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On the subject of translations Joram you probalby are in something of a position to answer something I've wondered about.

I don't really recal much (this was quite some number of years ago), I heard it argued that the common belief of the "virgin birth" in regards to Jesus was innacurate as the word translated from the original source actually ment something closer to "young woman" and not "someone who has not yet had sex". Any truth to this? Or was it just someone blowing smoke.

Also, that attack on Bayn was somewhat unwarranted I think. You want to debate with him fine, but that post was nothing more than a personal attack.

*thinks Joram is a little pissed off*
(maybe its time to end this thread)

After bayn acted like a jerk(by calling everyone a dumbass) and called Joram's faith weak at best, yeah I'd say he was a tad upset, but then again bayn made some awesome points, and the thing that seems to elude Joram is the fact that the bible has no bearing on our laws.

The bible also says man shall not wear Clothing made of two different cloths, but i bet Joram wears a cotton and polly tea shirts.

Eldric wrote:I don't really recal much (this was quite some number of years ago), I heard it argued that the common belief of the "virgin birth" in regards to Jesus was innacurate as the word translated from the original source actually ment something closer to "young woman" and not "someone who has not yet had sex". Any truth to this? Or was it just someone blowing smoke.

I'm going to have to get back to you on that one since I have other real life responsabilities to look after just now.

Also, that attack on Bayn was somewhat unwarranted I think. You want to debate with him fine, but that post was nothing more than a personal attack.

The part where I directly attack Bayn's source was 100% warranted and valid. Any scholar on my field would have reacted similarly. The part where I question Bayn's uncritical endorsement of such dubious scholarship, though, I suppose I could have been less inflammatory there (not that he would have cared to pay me such courtesy). It just irks me to dead when people claim to have THE authoritative stand on a issue that they barely know anything at all, and that academia has spent centuries discussing (there is not such thing as true "scholarly consensus" as nice as it is to use that term). It is not only irresponsable (for dispensing truly innacurate and one-sided information), it is also misleading. A person like Bayn should know better. I don't consider him a "dumbass" any more than I think I am one. If I seem a little upset about this it's because I have actually SPEND the time (and money) to look at these issues carefully. I'm not playing games here, this is serious stuff.

Naw, Joram wasn't pissed. He was reveling in the fact that he successfully refuted the arguments of someone who doesn't know half as much as Joram does about the Bible, not to mention theology in general, archaelogy, the study of the aforementioned languages etc etc etc. Well done, Joram.

Of course, for us heathen non-Christians, his arguments don't hold any more water than Bayn's since we don't consider the Bible to be anything more than a book of Jewish bed-time stories. However, he did do an excellent job of defending his position.

What I'm really waiting on is Bayn's rebuttal, if it's forthcoming.

simon wrote:but then again bayn made some awesome points, and the thing that seems to elude Joram is the fact that the bible has no bearing on our laws.

It hasn't eluded me at all. I never said that judges should be required to take the Bible as the basis on which their legal decisions are made (can you even find an instance where I so much as hinted that they should?). The consitution is the first document that they should consider. Like I tried to explain to you, though, "freedom, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" are not ideals protected by a piece of paper. WE are the ones that have to look after the American ideals. The constitution has been misused time and time again to DENY freedom and liberties to people before. What's more, the constitution can be amended. Pertinant to this issue there have been attempts to amend the consitution to prevent homosexuals to marry (at least twice that I can recall). Would you be so eager to point the constitution to justify your position if there was an amendment that declared same-sex marriage is unlawful?

The bible also says man shall not wear Clothing made of two different cloths, but i bet Joram wears a cotton and polly tea shirts.

Do you believe in the Bible, Simon? You can only make this argument count if you seriously attribute some degree of validity to the Biblical text. If you do, and can prove to me that you have thouroughly read the Bible then and only then would I be willing to explain the theological issues behind your argument. Otherwise, I'm just wasting my time and yours.

Joram Lionheart wrote:I'm going to have to get back to you on that one since I have other real life responsabilities to look after just now.

That's fine, I just thought it might be something you'd studied or just happen to know off the top of your head. It's not really something worth spending a bunch of time researching unless its something you'd like to know for yourself.

The part where I directly attack Bayn's source was 100% warranted and valid. Any scholar on my field would have reacted similarly. The part where I question Bayn's uncritical endorsement of such dubious scholarship, though, I suppose I could have been less inflammatory there

Snipped some just to keep the post sorta shortish. My disagreement is not with attacking Bayn's source. In my opinion the post in question was actually a personal attack on Bayn himself. Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree on that.

In my view:

Attacking an argument = fine.
Attacking a source used in an argument = fine.
Attacking the person making the argument = not fine.

Do you believe in the Bible, Simon? You can only make this argument count if you seriously attribute some degree of validity to the Biblical text. If you do, and can prove to me that you have thouroughly read the Bible then and only then would I be willing to explain the theological issues behind your argument. Otherwise, I'm just wasting my time and yours.

While this dosn't come right out and say it like this, that comes across (at least to me) as "If you don't believe in the bible than you can't argue anything in it.", which I assume was not your intent.

Also, on the basiss of the above, you are possibly the only people here who can post thier opinions on the subject, as there is a good chance you are the only person here who has studied the bible to the degree necessary.

Eldric wrote:In my opinion the post in question was actually a personal attack on Bayn himself. Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree on that.
In my view:
Attacking an argument = fine.
Attacking a source used in an argument = fine.
Attacking the person making the argument = not fine.

I can only attack Bayn on what I know of him. Like I said, his unexamined, uncritical endorsement of a dubious anonymous source was irresponsible at best. My post was not only a personal attack as you sustain. As far as attacking the person making the argument not being fine I must agree with you. Here I'm at fault, no question about it. I don't particularly recall insulting Bayn in my last post, however. Perhaps you can refer me to that. I did admit, though, that my tone was inflammatory. But you can't blame me from reacting to him in the same way that he is so accustomed to treat me. I would have never reacted as harshly towards you, for instance. You've been nothing but a gentlement in all my dealings with me.

While this dosn't come right out and say it like this, that comes across (at least to me) as "If you don't believe in the bible than you can't argue anything in it.", which I assume was not your intent.

Not ANYthing in it. Obviously, I wouldn't have bothered to address the text critical quotations Bayn presented if I honestly believed there's no point in arguing with a non-Bible believing person. Theological issues, however, are a different story because there are number of assumed foundational points to any theological dicussion. What point is there to argue what God meant to say in this text if you don't believe in a God and/or in that the text you're arguing is the inspired word of God? You cannot dicuss theology if you don't believe in theology, does that make sense?

A much wiser person than I put it best: " (11) For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit (pneumatikos) within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God . . . (14) The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for the are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they're spiritually discerned. (15) The spiritual man makes judgment about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment. (16) 'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may intruct him?' (Isaiah 40:12) But we have the mind of Christ" (1 Corinthians 2:11-16).

Also, on the basiss of the above, you are possibly the only people here who can post thier opinions on the subject, as there is a good chance you are the only person here who has studied the bible to the degree necessary.

I hope not

Eldric wrote: Also, on the basiss of the above, you are possibly the only people here who can post thier opinions on the subject, as there is a good chance you are the only person here who has studied the bible to the degree necessary.

I respectfully disagree, Eldric, for we can all voice our opinions. The fact is, Joram is a very learned Christian and some of us aren't (learned or Christian ). For example, Joram may or may not know much about my faith, but that doesn't mean we can't discuss it in comparison to his, right?

As far as the Bible is concerned, this country (the USA) was founded on the Judeo-Christian principles found in the text. Given that, the basis for all of our laws is the Bible. However, the Bible isn't the end-all, be-all of our laws.

Many things have changed since the days of the pilgrims landing at Plymouth Rock. Way back then, perhaps the Bible was the final say, but one of the liberties guaranteed us by our Constitution is freedom of religion. When that happened, the Bible ceased being the final word.

I didn't see Joram so much attacking Bayn as vigorously defending his own position, but that's my opinion. Clearly I like both of them equally (hell, I like everyone equally, except maybe Dirk ), but in my opinion, it wasn't a personal attack.

Again I'm reminded why I hate religion so much.

Perhaps I misjusded your reaction to Bayn somewhat, I havn't had adverse postings with him but your exerience may differ, I do tend to speed skim a fair bit when discussions get silly.

Joram Lionheart wrote:Not ANYthing in it. Obviously, I wouldn't have bothered to address the text critical quotations Bayn presented if I honestly believed there's no point in arguing with a non-Bible believing person. Theological issues, however, are a different story because there are number of assumed foundational points to any theological dicussion. What point is there to argue what God meant to say in this text if you don't believe in a God and/or in that the text you're arguing is the inspired word of God? You cannot dicuss theology if you don't believe in theology, does that make sense?

Erm, well not really, no, you seem to be making a distinction between discussing textual issues and Theological ones it seems that they would be more or less one and the same.

If Theological issues can only be debated between people who believe in God, it wouldn't seem there would be a whole lot to debate would there?

I am a nonbeliever (or at best/worst depening on your point of view an agnostic), and I don't really see any issues with having a discussion along the lines of "If god believes foo" then I want nothing to do with him and having the other person try to explain the way things are and how it's really for the best.

The same resoning is why I questioned your response to Simon.

To sort of drag all this back on topic, it seems to me that allowing gay marriage harms nobody and would only serve to increase the global amount of happinness in the world. I really can't see any reason for it to be disallowed

A VERY wise friend of mine once told me, a long time ago, that there were two topics that should NEVER be discussed on these boards: religion and politics.

Uthr, I salute your far-sightedness and intelligence.

Kramer Vorlock wrote:Well it would affect us. Inbreeding. Simply put. We would have a bunch of retards runnin around the streets, and with the new gun laws they could all have guns. Wouldnt that be fun?

kramer you are gonna have to lay it out how inbreeding is connected to gay marriage cause i am just not seeing it somehow?

My point about the two cloths is that, it would seem that they are picking and choosing what to believe from them there texts. If I recall things right, wearing two different cloths was in fact a worse sin the homosexual acts. The merits of that would seem to be fairly strong if Joram wouldn't rebut it.

the exact translation of the bible has been an ongoing process for the last 2000 years not quite. one thing we should't overlook is the role played in this by mother church's internal politics which has no doubt subtly distorted things in favour of one viewpoint or another.
I have for instance seen claims that one of the ten commandments is incorrect. rather than "thou shalt not kill" the claim is that it should be "thou shalt not murder" which is to my mind a pretty huge difference. now i don't know whether that one is true or not but it's interesting.
Another claim i have seen is that when the bible says thou shalt not suffer a witch to live is that witch was poorly translated and should say poisoner. that was for bayn and his fellow cauldron circlers hehe.
imagine for a minute if redheads were denied the right to marry. redheads having about as much choice in the matter as gays do it would certainly seem grossly unfair to deny them the right to marry.

I'm sure I'll get some negative feedback on this, but a couple movies about religion I found very good were Stigmata and Dogma. If you're not familiar with the movies, they are very different. Stigmata is a more serious movie. Dogma is a comedy some would find tasteless but its hilarious
(How about taking a break from the serious issues here and watching a movie? )