Leviticus and homophobics
June 26, 2011 by Bill
This series is on biblical superstitions and the damage they have done to the lives of the people who believe them.
Don’t you just love the homophobics, the bigots, and clowns of the Christian Coalition and the fundamentalists? “The bible is God’s word” they yell at us…”the bible is true… every word… and by God himself… and we live by that book… we live by it… and what it says… we do. And it says right there in Leviticus 18:22 that you shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.”
Now, if we live by that archaic, ignorant and superstitious book, just look who else is going to hell. Ah, what fun. Practically all the political leaders in Washington, that’s who. “And God said you shall not marry a woman divorced from her husband” (21:7). How I love that bible. There went Reagan… Dole…Gingrich…Buchanan and all those other big shot Republicans and Democrats who have broken God’s law and married divorced women.
And the fun and games have just started. Look at Leviticus 20:10. I love that bible. “If a man commits adultery, both the adulterer and adulteress shall be put to death.” There goes almost everyone in Washington, D.C. and the Pentagon and Sacramento all burning in hell. What a show. That bible is right on as to who is going to burn… and it is darn near everyone you see by the time you finish God’s list. The gays are going to have a lot… a very lot… of company while they are all burning together.
You ranchers and famers have had it…like I mean HAD IT. Leviticus 19:19 orders you that…”you shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind.” How I love that God. He tells those ranchers and farmers, “Now Claude…I’ve seen you cross-breeding Charolais and Angus. And those white face Herefords you crossed with Longhorns. How could you have missed my orders?”
And what’s next in God’s orders to keep the gays company? My oh my… all the clothing shops… fabric shops… clothing designers all headed straight for hell. Oh my… tears flood my eyes.
Leviticus 19:19 orders us as follows: “You shall never wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.” But, hey God, I like to wear shirts and jackets of linen and wool… linen and cotton… polyester and cotton and so on… and oh my, all those nice people burning in hell for breaking God’s laws. How much more can we take? What, you mean we have barely started on who is going to burn? What a sense of humor he has… that God. I say “he” for no Goddess would issue such a list of stupid, crank commands. Read more
The sexuality of Jesus
June 19, 2011 by Bill
This is a continuation of my series on biblical superstitions that do significant damage to the lives of those who believe them to be true.
The judgmental moralists, thin lipped, quoting the bible, are always hard at work. Witch hunting in bedrooms. Poor things. They can hardly get out of bed in the morning without knees knocking… hands shaking… lips quivering. The sexual world that they have to face each day is filled with fantasized goblins… devils… evil spirits and bogeymen. Church history would hardly support their bigotry and bedroom witch hunts.
The Sexuality of Christ In Renaissance Art received rave reviews from all quarters. It was written by Leo Steinberg who originally delivered the material at a Lionel Trilling Seminar at Columbia University and was honored by the College Art Association of America with its annual award. Some will find it offensive… those who find all expressions of sexuality offensive.
The sexuality of Jesus is very obvious in the paintings. Jesus was a Hebrew male, a man in the fullest sense and a sexual human being in the same sense that all men are sexual human beings. And yet for some neurotic and weird reason, many want to keep this subject behind drawn shades or else locked in the closet. Many times in study groups and seminars, I have presented material that would indicate Jesus was either married or had a mistress; and after time to think it over and absorb the material, there’s a gradual relaxing with the subject from those in attendance.
Even Martin Luther faced this issue squarely, saying in his book TableTalk that Jesus no doubt had sexual relations with Mary Magdalene as well as “other women.” That Luther was a gutsy guy. He also wrote, “if your wife is cold, call the maid.”
Luther was not alone in his robust attitude toward sexuality. Pope Julius II, by a papal decree, established a “sacred” brothel in Rome that flourished under his successors, Leo X and Clement VII. The earnings of the brothel supported the Holy Sisters of the Order of St. Mary Magdalene. (Church history is not as dull as you might think.) Read more
Circumcision
June 12, 2011 by Bill
This is a part of my series on biblical superstitions that, when believed, have done damage to human lives.
As has been well covered by the Los Angeles Times, a recent major controversy in California has been over new laws making it illegal to perform circumcision on any male under the age of 18.
The group sponsoring the MGM bill to make it against the law, believes that the male circumcision is a painful and unnecessary procedure. The MGM bill is Male Genital Mutilation. They want it on the November ballot. The opponents say…it is not painful. Don’t you believe them. Vivid in my mind to this very hour is the day in my mind when I was about 4 years old and living through “genital mutilation”…called “circumcision”. My father took me to the doctor’s office in his home. I was put flat on my back on an operating table. No doubt a mild pain reduction shot was given me. It made no difference at all. It was horribly painful, even to the degree that it is vivid in my mind today, 84 years later. Female circumcision is outlawed in the U.S. Doing it to a male is accepted everywhere. In Judaism it is a religious requirement. Based on biblical superstition.
My friend Ben Akerley has brought out this truth about superstition in a most articulate observation:
“In ancient Israel, a stillborn male baby’s corpse had to be circumcised at the graveside. If there was a history of hemophilia in the family, the third son was excused from the operation, but only after two previous sons had hemorrhaged to death….ample proof that the rite was nothing more than a superstitious blood sacrifice performed without anesthesia on a helpless infant.”
Parents need to know this is an elective procedure and not required by hospitals for birth services. And it is irreversible. Later a man discovers he was a victim of misguided parents. But, in Judaism of course it is a required religious ritual based on biblical laws and ancient superstition.
“And God said unto Abraham ‘this is my covenant which ye shall keep between me and you and thy seed after thee; every man child among you shall be circumcised, and ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin and it shall be a token of the covenant between me and you. And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed, must be circumcised; and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.’ ” (Genesis 17;1-15)
From that time, circumcision was practiced on both male and females where this evolved as a ritual and tribal rite. It did not usually occur until puberty at which time circumcision of both male and females is easily performed. Death was decreed for any male whose foreskin was not sacrificed to Jehovah. And in Genesis 17-14 it reads, “and the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised; that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.”
This is known by biblical scholars as a “blood sacrifice.” And the superstition, still practiced today in 2011, is just absolutely beyond human comprehension.
My series on “biblical superstitions” is as important as any I have ever written. We, as a “religious, Christian” nation, are drowning in biblical illiteracy and historical religious ignorance.
My former patron wrote that my columns were “…monumental in raising the level of religious literacy.” Even though that “patron,” Walter Annenberg, was born into Judaism, he totally rejected very early in life the biblical superstitions of orthodox Judaism.
What a blessing it would be if biblical superstitions were seen as what they are… by the “true believers”… seen as superstitions that do such damage today to human lives.
