PMS: (god damn, ok, won't acronymize your name anymore, sorry), anyway, you can't address the bible literally. no more than you can any piece of literature. when we sit in class and talk about Shelley and Brönte (is that right? I thought there was an accent in there somewhere)... we don't talk about "well, the monster killed people, so he's evil" that's too black and white. we talk about how Shelley intended the monster to reflect the mistakes that Victor himself had made, and the oppression of women at the time, or some such, etc etc... ANY literature needs to be looked at through the eyes of someone in the period in which it was written. no piece of writing is valid without cultural and periodic context.
Also, words, they are nothing. what matters is what people read into them. If I read the bible (which I never have, cover to cover, I will admit), and it means one thing to me, then that's what it means. The fact that it doesn't mean the same thing to you has no bearing on it's meaning in my life. Debates about literature are ALWAYS about interpretations of the story, not it's "literal" meaning, which is, actually, a really vague idea, in general. i mean... who's to say that the hebrew word for abomination really means that? Unless you speak hebrew (god i hope that's the right language) you're relying on someone who's translated this thing, over and over.
Point? Relax, man. You aren't gonna change any minds here, and there's no way to walk away with a clear victory on something so subjective as the morality of the bible. if you'd like to discuss it further, that's fine, but please, remember that NO one can win, and NO one has a monopoly on TRUTH in this discussion. hense, it's philosophy.
edit: awesome link, Chavus... i'm down to Leveticus, and that's the best answer to those passages I've ever seen.
now if someone can explain the "no masturbting" thing to me, all the veils will have been lifted!
