offensive and outdated or just a belief

[PupsAndKittens]

The bible... believe in it or not, everyone knows it.

My question to all you lovely people, should it be censored ( particularly the homophobic section).

Personally I am really torn on this as I am both Bi and Christian.

For
Society has moved on and has realised that people are born LGBTQ plus and no one has control over it
It is also extremely sexist which also makes me uncomfortable

Against
I will always be an activist for freedom of speech and I believe that every human being should be able to believe what they want, no matter how un PC ( providing that they never physically hurt anyone)
Aren’t we then discriminating against Christians? For saying that their beliefs are wrong and should be made illegal?

So what do you think. is it time that this book is changed to meet current moral standards or are we all snowflakes and should just except beliefs of Christianity, that people have a right to believe if they want to.

I strongly oppose censorship and alteration of any literary work.

I think that you should always have free speech,but not be an activist as such. Generally, people have their own views regarding all the things that you have mentioned.. Nobody knows if there is a god, who said,though should not do this or that whatever. It's purely a personal faith,that some people adhere to,to keep them feeling safe,and making them feel that they are good people.

The only thing that makes some people homophobic,and other like issue,is that it is most probably and old age ingrained thing, that seems quite unreal to a lot of people,and was probably here all the time, until these things came out to be mainstream in these enlightened days.. but still a lot of people can't accept things at all, and they probably never will.

Most messages in the bible seem to contradict themselves at some point anyway so censorship would be pointless. Surely the interpretation depends upon the reader.

I’m of the belief that you can personally choose to believe whatever you like, it’s when people try to push those beliefs on other people or oppress then because of it that it becomes a problem.

Who is to say which morals are right? We may be wrong surely it is dependent on the individuals beliefs and perceptions.

Pork and shellfish? I much have missed that one growing up, although even though I was raised RC we didn't do much at all of the bible. I couldn't quote passages but do know some bits. Please could you explain about the pork and prawns?

I think the pork and shellfish thing is about not eating pork as pigs are considered dirty as they wallow in mud and will eat anything and shellfish is banned because it says not to eat anything that crawls on the bottom of the ocean (I think)

The thing is that so few people understand the relationship between the Old Testament and the New. Pretty much all of the’homophobic’ bits that people love to quote, and the bits about eating pork and wearing mixed fabrics are in the Old Testament. The New declares that we don’t have to do most of that stuff anymore and Jesus has nothing at all to say about homosexuality (though Paul does a little). In a sense, therefore, Jesus has already declared the OT to be old-fashioned.

It's accept not except

As an atheist - wft? Why do you think you can just unilaterally demand a document to be changed- one that was finalised in 1684 by a council of the most prominent catholics of the time over several years. It is in the form the vatican want it to be, they can change it if they want, but they don't, and no outside force can make them.

Plus this is the back story to Fahrenheit 451, if your idea is the same as a famous dystopian book, it's not a good one.

And it is no just the vatican that would need to be convinced, all the protestants, CofE, russian orthodox, mormons, methodists, baptists ect would all need to agree to update thier own versions. Which is what some churches didn't way back in 1684 so they have a few extra books in. Educate yourself by looking at the cannon of the bible on wikipedia. Its not one book owned by one organisation. There is a standard english version which fools the english speaking world into thinking this, but it really isn't that simple.

Well, I don't give a fuck about anyone's imaginary friends in the first place. 'Respecting culture' usually translates as 'prioritising men's feelings over women's and children's health and wellbeing' anyway.

And the Christian Bible is a set of texts that have been repeatedly translated - anyone who knows anything about language should be able to understand that translated texts tend to vary from the original. Never mind the fact that the King James version of the Christian bible was at least partly a piece of political propaganda (despite its admittedly lovely, resonant language).

I don't think any book should be banned. But nor is any book immune from criticism or mockery.

Also, the first texts that became the Christian bible were a mismatched bunch of bits and pieces, with some stuff allegedly coming from the same time'place and being rejected by whatever bunch of woman-hating homophobic arseholes compiled the 'original' version. This is probably true of all the other collected mythologies from other cultures, though I don't know enough about them to be sure.
People have the right to believe whatever bullshit they like. They just shouldn't be allowed to bother anyone else with it.

The bible has talking snakes and men who can part seas - I don't think it's supposed to be taken literally.

I'm a Reform Jew and we don't censor the Torah (first five books of the Christian "Old Testament") so much as re-interpret it.

The stringent laws in Leviticus are thought to be a way of differentiating the Israelites from other tribes and peoples, and are not generally seen S applicable today in progressive Judaism.

The Bible has never been "finalised". There are different versions of it that are accepted by different branches of Christianity. The Roman Catholics may have decided what their version was in 1684. That's some 8 decades after the (Anglican) King James translation - and that's rarely used in churches now. The Orthodox have their own slightly different version, probably unchanged in over a thousand years. And so on and so forth.

As others have rightly pointed out, you can't censor an ancient document without making an awfully big bonfire.

But the reason I'm posting on this thread is this:

Personally I am really torn on this as I am both Bi and Christian.

There's no need for you to be torn at all as there is no conflict. There is no need for homophobia in Christianity because Christ, after whom it is named, had absolutely nothing to say about it. However, he did have a lot of good stuff to say about loving God and loving your neighbour as yourself.

The belief that LGBTQ+ is wrong is based on some obscure verses in the Old Testament. There are obscure rules about all sorts of things in the OT. The churches ignore them all except, for some reason, the ones about homosexuality etc. It would be more consistent to ignore those ones too - and be honest and admit that all religion is a human response to the divine and therefore far from perfect.

Be bi, Christian and proud of both.

A lot of the rules around food are basic food hygiene if you think about it. Pork or shellfish wouldn't keep well in a hot country pre-refrigeration, so they're banned.
Funerals are held swiftly too. Not eating dairy or meat products together can assist digestion.

As an aside, i have been to the Holy Land and seen two graves that both claim to have held the body of Jesus after the crucifixion prior to the Resurrection. They can't both be right.

You can't 'censor' the Bible, but you can read it in context, in the light of attitudes and understanding at the time it was written.

I was thinking this the other day ,the way things are going at the moment,in our rediculous country it wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest if the bible got changed to keep up with current issues

I feel that society ( particularly in the western world) had more hate for Christianity then Islam

I'm not sure if you're daft, blinkered, or incredibly goady.

The bible is supposedly the word of god. Leave it as it is. That way everyone can see just what it is Christians believe and have believed for millennia. You don't get to pick and choose which bits - it's all just god's word. Which is a large part of why I'm not religious.

The Bible is a complex document. For a start it is a library of books. In that library there are histories and myths and letters and poetry and collections of sayings and apocalyptic work and four accounts of the life of Jesus and who he might be. These writings were written and rewritten and different times and in different places in two languages that are no longer spoken. Jesus spoke Aramaic but the New Testament is written in an ancient form of Greek so translation had already happened before it is translated into a language we speak. They were written within cultures that we do not fully understand. These cultures were both patriarchal and tribal.

Genre, translation and culture are just for starters.

Then you have the question of the authority of the text. Some conservative Christians in their literal understanding of the Bible seem to treat the Bible as if it were spoken directly by God and thus cannot be challenged. It is not channeled literature. Christians worship God and Jesus and not a book.

Tom Wright is really interesting on the question of authority here ntwrightpage.com/2016/07/12/how-can-the-bible-be-authoritative/

When it comes to censoring the Bible my opinion for what it's worth as someone who uses it daily is that we have to leave the hard stuff in. Faith is not certainty. The hard bits challenge and it is right to wrestle, study and pray through the tough stuff.

The Bible doesn't have "a homophobic section" so it would be impossible to censor that.

The Bible has a number of references to sex (and probably most famously, rape) between men) which some people have chosen to interpret as meaning that homosexuality is forbidden by the Bible. Every single one of those sentences or passages can be interpreted in a different way.

The Bible comes to us from millennia ago, from Hebrew, translated into Greek, translated into Latin, translated into English, all by people who had their own personal beliefs and agendas, who may or may not have understood the context but if they did, it has been lost to us. Even if you believe in God then what we have is not the word of God, it is very much the interpretation of Man.

So basically, YABVVVVVU and ignorant to think the Bible has "a homophobic section". People use it to justify their own homophobia, censoring it does not resolve that at all.

Society has moved on and has realised that people are born LGBTQ plus and no one has control over it

People can control their sexual behaviour though. No, in principle people should not be prevented from expressing a moral opinion on a sexual choice.

And as far as I am aware, the Bible says nothing on the being gay straight or bi in orientation. It censores actions such as sex outside of marriage, same-sex sex, etc.

So what do you think. is it time that this book is changed to meet current moral standards or are we all snowflakes and should just except beliefs of Christianity, that people have a right to believe if they want to.

That should only be a thing for works of literature. Historical texts (even if you dispute their historical veracity, should not be changed just to make them nicer. You are just changing historical facts of disputed veracity with facts that are deliberately false.

I believe in God and Jesus. They love everyone. I don't believe in religion nor their bibles. They were designed to control people.

Censoring the Bible is not heavy-handed and totally unnecessary.

I'm a complete atheist and don't have skin in this game at all... but surely the point about the Bible is that its a compendium of writings/teachings by different people or groups of people. It's not a single text by one author.

The way to deal with it is the way I think progressive Christians have dealt with it for some time, which is to point out that different Bible authors have written different sections guided by different social norms and it was written well over 2,000 years ago. So its to be expected that attitudes towards homosexuality will have changed somewhat over that period.

My understanding (and I haven't read much of it) is that most of the really homophobic stuff is in the Old Testament and based on ancient Talmudic (Jewish) law which goes back several hundred years before the birth of Christ. The New Testament is not as heavy on homophobia. Surely its just a case of explaining this and pointing out that Jesus's teachings were about tolerance and inclusion for everyone?

How can you suggest re-writing the bible?

I’m not religious at all but how can something that is such an important symbolic writing of its time be altered just to reflect the current time? That’s a crazy notion.

However, I’m a nurse and a copy of the bible is still in most bedside cabinets and I find it inappropriate.

No. If you choose to censor or rewrite the Bible, other things can be given the go-ahead to be rewritten or reinterpreted: we are sanctioning other texts or events to be altered irrelevant why they should be and that way a dangerous broad lies.