. Lott would have fit right in with the very worst of sex criminals today. I'd give him life without possibility of parole.
That the same religious hypocrites who cite that today to condemn gay men who have sex only with competently consenting men today, especially men who are in faithful marriages means that they are straight sex degenerates who can't make those distinctions.
My comments on Paul are true. I read him and his history,
- how he atypically didn't marry in a society in which just about all men married, in a society that put such complete stock in fathering children, especially sons,
- that he agonized publicly over wanting to do what he deeply felt he shouldn't do
- even as he said that straight guys should marry if they can't be chaste, as, indeed, almost no straight guys seem to be able to be,
- that his concept of same-sex sex is wedded to the most evil of sex crimes - crimes such as those which Lott is guilty of proposing that the men of Sodom commit against his little girls,
- and that he can't imagine what any person reading the truth in their hearts would admit is nothing like that, faithful, committed, self-sacrificing love of two men for each other,
yeah, I think Paul was a deeply troubled, self-hating gay man as well as a rather amazing commentator on the Gospel of Jesus (who seems to not have shared Paul's sexual obsessions) I would bet that almost every gay man of my generation, if they had this pointed out to him would recognize the type. There are a number of Republicans of the type sitting in Congress and on the Supreme Court right now if you want examples, only, unlike Paul, they have no redeeming character traits at all. That straight guys and Women might not recognize it doesn't surprise me much. I'm kind of surprised it wasn't a major feature of Pauline study in the past because I think it's glaringly obvious.
I have not made it a secret that I admit that Scripture is a product of human minds, I say that even as I think much of it is inspired, though there are long passages of it which I think are not only not inspired by God but some of them are dross and some of them, like the story of Lott, like the stories of Abraham pimping his wife and getting wealth from it, like his raping his wife's slave and sending her and his own son to die in the wilderness, and so many others are morally depraved. They stand out as a product of the worst sins rampant in human societies then and now.
In every part of Scripture there are dangers. Since it is a product of human consciousness, it all shares in the limits, the faults and follies of human consciousness. I've admitted the same about the sciences, it is absurd to not admit it about that other product of human imagination, Scripture.
IF THERE IS SOMETHING THAT IS MADE OBVIOUS IN EVEN A LITERAL READING OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IT IS THAT GOD IS PRESENTED AS CHOOSING TO ACT IN SOME OF THE OBVIOUSLY IMMORAL FIGURES IN THE STORY. Brothers and mothers who cheat their brothers, sons and husbands and fathers, deceiving blind old fools who want to bestow their blessings on their favorites, older sons, because they like the food they cook, many of whom are pretty much as much sleeveens as their younger brothers, people who are presented as incredibly unjust and unfair, people who do terrible things. Even in the institution that God, God's-self warned about the evils of, the Kingship of Israel and the sinners who were anointed to that evil institution. That God does not act through the purest of People is evident in the evils of the Hebrew historical accounts, a self-critical narrative - along with the Prophets - that makes the Scriptures more credible than pagan mythology. The people who wrote those down mistake the flawed vessels - which we all are - as "righteous" is something I am certain is a misreading of the true Word of God.
I think one of the major dangers of Scripture being a product of human consciousness is that it is inevitably bound to get things wrong, often no more than hinting in the right direction. Making "the word of God" (which none of the written words are) an ultimate moral authority is bound to lead to bad things as well as possibly leading in a better direction. I think any attempt to use "scripture" to make civil law which doesn't take these limits of Scripture into account is bound to lead to disaster as, in fact, such use of it has frequently been a moral catastrophe. The modernist reaction to that in secularism may have started as a moral corrective but it, as much a human solution, is extremely problematic in many details.
I think the Hebrew Prophetic insight that the real Word of God is not written on scrolls but is written on the heart is among the most profound truths of all of Scripture. When we really hear and act according to that real Word of God instead of our own limits and sinfulness, it is what enlightens our lives. It is the only thing that enlightens even our understanding of Scriptures, when we don't read Scripture in light of that, it makes it a tool of our worst parts. If Fundamentalists want a real text that is literally true, it's a text that will never be literal in any sense because it is not written in letters. The idea that an accurate text is essential to pin down just what we are to believe in is not only folly, it forces the professor of religion to pretend that the Scripture is a perfect oracle when it most certainly is not.
The books of Scripture are not only not uniform in their character, many parts of it I'd say especially Genesis and such as the book of Joshua are depraved and apt to lead to gross sin and evil, every passage that has ever been used to subjugate Women, the poor, slaves, LGBTQ people, foreigners, to wage wars of conquest and genocide is indicted by those results. "By their fruits you will know them" is as true as the written Scriptures ever get. You can legitimately judge that use of Scripture by what results from the would-be religious figures who make use of them.
I will confess that I take what Jesus is said to have said extremely seriously when it is an obvious and clear reflection of that summation of The Law he made, do to others, especially the least among us, what you would have them do to you. I take him with entire seriousness when he tells us that the Great Commandments are part of what will save us, Love God and Love Others. I say that even as I think the recorded accounts of some of his sayings and parables are extremely difficult to make conform to those. I think in a lot of those he was commenting on the world as it is, not on the Kingdom of God as it should be. I think some of it got seriously muddled in the writing down. I take the Gospels so seriously that I admit what I think are the problems of some passages of it.
Other parts of Scripture are a glorious and clear reflection of the real Scripture which I talked about earlier. AND I SAY THAT YOU CANNOT TAKE THOSE SERIOUSLY WHILE PRETENDING ALL OF WHAT IS CONTAINED IN SCRIPTURE HAS THAT CHARACTER because a lot of it is absolutely incompatible with those passages. That some will make mistakes in understanding that really inspired Scripture, that which reflects what is correctly written on the heart is certainly true. God has not seen fit to give us a direct and complete understanding of God's Law though we can experience something of God's Love. God works in the medium of human imperfection and even in human weakness and sin. But that's certainly as true of the written Scripture, the history of the use of Scripture is full of its depraved and dishonest use. Listen to the Republican-fascists on the "Bible" if you need a refresher course in that stinking "religion." If it is "inspired" what the hell do we think that inspiration consisted of except human beings interpreting their inspiration and, they being fully human, getting it wrong in lots of cases.
I strongly suspect that the great Prophet of the Law, Moses, whoever he was, probably spent a long period in very deep contemplative prayer and that he got The Law in that period. Whether it was on a named Mountain or not, I think that the heart of The Law seems like an individual inspiration.
I think he probably told or wrote down the law. Maybe on tablets, though I'd doubt they would be chiseled on stone. I think he must have been disappointed in its reception and he probably and frequently blew his top over that. I think that the falling back into polytheistic materialist religion is the reality behind that the golden calf yarn. Moses, great Prophet he was, was merely human, himself. I think the words of the account of him being given The Law in that far better book, Exodus, are probably not literally how it happened. I say that even as I doubt large passages of The Law as are set out in the Books of Moses are a correct reading of the Law, of the Scripture written on the heart. I think some of it stinks of later, self-interestedly, priestly insertion, I think some of those priests hated LGBTQ types as found among them then, I don't think it was all just they were afraid of pagan temple prostitution corrupting the Children of Israel. They were capable of more discernment than that.
I think the entire Hebrew monotheistic tradition WHICH I CHOOSE TO BE PART OF is nothing more or less than a very rich and more accurate reading of the true Law of God written truly on the heart but which is so badly read so often. I think that is not unrelated to Jesus telling his followers that they had to become like little children, innocent of the cultural and religious distortions of that discernment.
I think Moses had a deeper discernment of that than most of the figures of the early Prophetic tradition, I think that's why the later Prophets so frequently cite his Law which resonates with the Law they find in their own hearts. Sometimes I find the articulation by the later Prophets more convincing. Especially when it comes to justice for the least among us, none of them as credible as I find Jesus. I think Jesus is a singular figure in the Hebrew Tradition, I find in him a totally different level of inspirational credibility. And he had some interesting things to say about this. I think that's what Jesus meant when he talked about not one letter of the law not being erased even as he erased so many of those letters as written on parchment. Letters he knew and expertly commented on.
I know that what is being talked about in the Bible when it talks about same-sex sex acts has nothing to do with faithful sexual love between two Gay Men or two Women in a faithful, committed, loving relationship. The worst uses of same-sex sex now have nothing to do with that, probably even less than the worst uses of straight sex have with such straight marriages. I know it because I won't let words on a page distort what I can read in my own heart and see with my own eyes.
I take the written Scripture seriously enough to admit what's wrong with it when it's clearly wrong - the story of Sodom and Gomorrah that flagship of LGBTQ hatred is seriously fucked up and those who use it without acknowledging it is are totally dishonest.
I think if Christianity has any hope of a future, and I hope it does since I think it is the foremost source of nourishment for egalitarian democracy, Christians had better start paying more attention to the signs of the times and admit that such passages of the Bible are morally depraved as well as the entirety of later theology and dogma and doctrine that pretended they were anything but depraved and wrong. The patriarchal assumptions found in the Bible and which exist everywhere, most dramatically today in the Islamic areas in which Women are so evilly subjugated now, serially married and thrown off in divorce, girls married to old men, and in the sex-industry that flourishes under secular liberal-democracy (it wouldn't under a true egalitarian democracy) have to be destroyed.
The role that the written Scriptures of monotheism or secular governance plays in maintaining them is among the greatest evils of our time. The foremost supporters of that pretty much uniformly hate LGBTQ People and oppress us even as they violate their claimed moral codes. Look at Putin's use of that issue and how he manipulates the Russian Orthodox Patriarchy with it. By their fruits you will know them. All of them, even the ones in clerical costume and thumping on Bibles and in the Republican-fascist caucus of the Congress.
* As that pedo piece of shit Gore Vidal did when the Catholic priest-pedophile scandal hit the news. He blamed the victims. I don't see any difference between him and those ancient scribes and priests who wrote down and still write down the story of Lott do.
