Oh religion how you torment me
So someone from my highschool added me on facebook, he was the 'weird' kid at school - kinda meandered around walking in circles talking to himself. He never really did anything much.. his grades were abysmal and he always got his parents to get him out of things like school sports, detentions, and camps. Fairly sure he had some kind of psychological disorder, but then again; maybe he was just 'slow'.
Anyway, it's amazing how seeing someone's facebook updates can tell you about a person you otherwise knew nothing about. For instance, this guy is a crazed religious fanatic:
Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe there to be anything wrong with these statements. I'm rather happy this guy has found something in his life to feel passionate about, where in highschool I had often thought that he had no social skills, no grip on reality, and that he would be lost without his parents.
Unfortunately, then, we get to things like this:
Whilst I have a deep appreciation for people who are religious and who can trust so deeply and blindly, this is just one of the reasons why I have such a bitter distaste for all things religion. Perhaps it's a product of having sung at church twice a week for 11 years, or perhaps it's just history classes which have taught me that religion has been - and continues to be - the most exploited means of legitimising harm to others... but it frustrates me that religious ideals can make someone who is otherwise so innocent into an unwittingly hateful beast, and when you try to argue with fundamentalist religious people you hit a brick wall because no matter how great an argument can be, or how illogical a point of view can be: "it is regrettable, but it is simply the word of god" seems to be an irrefutable trump card.
This particular point has always intrigued me though, regarding the Catholic Church's position on homosexuality. More specifically, why everyone seems so hell bent on quoting from Leviticus, when there are other passages from Romans or from the gospels which would perhaps carry greater legitimacy. To me, the reason Leviticus is quoted is because it is written with utter distaste as opposed to the neutrality of other gospels... and that just screams of hypocrisy to me.
The reason I say that is because the book is simply just a product of social practice and norms. In the era, you could not eat shellfish because they did not have fins or scales and were thus not kosher, you could not wear poly-cotton blends because that is what religious garments were made of.. everything was a product of the times. It's interesting then that when we get to the abomination of laying with another man as you would a woman, everyone immediately jumps to the notion of homosexuality.. and indeed in plain language it seems to be an accurate reading because it is written with such a disgust that legitimises homophobia in its plain meaning. To me, it is more an issue of women's rights rather than homosexuality. In the times, sex was seen as the consumation of a contract, sealing the deal so to speak. Once a woman had sex with a man, she would then be his commodity and all rights to her by her father would be relinquished.
To lay with another man as you would with a woman, would be to therefore place yourself on a higher pedestal than another man, to consider him your commodity - where all men were supposed to be equals. In those days, the very idea that a man could belong to another man was an abomination, and the very idea that a woman could have free will was held with bitter distaste. Even a peasant male was seen as more socially equal than a Queen, and only gladiators carried social statuses lower than women. It's difficult for us to understand because feminism has come a long way since then, but it's not so long ago that women were not allowed to vote.
So the hypocrisy, to me, enlies in the incessant desire to adopt such a hateful meaning to scriptures that are no longer relevant, to continue citing irrelevant passages just because they are written so hatefully, and to interpret outdated scriptures in such a means which fits today's society, when there is a perfectly reasonable interpretation that does not impede on anyone's social liberties (and which frankly makes more sense, given that homosexuality was ridiculously rampant in all social hierarchies throughout antiquity).
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Anyway, it's amazing how seeing someone's facebook updates can tell you about a person you otherwise knew nothing about. For instance, this guy is a crazed religious fanatic:
Now don't get me wrong, I don't believe there to be anything wrong with these statements. I'm rather happy this guy has found something in his life to feel passionate about, where in highschool I had often thought that he had no social skills, no grip on reality, and that he would be lost without his parents.
Unfortunately, then, we get to things like this:
Whilst I have a deep appreciation for people who are religious and who can trust so deeply and blindly, this is just one of the reasons why I have such a bitter distaste for all things religion. Perhaps it's a product of having sung at church twice a week for 11 years, or perhaps it's just history classes which have taught me that religion has been - and continues to be - the most exploited means of legitimising harm to others... but it frustrates me that religious ideals can make someone who is otherwise so innocent into an unwittingly hateful beast, and when you try to argue with fundamentalist religious people you hit a brick wall because no matter how great an argument can be, or how illogical a point of view can be: "it is regrettable, but it is simply the word of god" seems to be an irrefutable trump card.
This particular point has always intrigued me though, regarding the Catholic Church's position on homosexuality. More specifically, why everyone seems so hell bent on quoting from Leviticus, when there are other passages from Romans or from the gospels which would perhaps carry greater legitimacy. To me, the reason Leviticus is quoted is because it is written with utter distaste as opposed to the neutrality of other gospels... and that just screams of hypocrisy to me.
The reason I say that is because the book is simply just a product of social practice and norms. In the era, you could not eat shellfish because they did not have fins or scales and were thus not kosher, you could not wear poly-cotton blends because that is what religious garments were made of.. everything was a product of the times. It's interesting then that when we get to the abomination of laying with another man as you would a woman, everyone immediately jumps to the notion of homosexuality.. and indeed in plain language it seems to be an accurate reading because it is written with such a disgust that legitimises homophobia in its plain meaning. To me, it is more an issue of women's rights rather than homosexuality. In the times, sex was seen as the consumation of a contract, sealing the deal so to speak. Once a woman had sex with a man, she would then be his commodity and all rights to her by her father would be relinquished.
To lay with another man as you would with a woman, would be to therefore place yourself on a higher pedestal than another man, to consider him your commodity - where all men were supposed to be equals. In those days, the very idea that a man could belong to another man was an abomination, and the very idea that a woman could have free will was held with bitter distaste. Even a peasant male was seen as more socially equal than a Queen, and only gladiators carried social statuses lower than women. It's difficult for us to understand because feminism has come a long way since then, but it's not so long ago that women were not allowed to vote.
So the hypocrisy, to me, enlies in the incessant desire to adopt such a hateful meaning to scriptures that are no longer relevant, to continue citing irrelevant passages just because they are written so hatefully, and to interpret outdated scriptures in such a means which fits today's society, when there is a perfectly reasonable interpretation that does not impede on anyone's social liberties (and which frankly makes more sense, given that homosexuality was ridiculously rampant in all social hierarchies throughout antiquity).
~