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1 Timothy 2:12 is why I can't get behind the whole anti-LGBT thing

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  • 1 Timothy 2:12 is why I can't get behind the whole anti-LGBT thing

    From good ol' Wikipedia:

    Greek New Testament - γυναικὶ δὲ διδάσκειν οὐκ ἐπιτρέπω, οὐδὲ αὐθεντεῖν ἀνδρός, ἀλλ᾽ εἶναι ἐν ἡσυχίᾳ
    Vulgate - docere autem mulieri non permitto, neque dominari in virum, sed esse in silentio
    KJV - But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.
    RSV - I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent.
    GNB - I do not allow them to teach or to have authority over men; they must keep quiet.
    NIV - I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.
    CEV - They should be silent and not be allowed to teach or to tell men what to do.
    NASB - But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet.
    NLT - I do not let women teach men or have authority over them. Let them listen quietly.
    NET - But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man. She must remain quiet.


    This of course is from 1 Timothy 2:12 in various translations of the Bible. Now I was indeed brought up a Christian (though not exactly a church every Sunday sort of way) and in my college years I was a Catholic. The past several years however I have grown more and more skeptical of organized religion in general because I am simply not comfortable being part of any "hive mind" mentality (and no I'm not just picking on religion I felt the same way when I worked in a grocery store under the UFCW union and I was pretty much the only union steward who didn't just blindly follow lockstep with their politics).

    All that being said, yes at first in my younger days I thought you were "supposed" to view homosexuality as a sin and all that. But then of course more and more scientific evidence has come lately that pretty much proves that people are born LGBT and thus we can't fault them any more than we can fault someone who's born a certain skin color or being from a certain part of the world or whatnot. After all it kinda throws the whole "free will" thing out the window.

    Now while it is true that I am a conservative/libertarian in the political sense I know those who are hardcore Christians (I'm in a very predominately Southern Baptist area, though Catholics are a pretty good second the Baptist churches are about 5 or 6:1) will insist that I'm being a loser "cafeteria" or "a la carte" Christian and that I'm suppose to play along with every sentence of the Bible no matter what. And there in lies the rub I pointed out in 1 Timothy 2:12 . If I'm using the same rules they insist on then that means I'm supposed to believe women cannot be teachers, cannot hold authority over men (which of course would mean women could never be supervisors/managers in a workplace, not hold a rank higher than private in the military, etc). Interesting how I hardly ever hear this mentioned and indeed even I didn't know about this till fairly recently.

    I guess Gandhi said it best:
    “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

  • #2
    Pretty sure that quote is apocryphal. Totally accurate, but not said by him.

    The issue I have with Christianity as a whole is that it's Pauline in nature, and I'm really not a fan of Paul at all. Wittgenstein was quoted as saying, "The spring which flows quietly and transparently through the Gospels seems to have foam on it in Paul’s Epistles."

    I tossed out all the church stuff long ago and just follow Christ's words in the Gospels, and only recently was introduced to the term Jesuism to refer to that particular structure.
    Faith is about what you do. It's about aspiring to be better and nobler and kinder than you are. It's about making sacrifices for the good of others. - Dresden

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    • #3
      I guess my point overall is that I'm very much an individualist...that is I don't want to feel like I must neatly fit into some group. Sure I may identify overall as a conservative libertarian politically but of course I don't necessarily agree with all its tenants. I was brought up under Christian beliefs but I happen to think they're nothing wrong with being Protestant, Catholic, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Zeusian, snake handler, etc etc. I mean I just don't see how it could even possible for there to be a "one true faith". Shoot, I pretty much consider myself a pro-lifer first...but even in THAT case I differ from some parts of that movement (I think ALL tools (abstience, condoms, "the pill", "tubes tied/nuts snipped", whatever) are needed to reduce unplanned pregnancies, I think the idea of kids being adopted by loving parents, including LGBT couples and single parents too will also go a very long way towards saving kids who otherwise might have been aborted or end up in an abusive home.

      I could cite even more examples but I've already gone off the tangent enough already.

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