Setanta wrote:
But we have an even more perverted claim from MOAN here, one which is typical of her co-religionists. That is to assert that because it is alleged that the putative Jesus was non-violent, then the religion of the followers of the putative Jesus is non-violent.
But several problems arise with that, and all of them are scriptural. One glaring example is Leviticus. An exegesis of the text of Leviticus which asserts that that book predicts the coming of the Messiah, and that the Messiah is Jesus has been crucial in christian theology for almost 2000 years. Yet these same christians will attempt to avoid those embarrassing portions of Leviticus, of which Chapter 20, verse 13 is the most glaring example of the hatred embodied in the Old Testament: If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. The price of homosexuality is to be deah.
This was before the New Covenant. I explain below.
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The entire 20th Chaper of Leviticus deals with human behavior, much of it sexual, and the perverse nature of many of it's injunctions is appalling: 20:18 And if a man shall lie with a woman having her sickness, and shall uncover her nakedness; he hath discovered her fountain, and she hath uncovered the fountain of her blood: and both of them shall be cut off from among their people.--sexual relations with a menstruating woman call for both participants to be ostracized. Ostracism and death, claims that god will make men and women reproductively barren--these are the common penalties which Leviticus outlines for the crimes it declares in Chapter 20.
It is odd that the Old Testament ostracizes for intercourse with a woman on her period. Is it possible that this was a later insertion (as all violent verses that justify Israel by God's orders may be?), because there are known NT additions such as Mark 16:9-20, Acts 8:36, etc, so the argument which holds for contextual reliability, that Scripture was too sacred to be disturbed, does not apply. However, the Old Testament was written primarily to a Jewish audience, whereas the gospels and Pauline epistles were distributed throughout the known world, both Jew and Gentile, and there have been pseudo-Pauline and other epistles and virtually every respectable apostolic Christian author's name has been used in a forgery, so it is not unlikely that sects with personal agendas could have reworked portions for various reasons which have now been passed into our modern Bibles. However, if you are to read that the reason they are cut off is due to the "exposure of her flow" you'd understand that this is not too distant from fornication about which Leviticus 20 says nothing. Is it also possible that the ancients knew that a woman couldn't get pregnant during this period? It's not unlikely, but if so this could mean that Leviticus 20 was saying that fornication was sexual intercourse regardless of whether the woman became pregnant or so.
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Christians try to dance around this, claiming that Jesus and his creed are different. Yet they are contradicted by their own scripture. Matthew, Chaper 5, Verses 17 and 18 read: Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. This is not some of the law, this is not those portions of the law which will not embarrass present day christians--it is every jot and tittle of the law.
The Old Testament runs red with the blood of innocents, and resounds to the roar of the homicidal maniac Jehovah calling for the blood of "enemies," including women and children, and even the livestock of those he deems unrighteous. Christians like to selectively read the Old Testament, though, and maintain their innocence by claiming that it was superceded by the loving nature of Jesus. But Jesus does not condemn homosexuality, so they have to lean on passages such as the one in Leviticus to spew forth their hatred of homosexuals.
This seems like a good place to explain the violence and Mosaic law of the Old Testament. If you would notice Leviticus 20:22-24: "
'Keep all my decrees and laws and follow them, so that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 You must not live according to the customs of the nations I am going to drive out before you. Because they did all these things, I abhorred them. 24 But I said to you, "You will possess their land; I will give it to you as an inheritance, a land flowing with milk and honey." I am the LORD your God, who has set you apart from the nations.'" The Amalekites, Canaanites and most notably Amorites were engaged in various practices, among which Leviticus 20 would be. That included bestiality, incest, rape, homosexuality, child sacrifice, and more. These practices were not however restricted to only the groups located in Palestine. There is artistic evidence of ancient the Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans, who may not have indulged to the level that they did, but were certainly not unfamiliar with some of these acts. Nevertheless, Leviticus 20 is clear that these harsh laws were implicated for two reasons: 1) To separate the Jewish community from the bordering cultures so that they are not absorbed by immorality and the Covenant with Abraham is destroyed; 2) So that the Jews are presentable and holy before God with respect to the Law.
Now, regarding Jesus' preaching of peace and nonviolence and the various warmongering ordered by God, it has long been noticed. Marcion rejected all of the Bible as inspired except for the Gospel of Luke, unable to reconcile the love of Jesus with the violence in some passages of the Old Testament. However, in not following Leviticus 20 today, besides the fact that the Old Testament strictly acknowledges that it was meant only for the Jewish community, it is not that Jesus has removed anything from the Law. Jesus' New Covenant further revealed the nature of the Law. Paul explains this in his epistles that the Law that we do is the one in our hearts, most notably in his solution to circumcision. Philosophical as it may sound, the inner desires of the person, regardless of whether they are reflected by the outside or not, are what the New Covenant calls for as to be observed. The blood of Leviticus has become the blood of the second death. Nevertheless, it is true that God is responsible for quite a number of deaths, including about four genocides by today's standard, however the answer to this is more theological.
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I have no illusions that people like MOAN and other christian supremacists will never acknowledge it--but their religion is as deep-dyed in the blood of innocents as is any other religion. In fact, few religions have ever been as murderous as has christianity. Their excuse will be that "true" christians do not commit such acts, and they will deny that any violent injunctions of the Old Testament applies to them--although they will readily enough quote the Old Testament when it otherwise suits their bigotry.
I see absolutely no difference between christian violence and muslim violence. I no more buy the excuses which christians make for that violence than any offered by the muslims. For all such christians, i have another verse of their beloved scripture:
Matthew, 23:27: Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
The canting fundamentalist christians who surround us are the Pharisees of our day.
Out of curiousity, why are you an atheist yet so passionately defend Islam? There are verses which you ignored such as 9:5.
I'm telling you what it says.
