Real World Event Discussions

Religion as an Invention

POSTED BY: AnthonyT
UPDATED: Sunday, August 23, 2026 16:07
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THEHAPPYTRADER

Wednesday, April 13, 2011 10:56 PM

And my day that started at 5 am is finally done! Hurray for self employment! (I'm technically an independent contractor teacher/therapist for that Autism program I've mentioned).

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It's better argued that heterosexuality for the Greeks and Romans then was not like the present day.

That is an excellent and more accurate point. I think we can agree that sexuality in general was different or at least viewed differently.

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Leviticus isn't really taken out of context, but then I think Leviticus is so outdated that it could be completely dumped without any impact to modern practice of the religion. (Does anyone even read Leviticus anymore, aside for the homosexuality passage and other stupid rules about clothes and kosher meat?)

I disagree with you in theory, but more or less agree in practice. I suppose a Christian could ignore Leviticus out of convenience and behave more or less in the same manner I do, but the sentiment behind the action (or perhaps inaction) is kind of important to me. Like the deference between a conscientious non-voter and an apathetic non-voter.

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So I'm also good if you say you are Christian, and don't care about homosexuality or what people do behind closed doors. Clearly that is a valid pair of beliefs to have that can be held simultaneously, as you obviously do so.

Thank you and I'll try and make this my last 'IMO the bible tells us' post if I can manage.

I believe the bible tells us all to be true to ourselves and not be ashamed of how God created us. Homosexuals shouldn't have to live in shame, fear or secrecy, least of all from Christians, who should be loving all of God's creations. I wish more Christians would speak out against the hatred and persecution of God's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender children.

BYTEMITE

Wednesday, April 13, 2011 11:06 PM

Yay. :)

RIONAEIRE

Thursday, April 14, 2011 1:12 AM

... erm ... pederasty, yuck, and no one thought to mention how yucky that is so I'll do it. Yuck.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

BYTEMITE

Thursday, April 14, 2011 1:31 AM

I did say salacious. That's not positive.

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, April 14, 2011 4:28 AM

Just a side note about girl-on-girl, which wasn't really thrown in with guy-on-guy as "homosexuality" until the 1990s. I remember when it was considered a completely different animal, and the further back in time you go, the more this is so. Many of our moral values are very very recent.

Edit: Phooey. I apologize. I edited this post before, and sentences got connected that weren't on the same subject when I wrote them.

Re: 1980s, underage love interests were common in movies, everyone knows this, you all saw these movies, if you're old enough. Inter-racial and gay couples were pretty much unheard of in films.

This then came next, but shouldn't have:

Affairs between girls were considered to be whimsical or erotic. Affairs between men were pretty taboo outside of their own city subcultures.

I meant life in the 80s here, not movies. There were certain gay communities. I lived in Kentucky at the time, and there was a certain double standard, but it was very different than it is today.

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This seems even more divided in the ancient world. The Greeks are just dismissive of lesbians, but accepting of gays; while the Israelites were also dismissive of lesbians and utterly rejecting of gays. I recall one website that fished through the bible (pardon the pun) for references that supported the idea of sapphic relationships, and made the case that it was okay with God. A lot of Christians might agree, but the prohibitions are explicitly against male-male. They would not have worded it this way if they didn't mean it this way.

Happy

I thought you were teaching highschool

That's what a ship is, you know - it's not just a keel and a hull and a deck and sails, that's what a ship needs.

RIONAEIRE

Thursday, April 14, 2011 5:42 AM

I have always interpreted the biblical references to mean "no rutting with your same sex", I never thought it meant only men. I figure it the same way. Maybe the reason that Greek men never mention it in texts is because they just didn't pay attention to what their wives were doing.

DT, what movies have you been watching? I don't think I've ever seen an old movie about this. Of course my mind isn't stuck in junior high, as is the case with so many who are always trying to atribute meanings to things that aren't really implied much, but they see it because they're looking etc.

"A completely coherant River means writers don't deliver" KatTaya

DREAMTROVE

Thursday, April 14, 2011 7:42 AM

Yeah, well they tend not to replay them anymore, given the change in laws and morals. Pretty common stuff in the 1970s though. That's why Jodie Foster and Brooke Shields had careers. Not to mention Molly Ringwald and the Brat Pack, who were only a couple years older. It was true of basically everything that came over from Europe.

I'm not sure if that was a snark or you're alluding to something. Myself, I never made it to junior high. I went through fifth grade, if you count skipping third.

Laws and morals change all the time. There were no black heroes in movies until the mid 1990s. In the '80s, no whites listened to black music, and there were almost no interracial couples, it was pretty seriously frowned upon by both whites and blacks.

In the 60s and 70s is was different, race wasn't a big deal, and neither was gay, nor were plural relationships, like Bob Carol Ted and Alice, and there was no war on drugs. Taking drugs for recreation was considered normal, but if a school had given drugs to children, there would have been riots.

We're under this illusion that everything is ancient and timeless and goes back to the dawn of history, which is nonsense. None of the western religious traditions of today are more than a couple centuries old. Neither is anything in this society. Even the language isn't very old, but it's older than probably everything else.

If you really went back to biblical times, you'd find rampant nudity, women wearing very short skirts, a differentiation from men, who wore long ones. People kept domestic slaves, sex slaves, and had multiple marriages, all of which is pretty much documented in the bible, and more so by the Romans. People got married very young, Mohammed married a six year old, and that was five centuries later. Often a marriage was arranged because someone rich or powerful saw a girl and thought she was hot. There's a passage in the bible I recall where David is watching a girl taking a shower, and decides to go take her to his will, and this makes her his wife, which is his third or something like that.

So, if you're taking your moral mandates from the bible, they're really going to be extremely different from what people today think, but if you want to go there:

The bible very explicitly says man with man. It's not grey on the matter. There's occasional mentions of girls gone wild, which is why we have words like sapphic and lesbian, which are both greek. But in greece, nothing was taboo really. They hadn't met taboo yet, since it's a polynesian fish. Eating it is forbidden, but you could have guessed that.

All that said, expect it to change in the future as well. It all seems totally arbitrary to me. If there were any hard and fast rules, they would not change from decade to decade.

It's true of every aspect of this artificial society we live in:

Obama just attacked Libya openly stating that he wanted to protect American interests and change Libyan economic policy. That idea would never have been accepted in 2003, which is why the whole WMD story was cooked up. If the American people would have just accept that "We're just going to go in and get oil and change policy, sign some trade agreements" then that's what they would have said.

People say the 10 commandments are timeless, but even that's not really so, first, there were 10, then it went up to 17. They got added and subtracted through the years, and what came down to us is only about 1/2 useful. Graven images? They're all over the place. Statues, stain glass windows, images of Jesus everywhere.

No other gods. What is satan then? Is he a used car salesman? He seems to have godlike powers.

Who works six days a week?

Are any places ever open on sunday?

Honor your mother and father, is this always a good idea?

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You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Yes, because my neighbor has a female slave.

Really, what you take fr

THEHAPPYTRADER

Thursday, April 14, 2011 10:42 AM

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The bible very explicitly says man with man. It's not grey on the matter.

But bear in mind:

* Jesus says nothing about same-sex behavior.
* The Jewish prophets are silent about homosexuality.
* Only six or seven of the Bible's one million verses refer to same-sex behavior in any way -- and none of these verses refer to homosexual orientation as it's understood today.

Keeping in mind that axiom 'What would Jesus do?' Jesus would not persecute homosexuals.

As for my teaching, I teach a middle school music afternoon enrichment class, private lessons and I am a traveling tutor/therapist for nonverbal children with Autism (working with 3 year olds at the moment). Gradually helping them become more verbal amongst other things.

Incidentally, while I know they often have trouble making eye contact, none of the Autistic children I have worked with had any difficulty making eye contact with me. My g/f thinks it's my temperament, as the 'dog that hates everyone new' warmed right up to me and has never barked at me. Or maybe it's the age or I'm lucky enough that my clients don't have that issue. Anyways, off to work.

NIKI2

Thursday, April 14, 2011 8:55 PM

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This 'morality' that I've seen so many people in the world say is a religious structure... It doesn't touch those who are not moral, but they can exploit the assumption that someone is moral because they attend church. That really bothers me. It bothers me almost as much to be on the other end of that, with the assumption that I am not moral because I do not attend church. I don't need church to be moral. I don't think anyone does, if they are a decent human being. Church doesn't offer morals to the immoral, it only offers them camouflage.

Excellent, in my opinion, and one of the two things that bothers me MOST about organized religion. The other is the ability for those who wish to become a “leader” within a religion, then prostitute it for their own gain, be it wealth, power, etc.

As to the “decent” thing...hey, within their own group, jihadists are considered “moral”, as they are defending Allah, right? That’s probably the worst CURRENT example, but it’s happened throughout history and is happening in this country today.

As to your “if they are a moral person”, I would have written “if they are self-aware”, because I believe, as in buddhism, that anyone who strives to become self-aware will become increasingly moral. Inside we all know right from wrong, it’s just that with far too many either life circumstances, the teaching they receive, what they internalized when young, and/or the dogma you mentioned, gets in the way. “Practice”. I like that. It’s through such practices (which every religion HAS, but which gets pushed aside either by their religious leaders or some other force for most) that one can become more self-aware, and that’s all anyone needs to be, in my opinion. Once aware of ourselves, we both learn to be accepting of ourselves and want to be better, as well as becoming more compassionate toward others. When we realize we’re flawed and are able to see clearly those flaws, it’s harder to condemn others or feel “better than”

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As to practice, ritual and practice are basically the same concept

I SERIOUSLY disagree with that! The practice of buddhism is done WITHOUT ritual—it can be done with ritual as well, certainly, but the bottom line is that we engage in the “practice” every day, every hour if we’re as conscious as we strive to be. There’s no “ritual” in taking a minute to talk to a homeless person, it’s merely compassion. There’s no “ritual” in sitting still and meditating—-again, it can be, but it doesn’t need to be, it’s just striving to be still and conscious. I think your concept of practice is kind of narrow and maybe you misunderstand how we’re using the word?

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Anyone who wants to know the literal true word of God is going go mad trying. They're going to be stuck with inconsistent conflicting texts of a society in a state of perpetual war writing in shorthand of long dead languages about Gods that don't exist

“I fixed your book”...

As in

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My problem with fundamentalism and the literal interpretation of the Holy Scriptures is that they pick and choose what they believe "no longer applies."

Meaning, they are not as literal as they say they are. They make tons of arbitrary exceptions from their literal interpretation, and then thump the Bible for the rest.

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it has little bearing on the day to day lives of most Christians

But it’s really convenient to point to in order to push one’s agenda when propagandizing the masses...

DT, I never saw the movies you mentioned:

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Affairs between girls were considered to be whimsical or erotic.

Could you cite some? I DO remember a move about two women who ran a school (can’t recall the name) and when it was just SUSPECTED that they were gay, everything went kablooey. Quite the opposite of what you seem to have seen. I know you’re talking about “girls”, but I never saw that, either. Please, I would love examples of

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Pretty common

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PHOENIXROSE

Thursday, April 14, 2011 9:27 PM

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Originally posted by Niki2:
Inside we all know right from wrong

Generally speaking, yes, but I have to disagree with the all-encompassing nature of the statement. There are people who are literally missing functions in their brain to do with compassion and empathy, and do not know right from wrong. They know what feels good to them, and pursue it, and often even that is skewed from what the average human being would consider pleasurable. By and large, most human beings are 'decent,' and awareness such as you describe will heighten that, but some people are just not decent human beings. It's sad, but it's true, and there are many such people who hide behind the doors of a church because it furthers their own ends.

rit·u·al
A religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

prac·tice
The actual application or use of an idea, belief, or method as opposed to theories about such application or use.
Perform (an activity) or exercise (a skill) repeatedly or regularly in order to improve or maintain one's proficiency.

What reason had proved best ceased to look absurd to the eye, which shows how idle it is to think anything ridiculous except what is wrong.