From: rtsumn01@ulkyvx.louisville.edu
Newsgroups: alt.atheism
Subject: Re: "God is unfair" Bible passages.
Date: 6 Nov 92 20:46:28 GMT
Organization: University of Louisville

In article <Bx8nwn.8q6@newcastle.ac.uk>, J.M.A.Gilman@newcastle.ac.uk (J.M.A. Gilman) writes:

>     Another Bible story which is used to "prove" the Judaeo-Christ-
> ian God to be an unjust, arbitrary, genocidal savage is the story
> of Lot (Genesis chapter 19). In this, the inhabitants of Sodom are
> destroyed by God, supposedly because the wouldn't stop banging on
> Lot's door asking to "know" two visitors who are guests in Lot's
> house.
>     Because Lot offers to let the gang outside have his virgin 
> daughters to do with as they please, Lot is seen as the vilest of
> hypocrites and God as an unfair mass-murderer of a city of innocent
> people. What REALLY happened becomes clear if one either reads a
> modern Bible translation or knows some old english colloquialisms.
> When the KJV says the Sodomites wanted to "know" the visitors, the
> expression means "know in a carnal sense". In other words, to have 
> sex with them, the subjects of this lust obviously NOT being given
> the option in this case to refuse.
>     The Sodomites, therefore, were the most vile bunch of homosexual
> gang-rapists who ever walked this Earth. The "sin of Sodom" was not
> just (say) a few boys at a boarding school getting sexual relief
> due to not being near women, nor a number of consenting male adults
> engaging in homosexual acts. The text of Gen. 19 says ALL the men
> of the city gathered around Lot's house to see the visitors, not
> just a particular group or small minority.
>     Sodom was a city, therefore, in which it was SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE
> for men of ALL SOCIAL STRATA INCLUDING "MORAL" (religious) and 
> "POLITICAL" LEADERS to FORCIBLY GANG-RAPE visitors who were NOT IN
> ANY WAY used to their practices or willing to experience such a
> horror. Lot, in contrast, at least tried to persuade them to stop, 
> and when he offered his daughters, it seems most unlikely they were
> virgins (as he claimed), given the moral tone of the city he had
> foolishly decided to live in in the first place.

Whether or not they were virgins, does that make Lot's offer any more
right? Am I fit to be raped simply because I have had sex before, or
even if I had been raped before? Since when does a woman's state of
morality make her a better candidate for rape?  Does the fact that 
Lot's daughters might have been "used to their practices" mean that
they wouldn't have suffered from it? If Lot lied about their state of
being does that mean he is still an equally righteous man (apparently
so, at least in the Old Testament, since it happens frequently)?

>     [Note added at last minute : today in the national papers there
> appeared a story of a young man who was kidnapped at gun-point and
> raped by three other men ! People ARE this wicked and DO COMMIT SUCH
> CRIMES TODAY !]

Gee, I never would have known if you hadn't told me <sarcasm>.
[...]
>     IN SUMMARY :
>     In the case of Lot, God did NOT destroy a city of innocent people,
> they were a bunch of gang-rapists, and if atheists who want to attack 
> Christians bothered to read contemporary translations of the Bible, 
> they would not get mislead by confusing "Olde Englishe" expressions, 
> such as "know", which have changed colloquial meaning since the 
> Seventeenth century.

Isn't this whole section bogus? I knew (ahem) since before I was a
teenager what "knowing" was in _The Bible_. I've never met *any* adult
who indicated confusion about the issue. It's just something you, well,
you know. My feeling is that by accusing critics of _The Bible_ of doing
this you are attacking a non-entity. Those of us who complain about the
innocents killed in Sodom are not referring to rapacious men, but to
children and women (unlikely to commit rape).

--Semhaza
Newsgroups: alt.atheism