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The origins of my interest in this debate come from various political debates over whether God belongs in the classrooms, whether the Bible is neccessary for a soceity to be morally upright, etc
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I believe in the separation of church and state...one of the fringe benifits of ex-athiesm...but there is nothing that says that only a literally presented Bible could be presented in a classroom setting (consititutional issues notwithstanding). Why let the fundies have a corner on Christianity?
That verse is taken out of context. First of all, you didn't include the full Parsha, or reading, that would have originally framed ANY debate on the subject. Nor did you make any reference to the traditions of critical analysis that have grown around that and other related passages. Nor did you include any of the surrounding verses to give it anything resembling context. This is called proof texting, and doesn't fly far in most circles.
Quite simply, there is a fair amount of social taboos in Mosaic law, and most Christians do not adhere to them. There is quite a debate over whether that particular passage is done away with after Christ's coming, but since niether of us know Hebrew, that's going to be a very tough one to argue intellegently. But it should be noted that there is a strong tradition of carefully reading these legalisms (Note that most fundamentalists don't keep kosher, even though the Gospel of Matthew seems to uphold it in 5:19).
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a source of morality is subjective, then no such debate can occur
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As a question...how do you think the bible is studied and debated amongst the church? This list is intended, as i understand it, to undermine the legitimacy of the Bible as a document to teach about ethics and morality. My reubuttal goes to the presumption that only a morally "clean" work can teach the subject. I disagree-it is in the challenge and conflict that it is truly taught. Not to say it should be required reading (except in a literature or comparative religions class) in public schools, but the assumptions you make to get to that point are galling.
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I don't doubt that that there are dedicated GBLT Christians but they would most certainly have overlooked that particular part of the Old Testament, wouldn't they?
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Leviticus 20:13 states: "If a man also lie with mankind as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they should surely be put to death....". The passage is surrounded by prohibitions against incest, bestiality, adultery and intercourse during a woman's period. But this verse is the only one in the series which uses the religious term abomination; it seems also to be directed against temple prostitution.
-from
http://whosoever.org/bible/
It is certainly not oversight that makes them able to reconcile themselves to God...it's not nice to imply that.