And then literacy happened.

Really though, it beggars the imagination to think that the very specific lnguage isn't being specific. That you just get together with like minded people and decide that when he said kill these people he didn't mean kill them.

As for allegory, I can handle that easily, much of th bible is clearly allegory, and it is fun to watch the fundies trip all over themselves trying to say that the flood happened exactly as described or Usher's declaration of the age of earth was the word of god. taking a human's calculations as the undisputed word of their god, then come up with variable speed of light and other easily disproven ideas in support of that canard.

Your explanation sounds like a manual that tells you to plug a 12 volt DC device into a 120 VAC socket, it blows up the device, and you say the author didn't really mean you were supposed to plug it into a 120 VAC socket, but that 12 volts DC is less voltage than 2400 VAC, or than a lightning strike. That the author of the maunal wanted you to keep the device out ot th rain.

I've heard that one before. It's just saying that unless I learn to read Hebrew, I'll always have to have the bible interpreted for me. That's pretty handy.

When you take it from a source known to have intentional changes that corrupt the scripture for political reasons, then you lack any substance to argue with.

It would appear that all versions have something that says the same thing, nothing ambiguous. Except for that Hebrew version that someone has to tell me what it says. Note I do a little bit of that already.I have King James, and Douay versions of the bible, a legacy of my strict Catholic upbringing, and my Southern Baptist Grandparents. Given that the online versions match my two references, I have good confidence of the others.

All read basically the same, with a few words here or there different. The common thread is kill, put to death, stone with stones. Interestingly enough, a quick perusal through an online Hebrew bible in English on the web - Leviticus 20 looks much like the King James Version. Checking another version because I am not terribly familiar with Torah, smae thing (chabad.org and machine-mamre.org.

And please, I was brought up strict Catholic, and even entertained the idea of becoming a priest, but as the joke in bad taste goes, I wasn't gay. But seriously - I do know the difference between allegory, and specificity.

The idea that it says in the bible that (essentially pi = 3 isn't proof of any malfeasance or error on a Supreme being's part, it's just an example of a mistake somewhere along the line. It is a little amusing to see the aptdance the literalists try yo put on it though.

The prophets denounce literalistic views. They tell us that it goes against the meaning of the word if a man intentionally sins with the expectation that paying the sacrificial offering is all that God wants for absolution.

Now there is an interesting thought. Would it then therefore follow that a man who "believes in God" as a matter of hedging his bet - so to speak - is doing something very similar?

Most very sorry that you find me offensive. I would note that I am not ignorant of the bible, but that you just choose to interpret something I cannot find a way of not taking at face value. If direct commands that are shared across the various versions of the bible and torah are so virtually identical, then the amount of interpretation needed to say that a proscription and often reinforce orders to kill kill for the offenses that it distinctly and unambiguously says to kill for, makes it very difficult to take the whole thing seriously. In addition, if the original hebrew says something different, either through mis-translation or cultural differences, why isn't it fixed? If they meant cast out, they could say it, although "cut off" no doubt means the same thing.

But if something as unambiguous as a direct command must be ignored, then what on earth can be taken at face value?

Believ eor do not. You are saying exactly what the lawyers will say. Used as evidence of plagiarism.

If George Harrison was still alive, he could chat with you about how "My Sweet Lord, was copyright infringement of "He's So Fine", written by Ronnie Mack, and recorded by the Chiffons in 1962.

He was sued, and he lost. And yet, seems like the two songs could be hardly less related.

http://wzlx.cbslocal.com/2013/...

I only say what will happen in the future - and it will. Your interpretation of the human imagination and it's lack of limitation means nothing to the people who plan to profit from perpetual copyright.

Look, I have no doubt that eventually, as we find out that this so called protection of IP will end up destroying new IP, and sanity will end up taking over.

But just like patents on "A Novel Way of Collecting Information From a Computer Screen by Looking at it" patents and lawsuits based on that sort of crap stifle innovation, we'll undergo a period of time when people will be sued for silly stuff in the music and literature field.

All well and good until they get sued for infringement.

The perpetual copyright movement has some interesting ties with patent trolling. The playaz are setting the table, and the lawsuits are next.

Which of course, will make the whole process come to a grinding halt.

The exact opposite of the original intentions.

How fascinating, yet more proof that man makes God in his own image, when you tapdance and gyrate and just make stuff up when you have to, in order to take something as direct as Leviticus 20, and reinterpret it to suit what you personally think it should mean.

So tell me, does God have some sort of mental issue that he cannot communicate what he means? Dyslexia or what?

Is there something ambiguous about specific commands to kill people for certain specific reasons?

Being "cut off", now there is some ambiguity there. That's about as far as I'll budge in the zero tolerance hatefest written down there.

But hey, I didn't write this stuff, and eventually when you have to spend more time on interpretation than simply reading the original works, then maybe you are just doing what the original authors did, make stuff up.

Then again, one of the worst things ever for the bible was when people became literate and could read it for themselves. Because when direct commands written down on the page somehow aren't direct commands, and don't mean what they mean, all that means is that if I want to believe, I'll just pick the interpretation I like best, and consider that interpretation to be the true word.

You could make a pretty good case for Shakespeare's descendant's being entitled to profits from his works, using the rationale used for copyright extension.

There really are only so many possible stories and plotlines. What do we do when we have exhausted them all, now that we have entered the age of perpetual copyright? Because we have exhausted them all.

Reminds me of when a local college sued a medical group, claiming they owned the term "University" They lost, but that's the kind of thing that will eventually start winning. I'm expecting a movement to remove works from PD, and place them back under copyright protections.

But I can prove what happens when people who believe in this crap decide they can dictate how others live.

That is a case of man making God in his own image.

It's good that these religious people aren't killing people in the name of their religion, but generally we don't get prizes for not killing people

I certainly don't have a problem with people believing in whatever they want to believe in. They can believe in the Christian god, or crystals, or whatever. You can pray to Jesus, Dagon, or your ancestors, makes no difference to me

But there is a large movement to control what everyone else does in some religions, and when they don't get to enforce their views on others, they claim discrimination, But if I may, my experience in living under a system controlled by the religious tells me that it ain't pretty.

I went to Public school in a small town in Pennsylvania. A lot of churches in my little town. High school was early 70's.

The curriculum was scrubbed clean of anything that might suggest that the world was older than 6000 years.

This is not easy. We never studied dinosaurs, and Chemistry class was interesting. Isotope halflives were bordering on heresy, so they tried to avoid that.

Mandated sex education for my class was 1 day in 10th grade, nothing of use, very close to saying if we had sex outside of marriage, we'd die.

This was in the 70's man, no Scopes monkey trial stuff here, something like modern times. In the end, I had access to the local University, where I saw and read the books of forbidden knowledge, such as evolution and fossils, and science. Even the touchstone of religious control, the regulation of sexual knowledge. Between that and finally sitting down and actually reading the Bible, that pretty much took care of religion for me.

And the most amazing thing is that the Organized religions actually use the fact that some non religious have killed people to justify the fact that they have used their religion as the driving force and justification for them killing people

b Killing people is fucking wrong. If you use your religion to do it, you are just as evil as those evil atheists, no better. You just have a "better" excuse. That God told you that was what he wanted you to do.

If I say that killing people in the name of religion is wrong, and people try to bring Stalin, Hitler or Mao into the equation as if that means something, sorry, Hitler Stalin and Mao were evil assholes. So was the Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, flying into the WTC, the endless war in the Middle east or the people burning witches at the stake in Salem.

It does not mean that religions are given immunity just because they think some God told them to do the same thing.

Explain? From reading Leviticus Chapter 20, which starts out : And the lord spake onto Moses, saying:

Then in verses 2 through 27, a litany of direct orders, as evidenced by verse 1

2. Giving seed onto Molech - Death by stoning

3-5. Not killing that man who gives seed onto Molech, God would cut those people off

6. Cut off people such as wizards

7 - 8 Orders to sanctify ourselves, and an admonition to keep the lord's statutes

9. Cursing your or mother - penalty is death

10. Adultery - penalty is death

11. Sex with one's father's wife - penalty is death

12. Sex with one's daughter in law - penalty is death

13. Sex with other men - penalty is death

14. Sex with wife and her mother - penalty is death. I confess, I forgot that three ways were specifically mentioned in Leviticus.

15. Beastiality by male - penalty is death, both male and the beast

16. Beastiality by female - penalty is death, both female and the beast

17. Seeing his sister, his father's daughter or his mother's daughter naked.and her, his nakedness - penalty is to be cut off from his people

18. Having sex with a woman during her period - penalty is to be cut off from his people

19. Seeing his aunts naked (specifically his mother's sister. - penalty is to be cut off from his people (note this is an extrapolation from "they shall bear their inequity, which in other cases has been to be cut off).

20. Sex with his uncle's wife - penaltiy infertility

21. taking one's brother's wife - penaltiy infertility

Skipping ahead to Leviticus 21:27

27. Having a familiar spirit or being a wizard - penalty stoning to death.

Most of the commands also mention that "their blood shall be upon them", probably a way of saying that they are to blame for their own deaths as opposed to them being bloodied by being stoned or burnt as the command might be. Minor point whether simply describing the killing, or to assuage any guilt felt by those who follow God's command.

Got my King James version of the bible in front of me. Care to tell me what I paraphrased incorrectly? If you need me to, I can quote it verbatim for you to refute the bible's contents.

You win one internet for accusing me of missing the point, then going on to prove my point exactly.

Well played, AC.

The answer lies in the human need to kill other humans. It's our genetic heritage, and as primal as sex and food.

You've been watching too much "Ancient Aliens" guy..

Regardless, you can't prove a negative.