The most disturbing factoid that I learned on Tax Day was that the average American must now spend a full twenty-four hours filling out tax forms. That's three work days. Or, think of it this way: if you had to put in two hours per night after dinner to finish your taxes, that's two weeks (with Sundays off). I saw a talking head economics professor on some Philly TV channel pontificating about how Americans procrastinate. He was laughing. The IRS guy they interviewed actually said, "Tick, tick, tick." You have to wonder if Governor Ruth Ann Minner and her cohorts put in twenty-four hours pondering whether or not to give Kraft Foods $708,000 of our State taxes while demanding that school districts return $8-10 million each?
“A market economy is to economics what democracy is to government: a decent, if flawed, choice among many bad alternatives.” -- Charles Wheelan, "Naked Economics"
Comments
I guess that's God's will, too, huh, Anon? Damn men for sex with each other but it's OK for men to rape girls!?
If being a queer is such a great thing...
Then then I want to ask you this question. Why did God destroy Sodem & Gomorrah?
Yes I know proof read ahead of time.
I think I prefer other myths.
As for your clever question about God and Sodom--we don't even know this event happened. It seems pretty clearly to be a constructed story to make a cultic religious point. It only works the way that you want it to if I agree to assume that it is literal history. I don't.
But I will spot you that Yahweh is pretty homophobic in the OT. He also says that women raped in the city should be stoned to death if they do not cry out for help because that means they obviously wanted it. He routinely puts people to death for small infractions of ridiculous purity laws.
THIS is supposed to be a convincing argument?
You see, you don't get to assume that I accept your Biblical literalism or inerrancy as a starting point in the discussion.
Good to know.
It is fascinating that because I don't believe in Biblical literalism (which is a position shared by hundreds of millions of other Catholics and Christians of other denominations worldwide) and because I don't share you views about gays (are you trying to be offensive with "queers" or were you just poorly trained), you conclude I'm an atheist.
I'm pretty sure that's because your imagination cannot stretch to somebody who (a) knows more about the Bible than you do; (b) interprets it differently; and (c) is not willing to allow religious prejudice to govern civil law.
So be it: you had two opportunities to deny that you were OK with offering your daughters to be raped as the indicator of an upstanding man, so being called an atheist (or even EVIL) by the likes of you is in fact a compliment.
You by no means know the Bible better then me.
I will pray for your soul.
I have all the rights in the world to call them QUEER if I should deem so.
I think the problem is you weren't Trained proper. I blame your parents for that. May God look down on you and forgive you of your stupidity.
I have all the rights in the world to call them QUEER if I should deem so.
Actually, here (on my property) you have no rights, only the privileges I give you. You post here on my sufferance.
So here's the deal:
1. Being a coward who thinks he has inquisitional rights does not give you any moral authority to inquire after my religious beliefs. Ironically, if you had ever read this blog you would know them (and they'd probably shock you).
2. Unless you can read Greek koine you don't know the Christian Testament better than I do.
3. In order to be allowed to post here again--ever (and your ANON status doesn't help you here; I have your IP address) you will have to answer one simple question:
Was it morally upright of Lot to offer his daughters to strangers to be raped in order to safeguard his guests from sexual assault, and if so why?
Otherwise all I can conclude about you is that YOUR parents raised you to see girls and women as lesser species and expendable.
Remember, to post here again you have to answer the question.
And, yes, I am a dictator on my own blog. You are welcome to leave any time.
Now if you will accept my answer only the Good Lord knows.
The only answer I can give is my opinion based on the time and the traditions that were inplace at that time.When the story was written, it was considered rude to allow men to be raped when there was a woman available. Raping women wasn't an issue back then. They were, after all "just women" like Chattel.
You claim as eternal the parts of the Biblical message that you like (God considered being gay a sin then, so we must follow Her word now), but reject the parts you are uncomfortable about (Lot was righteous in the eyes of God then for offering his daughters to be raped then, but times change so I don't have to follow that part now).
In other words, you really don't believe in the entire Bible literally, just the parts you agree with.
"truthful and righteous answers" my ass.
You pretty much prove that you are hypocrite rather than a Christian.
No matter what my answer.
You would find fault with anything I said.
Trying to please you is like trying to please a serpent.... Ridiculous and Stupid.
Come to think of it you remind me of someone who talks with a forked tongue.
But come on let's hear your answer then.
Tell us your Blasphemy.
I love how you jump to the conclusion and call me a Christian.
Show me where I stated that I said I was a Christian ....
Your self righteous arrogance is shining bright.
No wonder you cant see the the real light. God Bless you.
You got the answer to the interpretation of the Lot story half right. It was a story grounded within a highly patriarchal society wherein women's primary value lay in their wombs. Throughout the OT there are praises for the fertile womb and tears for the barren one.
Lot at Sodom has the same problem as Abraham on the mountain with Isaac. He only seems virtuous because the reader already knows (or soon will know) that there are no negative consequences for offering his girls to be raped. The reader already knows that the visitors are angels and will ultimately protect him if he does what he is supposed to do, which is value hospitality over female kin.
The part I wonder about is how Lot's daughters felt about him for the rest of their lives. They get out of Sodom and Gomorrah, but they get to live with the fact that their Dad, the head of their household, was quite willing to see them raped or even killed to protect a stranger. Ironically, the author of Genesis gives us that answer by not giving it to us; in other words: the daughters of Lot disappear after they have served their use as props for potential rape value; the author never considers them actual characters who might have feelings about the issue.
Do you wonder if Lot had found it necessary to make good on his promise, would his daughters have pleaded with him, or struggled, or screamed as he pushed them out the door to be raped by the mob?
Would they have just been raped and left bloody in the road, or would the men have killed them and cut up their bodies as happened to the unnamed woman in Judges 19:1-30?
You are a hypercritical person in your belief that what you say is Gods word.
Yet when you were proven other wise you denied the proof.
Talking to you is like putting your finger in the light socket ....
Shocking yet all so dumb...
Good day.