Christian Marriage is a lifelong 1m1w covenant

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It's true much of the Bible is homophobic but if you put it into context it's easy to see why. It stems from the fear of couples not producing children but nowadays, that isn't an issue. You can have kids without ever meeting the one supplying the sperm or egg.

The Old Testament laws are still valid in the Christian community.

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished..." -- Jesus, as quoted from Matthew 5:17-18

Thus, those old Levitican mitzvot should still be obeyed by Christians. That they are not (I'm wearing both cotton and linen garments) says a lot about how Christians "redefine" the Bible to suit their opinions.

And can you make a scriptural argument for such? More often than not what I see from people in your position is soapboxing to Christians on what their own scriptures say, when you appear have a superficial understanding of those same scriptures and the longstanding discussions that have been had on them throughout history. When I say that I mean no offense and I am curious if you would really like to see why and what the Bible's take on marriage really is.

I do not follow the Bible I follow Christos.

Does that mean that burnt offerings should still be a thing?

Or it says a lot about just how much more comprehensive their understanding of the bible is than yours. Just read the book of Romans, the gospel of John, the epistle of James, the messianic chapters of Isaiah/Hosea, the Olivet Discourse, Revelation chapters 20-22, and the whole of the same Sermon on the Mount that you just quoted. In those references you can see a good general picture of the new covenant and it's relationship to the old. Jesus' fulfillment of the law was His sacrificial offering of Himself, and what's more: in the same Sermon on the Mount that you quoted He makes it clear that the OT covenants had concessions in them that didn't meet up to God's perfect standards.

No, it merely means that He cherrypicked one piece of scripture instead of building a broad, holistic picture. The Law itself changed several times, so we can even see in the OT instances of people (e.g. Abel) in a covenant relationship with God who didn't give burnt offerings, or meet other later requirements of the Law.

Last edited by Lukecash12 on 01 Jul 2015, 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Is a broad holistic picture why being gay is still wrong but a woman doesn't have to stay away from church for a month or two after giving birth and it's ok to be hateful toward immigrants?

So what do you think Jesus meant in Matthew 5:17-18, then? How did Fnord misinterpret that verse at all? Seems to me like its meaning is entirely clear. You just don't want to admit that Christians are supposed to follow the entire Bible, including the Old Testament.

You are merely looking at trends in Christian behavior as opposed to concrete scriptural support. Being a Christian doesn't equal being 100% consistent with the Bible itself.

Or I have built a careful, systematic theology over decades and have studied the original languages since I was 13 in order to do so. While I was busy educating myself extensively on these issues, over the course of decades, guys like Fnord were more busy pontificating to Christians with what limited knowledge he appears to have.

The quick and easy answer is that Jesus Himself intended to fulfill the Law, and that the whole of that Sermon actually establishes how impossible it is for people to satisfy His perfect standards. That is why He satisfied those standards Himself. If you would like to go down the rabbit trail with me I can build a rigorous hermeneutic picture of my statements. Somehow I doubt that Fnord is proficient himself in Aramaic, ancient and Masoretic Hebrew, and Koine Greek, but he's welcome to contend against my claims.

I'm not trying to sound arrogant here guys. What I am instead trying to establish is that many people have made astounding educational leaps and bounds to paint a more rigorous picture than these grossly oversimplified versions of the issues that you see everywhere. There is good reason that theology has been dubbed "the queen of the sciences" by philosophers across the ages.

Then why is the bible their go-to justfication for anything and everything?

And how does one determine which parts should be ignored?

There is a whole academic area of study pertaining to what is called hermeneutics. That is how people arrive at rigorous, instead of arbitrary standards, for interpreting religious texts. Here are some example of primary considerations in hermeneutics:

1. Setting.
2. Author.
3. Audience.
4. Linguistics.
5. Exegesis vs eisegesis. You can see the wiki entries on these two terms for a rudimentary description.

Oftentimes less rigorous theologians, or lay persons, look at scriptural passages that seem to contradict each other, and instead of using critical thinking to assess it with a methodological checklist like I've given, they arbitrarily decide which passages they like better or they use overlying theological ideas to bluster over those neglected passages. A rigorous hermeneutic sets out, instead, to understand such passages in light of each other, and one of the main noticeable differences is that a rigorous hermeneutic especially takes into account the audience of a text.

Also, just like literature today we must take into account that there were literary genres and many different forms of expression. In order to understand literary genres and forms we must take stock of contemporary examples, such as extra-biblical Hebrew parables, personal letters and instructional letters given by people who spoke Koine Greek, etc.

As I have said a number of times so far here on WP, the bible has been grossly oversimplified and modern references to it are often saturated with anachronisms. Popular representations of Christianity are almost totally irrespective of the process of biblical interpretation demonstrated in academic Christianity.

Busted!

This "cherry-picked" excuse gets knocked down more often than a punch-drunk prizefighter, but I thought I'd try it anyway.

I think discrimination based on a fairy tale is absolutely moronic. Homosexual equality is important. I don't care if a religious person believes homosexuality to be a sin, or that churches etc. don't sanction same-sex marriage, because I perceive religion at this level to be brutally ret*d.

Religion has no place in law, nor the rights people have access to.

You can apply ideas from the Bible in a general way but you cannot take what was written for people living 2000 + years back and apply it to every generation, regardless of culture which is what fundamentalists attempt to do. Anything besides they call humanist and dismiss it as zeitgeist.