Brother Vouthon ji..i see that you dont have any comments on this Thread....??? Do you agree with Naben's account....and reasoning vis a vis Lot and homosexuals and all that stuff...i look forward to a refreshing views from you as your other posts on SIKHISM have been rather impressive...This is your Backyard so to speak..hmmmmmmm..
My dear brother Gyani jipeacesign
I can asure you that my lack of interest in this thread stems not from tacit agreement but rather from the standpoint of utter disgust at what Naben is saying swordfight
To be honest, I am far more interested in Sikhi than Naben's homophobia lol His style of writing - which reads like a very poor attempt at proselytism to me - is very unappealing to my sensibilities, which is why I have - until now - largely tried to overlook it.
Well, I do belong to an Abrahamic religion - yes - but I certainly do not read the story of Lot in the Book of Genesis and come away with it hateful of homosexuals, so the similarities between me and Naben end there I am afraid, although perhaps this is because my reading of it is filtered through the eyes of Christ who never even mentioned homosexuality once in any of his recorded sayings and certainly, like myself, understood the parable of Lot very differently from Naben and the holy Qur'an.
First of all, before I discuss the story of Lot specifically, please allow me to explain how one should read and interpret ancient texts, especially Old Testament stories which come from nearly 3,000 years ago.
Catholics believe in the
Doctrine of Divine Accomodation.
This doctrine of the Catholic Church, held by every Father and theologian from the first century till now, was explained by the Protestant historian and sociologist Rodney Stark in his recent 2011 book, "
The Triumph of Christianity":
"...The doctrine of divine accomodation holds that God's communications with humans are always limited to their current capacity to comprehend. As St. Gregory of Nyssa wrote in the fourth century, God is so "far above our nature and inaccessible to all approach" that he, in effect, speaks to us in baby talk, thereby giving "to our human nature what is is capable of receiving"..."
This is closely linked to the other important doctrine of
progressive revelation which I explained to brother Harry Haller ji on this post in this another thread:
http://www.sikhphilosophy.net/163797-post44.html
Just check about half-way down the post and you will find my explanation of it.
The story of Lot isn't actually about homosexuality. The primary "sin" was actually rape - in this case the attempted rape of two men by a group of other men, that is, an abusive homosexual act. The Sodomites wanted to rape the visitors whom Lot, the one just man in the city, welcomed in hospitality for the night.
The Bible itself is lucid on the sins of Sodom: pride, lack of concern for the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:48-49); hatred of strangers and cruelty to guests (Wisdom 19:13); arrogance (Sirach/Ecclesiaticus 16; evildoing, injustice, oppression of the widow and orphan (Isaiah 1:17); adultery (in those days, the use of another man’s property), and lying (Jeremiah 23:12).
So you have a whole variety of evils committed by the Sodomites for which the biblical authors condemn them. Homosexuality is not one of them, although abusive homosexual acts certainly are.
Homosexuality, despite ancient Jewish dislike for homosexual sex, was not one of the many sins of the city of Sodom but rather
it was SEXUAL ABUSE. Later on in the narrative, the same men of Sodom try to rape Lot's daughters. So we see that the narrative is about sexual abuse, whether homosexual or heterosexual. This is surely very telling.
The tale of Lot is a parable. In the Bible it makes no attempts at historicity, although I presume it must in the Qur'an, but rather has all the hallmarks of a fictional oral tradition passed around at firesides that exemplifies an understanding of a much deeper divine truth. I am quite sure that Lot as presented in the tale never existed nor did the cities of Sodom or Gommorrah. There may have been, archaelogically speaking, a city called Sodom in the ancient world whose inhabitants had a reputation of great evil and which was, tragically, destroyed in some kind of volcanic eruption much like Pompeii and which ancients took as a punishment from the gods or indeed some kind of deity. However there is no concrete evidence in this respect.
To try and use an ancient parable as a standard by which to make judgements about the mental health of homosexual people, or indeed to stereotype these poor people and castigate them as filthy or worthy of being shunned or - God forbid - "stoned", is an abuse of an ancient narrative produced in the Near Middle East nearly 3,000 years ago. It is quite sick actually, and very disturbing that people in the 21st century still read religious texts produced by ancients this way.
The crux of the story of Lot - in the Bible although I cannot speak for the Qur'an where it does seem to be predominantly about the "wickedness" of homosexuality - is actually a kind of "moral tale" about the mercy of God.
The moral of the story is that all a society needs to redeem it is to have one good, humane person living within it, and if it has just that, then there is hope for that country and for that people. One light shinning in the darkness is enough to compensate for, and indeed to absolve, the sins of millions of other people. It is like a candle shinning in a very dark hall. No matter how large the hall is, and no matter how pitch dark the night may be, the darkness cannot put out that single light, cannot overcome it.
So let us read the story first, remembering its venerable age as coming from the pen of far less enlightened people, and let us reflect on
God's divine accomodation and
progressive revelation through this narrative to help further the spiritual progress of these ancient Jews.
Given its age, the story presents a rather primitive view of God which the Qur'an sadly seems to have adopted well over a thousand years later, from Naben's quotations anyway. In this view, God is seen as a
judge to these ancients
who will quite literally take justice himself upon cities of evildoers much like a human court Judge would. To this end, God was understood by these ancient Jews to actively intervene in human affairs, punishing those who commit evil and helping the oppressed. However this story, presents a true development in understanding of God's nature, which ancient peoples had prior to this not received. In this story we see a God who is
merciful. The city is going to be destroyed by some kind of volcanic eruption, and the ancient peoples of the Near East consider this to be a sign of God's or the gods retribution on the city of Sodom for its great cruelty to other people.
Abraham cries out to God about the imminent destruction of the city, thinking that it is God who is destroying it through nature, as ancient eople often assumed:
“Will you indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then destroy the place and not spare it for the fifty righteous who are in it? Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18: 23-25).
Thus we come to a moral dilemna: Does God view human beings collectively? If a country, say Nazi Germany, has fallen into the grip of dictatorship and cruelty, does that thereby mean that it is without hope? Should one simply regard that civilisation as having gone too far and now have no hope of change, of redemption, worthy now only to be condemned or indeed left to destruction through its own evil?
Abraham asks forgiveness for the whole city and does so by appealing to God’s justice, on the basis of good people living within it who can still redeem it. As Pope Benedict XVI explained when commenting on this passage: "
Abraham’s thought, which seems almost paradoxical, could be summed up like this: obviously it is not possible to treat the innocent as guilty, this would be unjust; it would be necessary instead to treat the guilty as innocent, putting into practice a “superior” form of justice, offering them a possibility of salvation because, if evildoers accept God’s pardon and confess their wrongdoing, letting themselves be forgiven, they will no longer continue to do wicked deeds, they too will become righteous. It is this request for justice that Abraham expresses in his intercession, a request based on the certainty that the Lord is merciful".
So we have hear, first of all, a clear progression in understanding of God for these ancient people through this story.
Secondly, and more importantly, the indictment of society.
Read:
26 And the LORD said, If I find in Sodom fifty righteous within the city, then I will spare all the place for their sakes.
27 And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord, which am but dust and ashes:
.28 Peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, If I find there forty and five, I will not destroy it.
29 And he spake unto him yet again, and said, Peradventure there shall be forty found there. And he said, I will not do it for fortys sake.
30 And he said unto him, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak: Peradventure there shall thirty be found there. And he said, I will not do it, if I find thirty there.
31 And he said, Behold now, I have taken upon me to speak unto the Lord: Peradventure there shall be twenty found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for twentys sake.
.32 And he said, Oh let not the Lord be angry, and I will speak yet but this once: Peradventure ten shall be found there. And he said, I will not destroy it for tens sake.
The moral of this ancient story is clear and it fits in with what the Lord Jesus said on one occassion:
"...Whoever has ears, let him hear. There is light within a man of light, and he lights up the whole world...You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father...The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it..."
- Jesus Christ
All that it takes for a society to have hope, is for a few good individuals to stand up within it and "let their light shine".
Thus in Nazi Germany, a group of young devout Christian students called
the White Rose passively resisted the government and tried to spread around pamphlets alerting Germans to the horrors committed by the Nazi regime in the occupied territories against Jews and other innocents. These young people, one of who was a 21 year old woman called Sophie Scholl, paid with their lives. They were beheaded in 1943.
And yet they were a "light" to their society, and through brave people like them - now revered in Germany - a new Germany arose after the war, freed from the evils of Nazism.
In the story of Sodom, Lot was a light shinning his society. He stood up against the evils committed by the other residents of Sodom, and his uncle Abraham - a holy man - tried to intercede and make the inhabitants of Sodom change their ways. And from this story, we receive a very powerful message that all it takes for a society to be redeemed and saved from lapsing into barbarism, is a few, brave people who are willing to "let their light shine".
This is the true moral that the story of Lot teaches us. peacesign
these are simply tales spun and spun until the the reader also gets "stoned"..get it ??
