From: George Murphy (gmurphy@raex.com)
Date: Tue Jul 29 2003 - 16:43:26 EDT
RFaussette@aol.com wrote:
>
> In a message dated 7/29/03 6:52:24 AM Eastern Daylight Time, gmurphy@raex.com
> writes:
>
> > But it wasn't central to MY argument which you continue to avoid - not
> > surprisingly, since it blows your putative theological case against
> > homosexuality
> > out of the water.
> >
> > I do not concede your point at all and in fact the statement that "there
> > has
> > been no later development of Judaism" is manifestly absurd. (E.g., no
> > animal sacrifices
> > have been offered in Jerusalem for quite awhile.) But that is peripheral to
> > my original
> > argument which - at least for Christians - can be stated quite well as
> > follows:
> >
> > "There is a fairly clear way of making the necessary distinction between
> > biology
> > & theology. The directions in the OT for the extermination of non-Israelite
> > populations
> > represent one way of guarding against "contamination" of a group's gene pool
> > & thus
> > improving the chances for reproductive success & survival for that group.
> > Yet such
> > tactics are profoundly inconsistent with Christian theology & ethics.
> >
>
> I hope everyone's reading the same post I'm reading - the so called later
> development of Judaism was the only support your argument had and now to say the
> development was NOT sacrificing animals is a stretch isn't it? That's not a
> development. The Jews didn't develop NOT sacrificing animals. They were stopped
> in 70 AD when the Temple was destroyed.
> Now let's try to absorb the significance of what you said and why I wanted to
> know what the later development was that supported your argument, the later
> development thhat turned out not to be a development at all. You wrote:
>
> "The directions in the OT for the extermination of non-Israelite populations
> represent one way of guarding against "contamination" of a group's gene pool &
> thus
> improving the chances for reproductive success & survival for that group. Yet
> such tactics are profoundly inconsistent with Christian theology & ethics."
>
> Yes, of course they are profoundly inconsistent with Christian theology &
> ethics! But they continue. And that is why I wanted you to identify the
> development you were talking about. The extermination of non-Israelite populations that
> represents one way of guarding against "contamination" of a group's gene pool
> & thus improving the chances for reproductive success & survival continues
> and has even accelerated. You can see it if you follow the Palestinian plight
> in Israel. You can't see it at work around the world because you haven't made
> the connection yet. Judaism has not changed. They are still obeying the Old
> Covenant and are smashing the sacred pillars of all peoples who host them. Maybe
> now you can understand why a jewish millionaire like Ed Saatchi can finance a
> synagogue in London and then finance the Virgin Mary in dung in the Brooklyn
> Museum. Am I getting through to you. You are so close yet so far. The
> legislation to take all religion out of America is coming from them as they
> religiously carry out the demands of the Old Covenant.
>
> I didn't say these practices were consistent with Christian theology and
> ethics. I never said it, so you can stop saying it as if I did. There is no
> sacrificial system in Christianity. But there is still a sacrificial system in
> Judaism with which we must contend and the implications of that fact are profound.
>
> Now if you made the connection with science, you kow that both Judaism and
> Christianity are reproductive strategies with the central tenet to be fruitful
> and multiply. They can't both be fruitful and multiply. On an ecological level
> both religions are in opposition to one another.
>
> Blow my argument out of the water?
The whole discussion of homosexuality on this list has focused on the question
of whether or not homosexual activity can, to some extent, be accepted within the
Christian church. At least that's what everybody else has been talking about, though
with your obsession about Judaism maybe you haven't been. It's hard to tell. Anyway,
that's the context in which my argument was presented. If Christians cannot use OT
ideas of extermination of populations because they encourage reproductive success then
they can't use the OT prohibition of homosexuality _on such grounds_.
That's it, pure & simple. If your argument has in fact been, as it seems, that
Christians cannot accept homosexuality on those grounds then it has in fact been blown
out of the water. If that is not your argument then you need to be a lot clearer in
what you say.
I imagine that you will now say that it's a question of "reproductive
success" regardless of the status of torah - if you will, a matter of "natural law."
But your statement in your penultimate paragraph which points in that direction is in
error because it assumes that Christianity is a "reproductive strategy" in the
biological sense. It isn't. Its "reproductive strategy," stated in Mt.28:19-20, is to
"make disciples of all nations ..." - i.e., of people regardless of their ethnic
background, genetics &c. This seems to be the basis of your erroneous argument against
homosexuality: You seem to think that theology can simply be equated with biology.
Please notice that I am not entering here into a discussion of the attitudes of
present-day Jews, the policies of the state of Israel, &c. Those are important topics
but they simply cloud the issue when we're talking about Christian assessments of
homosexuality.
Shalom,
George
George L. Murphy
gmurphy@raex.com
http://web.raex.com/~gmurphy/
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.4 : Tue Jul 29 2003 - 16:42:52 EDT