From: jvilhube@diana.cair.du.edu (Jan Vilhuber)
Newsgroups: co.general
Subject: Amendment two and the bible
Date: 7 Nov 92 04:42:38 GMT
Followup-To: alt.religion
Organization: University of Denver, Denver, Colorado

On the topic of riligion,
In article <1992Nov7.023836.20102@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu> aburt@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu (Andrew Burt) writes:
>And let me clarify what I mean by "wrong" -- I have never seen any
>reason for religions to be against homosexuality other than "the Bible
>says so".  This exhibits a lack of critical thinking.  WHY does it say
>this?  I'm sorry, but just saying "it's wrong and that's that" doesn't
>cut it -- I won't argue with someone who says that, and I'll accept that
>this is how they feel, but I have no respect for anyone who says that.
>(Which is MY right.)  I pity anyone who just takes stuff like this without
>having a reason.
>

I have to add my opinion to this (sorry .. couldn't resist. I know
I'm gonna get flamed, but frankly: I don't care):
How any intelligent human being can base his 'modern' views and morality
on a book (of which I have yet to be convinved that it's not a work
of fiction), that was written anywhere from 5000 to 2000 years ago,
is pretty sad and incomprehensible to me. I mean, come on! Some of the
stuff makes sense. I admit that. Don't kill. Don't steal. and so forth.
But some other stuff, like not eating pork meat! Give me a break. I can't
see WHY you would still follow that now. It made sense at the time, since
there was not good way to keep pork fresh, other than eating it RIGHT away,
and that it was prone to go bad quickly and contain worms and so forth.
But nowadays? We eat pork all the time. That's because the stuff can be 
held fresh and treated. End of discussion. Let's throw that outdated
thing out of the bible. 
If you threw everything out of the bible, that doesn't really apply to
modern life anymore, then you'd have one hell of a skinny book.
And the same goes for homosexuality. Who cares if someone once wrote that
it's bad. It's a SIN. OOhh... That was someone's opinion at the time, and
YOU have to go ahead and take it for law? Didn't they teach critical thinking
in school? Let's take the bible apart logically and critically, and not
much of a book will be left.

And to really get myself into some flame wars: Consider the following.
Believe it or not (anyone who has done research on drug-use in the past,
knows this) drugs were fairly common in past ages. (Bush isn't the first
to wage a war on drugs.) I wouldn't be all too surprised, if there were
a bunch of people on drugs, who saw all this burning bush crap and
who were 'shroomin, and wrote it down. 
One reason I would love to build a time-machine. To go back and see how
the bible was written. That would be funny if it turned out that way.

And don't get me wrong. I believe the avid bible-thumper needs to take
a critical thinking class, but I also think s/he is entitled to her/his
opinion. Except don't try to pass laws on the stuff that affect me
or anybody else in any way. Keep to yourself, and I will keep to myself.

(With this I don't mean to attack people like, for example Ron (from 
co.politics), or some other people that posted their beliefs as based
on the christian belief. They have their opinion, and I firmly believe, that,
if they have any brain-cells, will NOT take everything out of the bible 
litterally. Which is all I'm complaining about. I've run into too many nuts
that took everything to be the literal truth.)
-- 
 Jan Vilhuber            | Internet: jvilhube@du.edu or jvilhube@[130.253.1.4]
 (The skydivin' Bass)      | Bitnet  : jvilhube@DUCAIR
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Newsgroups: co.general