God in our Image?

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Traditional marriage is not between one man and one woman. Traditional marriage is between one man and as many women as he could afford to acquire (from their father) and upkeep.
 
BetteTheRed said:
Traditional marriage is not between one man and one woman. Traditional marriage is between one man and as many women as he could afford to acquire (from their father) and upkeep.
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Not if you go way back it isn't. Besides which, in the context of the marriage debate, it is well accepted that "traditional marriage" means the conjugal view (rather than the revisionist view).
 
The same sex marriage debate is like most debates for Christians -do you view the Bible as prescriptive or descriptive?

By that I mean do you read the Bible literally and believe literally what it says -and see it as a prescription for how we are to live today?
Or, like me, see the Bible as descriptive, in the sense that when it was written a couple of thousand years ago, the folks then were writing in images that described the way faith and a belief in God seemed to them. In short, the Bible should be viewed in context - and today's context is not when the Bible was written..

If I believed in the Bible literally I, as a widow, would have to marry my brother-in-law. No wait, I can't because he's now deceased. Poor me, I don't even have a Ruth in my life, (Relax Jae, Ruth was Naomi's daughter-in -law, not same sex partner.)
 
PilgrimsProgress said:
The same sex marriage debate is like most debates for Christians -do you view the Bible as prescriptive or descriptive?

By that I mean do you read the Bible literally and believe literally what it says -and see it as a prescription for how we are to live today?
Or, like me, see the Bible as descriptive, in the sense that when it was written a couple of thousand years ago, the folks then were writing in images that described the way faith and a belief in God seemed to them. In short, the Bible should be viewed in context - and today's context is not when the Bible was written..

If I believed in the Bible literally I, as a widow, would have to marry my brother-in-law. No wait, I can't because he's now deceased. Poor me, I don't even have a Ruth in my life, (Relax Jae, Ruth was Naomi's daughter-in -law, not same sex partner.)
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Prescriptive or descriptive is, I feel, a false dichotomy PilgrimsProgress. The Bible is at times prescriptive, at other times just descriptive. We're not all supposed to be building arks to prepare for a worldwide flood.
 
Flood: when demerge of intelligence enters the domain of the overly emotional ... a stage to pass through by necessity --- Shakespeare phrased as the world is a mere stage ... in the eternal sense!

Intellect is a dark formless domain considering what subjective humans know ... there's no getting beyond that!
 
Remember when the Bible said, "an eye for an eye?"

Then that progressive guy came along and claimed that "an eye for an eye" misses the point and the real point was "turn the other cheek?" What did the Bible do then?

And then there was that other guy who came along and said outrageous things like "Who are you to judge someone else's servant" and, ' "I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive'

As for myself, I am convinced that God made Steve in no less his image and likeness than he did Adam or Eve or any other member at WC2. And for myself any attempt to deningrate Steve is spectacularly demonstrative of an attack against God just as any attack against Adam or Eve would be an attack against God.

I think marriage is a wonderful institution that should not be treated lightly.

Some are rather critical of divorce and remarriage.

Some are rather critical of marriages that do not produce children.

Some embrace one aspect as "biblical mandate" while ignoring others.

Quite frankly I don't see how any of that relates to the OP unless it is being used to demonstrate how human beings embrace what is more comfortable for them and consider that holy while they reject what they find most uncomfortable for them and denounce it as evil. Though I don't think that is actually what is happening.

I think it is also important to remember that the Bible records an Apostle saying, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife."

Pretty high standard.

I hope there is grace for those who cannot manage to meet it.
 
revjohn said:
Remember when the Bible said, "an eye for an eye?"

Then that progressive guy came along and claimed that "an eye for an eye" misses the point and the real point was "turn the other cheek?" What did the Bible do then?

And then there was that other guy who came along and said outrageous things like "Who are you to judge someone else's servant" and, ' "I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive'

As for myself, I am convinced that God made Steve in no less his image and likeness than he did Adam or Eve or any other member at WC2. And for myself any attempt to deningrate Steve is spectacularly demonstrative of an attack against God just as any attack against Adam or Eve would be an attack against God.

I think marriage is a wonderful institution that should not be treated lightly.

Some are rather critical of divorce and remarriage.

Some are rather critical of marriages that do not produce children.

Some embrace one aspect as "biblical mandate" while ignoring others.

Quite frankly I don't see how any of that relates to the OP unless it is being used to demonstrate how human beings embrace what is more comfortable for them and consider that holy while they reject what they find most uncomfortable for them and denounce it as evil. Though I don't think that is actually what is happening.

I think it is also important to remember that the Bible records an Apostle saying, "Now to the unmarried and the widows I say: It is good for them to stay unmarried, as I do. But if they cannot control themselves, they should marry, for it is better to marry than to burn with passion. To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.But if she does, she must remain unmarried or else be reconciled to her husband. And a husband must not divorce his wife."

Pretty high standard.

I hope there is grace for those who cannot manage to meet it.
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There are great subtleties in the control aspect ...
 
Jae said:
Prescriptive or descriptive is, I feel, a false dichotomy PilgrimsProgress. The Bible is at times prescriptive, at other times just descriptive. We're not all supposed to be building arks to prepare for a worldwide flood.
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I think it is even more complicated than that. In fact, I'm not sure I would even use the terms "prescriptive" and descriptive". It's a collection of sources of various types and purposes. Prescriptive and descriptive are there but they are so broad, I question how useful they are in analyzing any given text. Is Leviticus prescriptive or descriptive? If you're a some century or other BCE Jewish priest, it's prescriptive. For a 21st century CE secular North American (I'm saying "secular" so we can leave aside the debate over whether the Law applies to Christians), it is descriptive of Hebrew religious laws and practices of a certain time. But while that may be accurate, it is not very precise and does not really tell us anything about the content or nature of the book itself.
 
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I hate it when the religious go all puritanical over sex and marrage, have they not read Deuteronomy 22, Why do they think they have the right to decide who gets married. I say take the wood from your own eye first.
 
Mendalla said:
I think it is even more complicated than that. In fact, I'm not sure I would even use the terms "prescriptive" and descriptive". It's a collection of sources of various types and purposes. Prescriptive and descriptive are there but they are so broad, I question how useful they are in analyzing any given text. Is Leviticus prescriptive or descriptive? If you're a some century or other BCE Jewish priest, it's prescriptive. For a 21st century CE secular North American (I'm saying "secular" so we can leave aside the debate over whether the Law applies to Christians), it is descriptive of Hebrew religious laws and practices of a certain time. But while that may be accurate, it is not very precise and does not really tell us anything about the content or nature of the book itself.
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Mendalla, I agree that "prescriptive" versus "descriptive" is an over-simplication. Yet I still find it appealing because, as I age, I find myself becoming more interested in seeing folk's views as a description of how life has impacted on them, rather than the resulting judgements that they seem so keen to express.
Whether literal or progressive Christians (and I realise that's a judgment of sorts!) I'm getting increasingly fed up with their (often competing) "Thou shall nots"!
 
What kind of a "thou shalt not" might you get from a progressive congregation? I'm trying to think of the congregation I know and love, and can't think of a "thou shalt not" , admitting that we might tend a bit to the "thou shalt not" when it comes to addiction issues...
 
BetteTheRed said:
What kind of a "thou shalt not" might you get from a progressive congregation? I'm trying to think of the congregation I know and love, and can't think of a "thou shalt not" , admitting that we might tend a bit to the "thou shalt not" when it comes to addiction issues...
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"Thou should not be ignorant", "Thou should not take the Bible literally " "Thou should not be a redneck" "Thou should not vote for Donald Trump".

Okay, I'm being facetious - but the truth is Progressives are as judgemental as Fundamentalists - they just choose different folks to disapprove of.
 
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