This is too general. Christianity is not homogenous enough to say it is homophobic and misogynistic.

This is too general. Christianity is not homogenous enough to say it is homophobic and misogynistic. — bert1

What denominations of the, what, 3,000 or so Christian sects, have taken their homophobic and misogynous writings out of the bible they use?

What small % of Christianity is not homophobic and misogynous in your estimation?

Regards
DL

There's nothing wrong with selective readings of holy texts.

I don't know how many Christians are not homophobic or misogynist, but I've met plenty who don't seem that way to me.

The reason they go hard on Islam in this matter is that homosexuality is punishable by death in countries with Islamic law, and women are basically treated like chattel. Christianity is far more advanced in this respect. A friend of mine, a lesbian, got married by a Christian minister last year.

There's nothing wrong with selective readings of holy texts.

I don't know how many Christians are not homophobic or misogynist, but I've met plenty who don't seem that way to me. — bert1

I agree with your first and also with the fact that the left of Christianity has progressed to recognizing they should not be like the right wing.

I speak more against the right wing here but all Christians who do not rip the homophobic and misogynous text out of their bible are contributing to the problem.

Regards
DL

The reason they go hard on Islam in this matter is that homosexuality is punishable by death in countries with Islamic law, and women are basically treated like chattel. Christianity is far more advanced in this respect. A friend of mine, a lesbian, got married by a Christian minister last year. — NOS4A2

I went to such a wedding myself. Outside and not in the church. I give the preacher some points but not for teaching his flock that they are being immoral in their discrimination against gays.

Things are getting better but slowly thanks to Christian intransigence.
As to Christians v/s Muslin ways that lead to death. I do not see much of a difference.
Let me know if you do.

Death to Gays.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyuKLyGUHNE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYV7KWQ-fY4

Regards
DL

What small % of Christianity is not homophobic and misogynous in your estimation? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

100% of the Christians I have met in my personal life.

The rise in acceptance among Christians is quite amazing, even within the last few decades.

As for Islam:

The death penalty for homosexuality was historically implemented by a number of countries worldwide. It currently remains a legal punishment in several countries and regions, all of which have sharia-based criminal laws.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_penalty_for_homosexuality

100% of the Christians I have met in my personal life. — Tzeentch

Good for you to live in a progressive area instead of a fundamental literalist area.

Anecdotal information, while interesting, has little value as compared to stats and the evils that the majority continue to do.

Regards
DL

The rise in acceptance among Christians is quite amazing, even within the last few decades. — NOS4A2

Yes. Secular law has brought Christianity to heel. Finally.

Your focus is Islam, which I agree is worse than Christianity these days, but let's not forget that the link I gave was to Uganda, a Christian nation, urged to kill gays by a U.S. Christian church..

Regards
DL

What do you think of the mainstream religions that are homophobic and misogynous? — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I think they're great. Don't you? Who doesn't love homophobia and misogyny? :roll:

Who doesn't love homophobia and misogyny? — S

Moral people.

Regards
DL

Anecdotal information, while interesting, has little value as compared to stats and the evils that the majority continue to do. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

I put more value in my own observations and personal experiences. Statistics can be (ab)used for anything, and as a result I'm rather skeptical of those. Especially when they concern purported "evils of the majority".

I put more value in my own observations and personal experiences — Tzeentch

Ok. That would be you ignoring evil and the golden rule.

If you think you should live by the Golden Rule, change the labels in this quote to women, minorities, gays or children being brainwashed by religions and it shows what we should be thinking and doing for each other.

"First they came for the Jews, but I did nothing because I'm not a Jew. Then they came for the socialists, but I did nothing because I'm not a socialist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I did nothing because I'm not a Catholic. Finally, they came for me, but by then there was no one left to help me." – Pastor Father Niemoller (1946)”

Regards
DL

Edward Feser and other Christians have published quite a bit against homosexuality.

A major societal function of religion is rationalize and regulate the sexual behavior we inherit as primates. This accounts for the 'sanctification' of male chauvinistic and polygamous tendencies.
Even those dissenting cults like gnosticism tend towards male-female dichotomy in their mythology ('logos' versus 'eros' being the Jungian subtext) even though those labels are more nebulous in their application with respect to biological gender, thereby conforming to modern pc trends.

Edward Feser and other Christians have published quite a bit against homosexuality. — jorndoe

Many immoral thinkers have.

Gays and women have been targets for the immoral who do not like the notion of equality for many years.

Regards
DL

A major societal function of religion is rationalize and regulate the sexual behavior we inherit as primates. — fresco

Something worthy of an answer.

I generally agree with what you put, although you end with language I do not like. P C means many things to many people.

At one time, when we lived in city states with finite resources, the church may have had good reasons for controlling, not so much sex but reproduction.

That kept fewer babies from being sacrificed.

In modern days, religions should keep their Jesus off of our penises. They have no business in the bedrooms of the nation.

Regards
DL

Yes, there are many flavors of Christianity, everything from Mormons to Old Calendar Bulgarian Orthodox; and a lot of members -- 2.4 billion, give or take a dozen. Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism comprise billions more. Characterizing these religions as one thing or another is risky, because there is going to be variation on each facet of faith and religious behavior. You know that, of course.

That said, I have had quite a bit of experience with Christian anti-gay attitudes and policies, both pro- and con. The Methodist Church in which I was raised is coming apart right now over the issue; my siblings are in the anti-gay camp. On the other hand, there are Methodist congregations that are gay-affirming. One of the strong drivers behind my effort to pursue atheism was the impossibility of affirming my gay sexual being within Christian Theology. Catholics, Anglicans, and others are also having difficulty finding an accommodation for gay people and women who want an equal share of participation and power in the Church.

Some churches are misogynist too. Methodism has done better on this score, electing women bishops before many denominations accepted women as pastors. One of my sisters belongs to a Baptist church that is remarkably antediluvian in its attitudes toward women in the church.

Most Christians can be faulted on their failures to even remotely approximate the performance that Jesus Christ established as the standard (I was naked and you clothed me, I was hungry and you fed me...) and believers in every other religion similarly fail to meet whatever mark is expected of them. That's just normal human behavior.

Billions of automobile drivers fail to faithfully follow the rules of the road, for instance, even though it raises their personal risks substantially.

The primary task of civilization is to corral our inconvenient primate urges as well as we can so that the better angels of our Homo sapiens nature can come to the fore. It's a messy business everywhere for everybody.

"Jesus" is a red herring. Jews and moslems don't do Jesus!
I suggest gnostics want their cake (belief in a supremo aka 'God') and eat it (without any strings attached of 'rule following'). The anti-homophobia and anti-mysogeny of modern times serves their parasitic activities vis-a-vis the denigration of mainstream religions, without which the alternative mythology of gnosticism would be meaningless

In modern days, religions should keep their Jesus off of our penises. They have no business in the bedrooms of the nation. — Gnostic Christian Bishop

Christians could make some progress in that direction by recognizing that Jesus had a penis himself, and probably employed it in activities besides urination. He was an embodied being, after all, with all the urges contained therein. Many Christians have difficulty with embodiment -- including their own. Some seem to want to be above the physical, somehow being etherial disembodied beings.

Yes, and oddly I think this is something they share with many people supposedly on the other side of the divide. Very mentally focused, detached intellectual types, technocrats and others. One group thinks it'll be great only when the body is finally shed, and the other group is busy trying to create technologies to replace bodies to 'improve' them.

And both groups have incredible problems with emotions.

Good observation. Thanks.

Another thread that has a definition problem - at the least! Anyone here able to cite those parts of the Bible - reference alone should be sufficient; we can look it up - that appears to them "homophobic"? And while we're at it, anyone here care to venture a definition of what homophobia is? I invite anyone who reflexively supposes that they know what the Bible says or means, and what homophobia is, to give the matter some more thought, and if they still think they know, go ahead and write them here.

Misogyny too. Even just a working definition so that people can at least by some sort of navigation now if they're talking about the same things or different things.

The rise in acceptance among Christians is quite amazing, even within the last few decades. — NOS4A2

Yes, my head is spinning. Here's a map.



Good old Mississippi and Alabama.

Anyone here able to cite those parts of the Bible... — tim wood

Everyone who can use Google can do it.

I encountered this biblical material back in 1978, particularly in the book, Is the Homosexual my Neighbor? by Letha Dawson Scanzoni and Virginia Ramey Mollenkott. Since then many books have been published on the topic.

Leviticus

"You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination." Chapter 18 verse 22[2]
"If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them." Chapter 20 verse 13[3]

Genesis

Sodom and Gomorrah have been used historically and in modern discourse as metaphors for homosexuality, and are the origin of the English words, sodomite, a pejorative term for male homosexuals, and sodomy, which is used in a legal context to describe sexual crimes against nature, namely anal or oral sex (particularly homosexual) and bestiality.

Judges 19 has a very unhappy tale similar to the one in Sodom and Gomorrah.

The relationship between David and Johnathan has been interpreted as homosexual (and as not homosexual)

1 Samuel 18:1:

And it came to pass, when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul, that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. (KJV)

Another relevant passage is 2 Samuel 1:26, where David says:

I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women. (KJV)

Book of Ruth

The relationship between Ruth and Naomi has been interpreted as a lesbian relationship (and as not a lesbian relationship)

Paul Romans 1:26-27

For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

1 Corinthians 6:9-11

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.[25]

arsenokoitai gets mentioned in the Corinthian quote, and is a good example of why all this is difficult. We don't have numerous dictionaries, many volumes of secular writing, and so forth to interpret the New Testament. We have what we have and it is often a struggle for scholars to determine what, exactly people meant.

It seems to me quite likely that the ancient Jewish authorities did not like homosexuals. Their competitors in the land of Israel, the heathens, pagans, and uncircumcised Philistines practiced male prostitution in some temples. Why? Fertility. Don't ask me -- I don't know whether the temple prostitutes were gay or not, and nobody else does either.

In one passage (can't remember) the Bible says that the wages of a dog may not be offered in the temple. Dogs got paid? No, "dog" was a term for a male temple prostitute.

Did homosexuality exist in ancient Israel? As far as I know, it did. BUT the given form male homosexuality would have taken would depende on the options available and what was tolerated. We really don't know much about it.

anyone here care to venture a definition of what homophobia is? — tim wood

In the context in which it was used, it means someone who has a fear of their own homophobia. It was theorized that men who could not accept their sexual attraction to other men would react to it with fear, loathing, and sometimes, violence directed at a suspected or known homosexual. Many gay men have experienced this reaction to actual or suspected homosexuals before they openly accepted their own sexual attraction to men. This was true for me at one period of time, also.

This kind of phobia and self-hatred is dispelled by self-acceptance.

The homophobia model has since been applied to hatreds for which the mechanism of 'homophobia" doesn't exist in any way, shape, manner, or form. So, heterosexual people are accused of being homophobic because they intensely dislike homophobia, not because they recognize any same sex longing in themselves.

Better to call hate hate, then adopt a term for an anxiety reaction for plain old hatred.

Xenophobia doesn't exist because people secretly fear that they are foreigners or something strange. Some people just fear and hate strangers or foreigners or anything that is strange or foreign. We seem to be primed for this, and in some communities xenophobia is encouraged and strengthened by group behavior.

Arachnophobes do not suspect they are really spiders. Spiders simply scare them to an inordinate degree.

Get the picture?

A major societal function of religion is rationalize and regulate the sexual behavior we inherit as primates. This accounts for the 'sanctification' of male chauvinistic and polygamous tendencies.
Even those dissenting cults like gnosticism tend towards male-female dichotomy in their mythology ('logos' versus 'eros' being the Jungian subtext) even though those labels are more nebulous in their application with respect to biological gender, thereby conforming to modern pc trends. — fresco

A major societal function of religion is to regulate or structure the effect of internal experience on external behaviour. Moral law seeks to impose a single value structure upon all subjective experiences, and disseminates this law by reducing it from a complex and fluid five dimensional nebulous structure to a two-dimensional structure of words (eg. book or stone tablet). To then impose this structure onto the experiences of others, one must either:

- continually negate, oppress or eliminate those subjective experiences that challenge the 2D structure’s accuracy; or

- continually re-interpret the words in relation to the subjective experiences.

Alternatively, we could recognise the 2D structure as one of many reduced interpretations of a five dimensional, nebulous value system that is relative to the observer (pointing to an overarching sixth dimension of pure relationship between all matter).

This is very very sad particularly when you hear or read reports about gay people committing suicide. To say the very least, the right-wing Fundies should be ashamed of themselves.

The level of ignorance is baffling. When did the Bible become a 21st century medical science book...

It seems pretty clear that the biblical understanding of homosexuality was behavioral. Presumably, if you accomplished no homosexual act, you weren't homosexual. Further, reading closely, it appears that the act itself is not in-itself the problem, but rather that it had been prejudged as bad. If the homosexual act were in itself an abomination, then it's a fair question to ask why it's an abomination, except that the possibility of the asking is estopped by its being already answered at and by law. As well, homosexuality as understood on these terms was just one of a variety of bad things a person could do or be, including father/mother/child murder, adultery, lawless, rebellious, ungodly, unholy, profane, lying, slave-dealing, and any other thing the healthy teaching opposes (1 Timothy 9-11, loosely).

It seems to me quite likely that the ancient Jewish authorities did not like homosexuals. — Bitter Crank

Close, imo. For some reason(s), not to my understanding ever made clear, they don't like the act, it following that they don't like the actors. A why can be found in, as you suggest, very different practices by other peoples. Herodotus describes a very wide divergence of attitudes on sex from city-state to city-state around the eastern Mediterranean.

And I think you've got the spirit of homophobia pinned. Fear and hatred. So to the question of the OP, what do I think of religions that push fear and hatred? I think they're ignorant and stupid. Ignorant in that they don't know; stupid in that they don't want to know. And insofar as they act on those bases, ought to be subject to corrective action, probably through criminal and civil law, as appropriate.

While religion stands out for its organized discrimination of gays and women I think the root of the problem has more to do with the male psychology than God per se. This means homophobia and misogyny are connected at some level in the goings on of the male brain.

I guess I'm saying homophobia and misogyny are primeval instincts that couldn't be purged from more intellectual enterprises like the holy scriptures of, especially, the Abrahamic religions.

To tackle the problem it's not enough to just oppose it and immediately attempt to demolish religion itself. That would be killing a man to cure the tumor growing in his testicles which probably is an apt analogy.

We need to be more reasonable than the opposition lest we become them just dressed in different colors and that surely requires more than marching, waving flags and chanting on the streets.