BS: the sayings of elton john

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: michaelr
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 01:54 AM

"A historical record of what Jesus said"???

I'd like to see that history book.

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: Smedley
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 03:38 AM

Little Hawk, sadly your speculation falls apart on the fact that Paul's views (as least as purveyed in that rollicking page-turner The Bible) are vehemently homophobic (in today's terminology) and a lot of today's anti-gay fundamentalists fall greedily upon his words like starving men on a T-bone steak.

You might also, if I may pass on a scintilla of advice, think about your implication that misogyny and homosexuality are obvious partners.

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 09:53 AM

But surely his writings being 'vehemently homophobic' is yet another indicator is it not? As well as the misogyny? I have not yet met a gay misogynist so surely if he was trying to disguise the fact that he was gay he would have behaved in just the way he did.

I'll stop now in case Dan Brown gets any ideas...

:D (eG)

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 10:14 AM

You're right that Paul is homophobic too. That could be driven by his own guilt!!! ;-) You see, he was actually homosexual...but hiding in the closet. This explains both his blatant misogyny AND his apparent homophobia...

And if you take any of the above very seriously, you will be going as far astray as if you imagine that I think misogyny and homosexuality are obvious partners. I don't. I'm merely engaging in a little gentle humorous satire of Elton John's public musings about Jesus, that's all.

I have known one gay men who was quite obviously misogynistic...and it seemed to be based on the fact that he hated his mother...rather than that he was gay...but that's just one man. I don't take it as indicating anything about an entire demographic of people. It was his own individual issue, that's all.

Paul's writings contain some very odd stuff about both men and women...and that leads me to think Paul may have been a rather odd fellow. His hostility toward homosexuals, however, was not odd at all in the community of his time, since there were already very strong religious restrictions against men engaging in homosexual activity in the traditional Jewish community that the early Christians came out of. It would have been "normal" at that time among Jews and many other people in that region to express a horror of homosexuality in their religious writings. Therefore Paul would not have been saying anything very unusual in that respect if he followed along the same line, would he? For that matter, his chauvinist opinions about women probably weren't unusual at the time either...

Hell, maybe he was just an ordinary guy of his time! ;-)

Anyway, some of what he had to say gives me the creeps. I have to admit, though, that he wrote some pretty inspired stuff here and there too. Interesting character.

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: mousethief
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 11:38 AM

"A historical record of what Jesus said"???

I'd like to see that history book.

We both know it's impossible. His enemies and people who just didn't care about him wouldn't have taken the time to write it down (and who would have ensured it survived the Dark Ages?), and if his disciples and followers wrote it down, it would be perforce deemed non-historical by the modern history establishment.

O..O
=o=

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: Smedley
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 12:16 PM

Little Hawk, sorry I was a bit dense & didn't perceive the tone of your post. It was early in the day!!

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 12:28 PM

That's right. It is simply impossible to categorically verify what Jesus did or did not say, based on what we presently have to go on. We can speculate and theorize about it and it can be very interesting to do so, but we cannot confirm any of it.

I've read a number of fascinating books which offer alternative views (differing in various ways from the Bible accounts) of Jesus' life and work. I have no idea which of those books is the most accurate, and I have no way of finding out, so I can only go on my own gut feeling when reading them as to how close to the truth they might be... I can live with not knowing for sure exactly what happened back then. I can admit that I don't know and that there IS no way of presently knowing. It seems that a great many other people in this world have difficulty living with such uncertainty, so they decide to instead subscribe to a specific form of faith and never question it. Their faith will generally reveal either their cultural roots (which is perfectly understandable)...or their emotional prejudices.

That suits them. Fine. It doesn't suit me. I don't mind not being 100% sure about things that happened 2000 or more years ago.

Would I like to know for sure about those things? You bet I would! I thirst for knowledge wherever I can find it. As yet, however, I see no way of achieving such certain knowledge regarding what Jesus said or did. I can only speculate as to what he might have said and done.

I think he was probably heterosexual, a conventional married rabbi of the time (with some unconventional new ideas) AND legally married to Mary of Magdala, and I think there was a long political power struggle between the Marian wing of the church led by Mary and the male-dominated factions led by Peter and Paul...and that the male-dominated side eventually won out, consolidated itself in Rome and Constantinople and cooked the books that have come down to us and attempted (with considerable success) to annihilate the Marian followers wherever they might be found...and the reason I think so is because of several lengthy and very interesting investigative historical books I've read which say exactly that (and I'm not talking about Dan Brown. I have not even read Dan Brown's book. I'm talking about other books that were written some time before Dan Brown had his bestseller. He was not the originator of that theory by any means, but he was very successful at marketing a thriller novel based on the theory.).

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 04:26 PM

Whether JC was gay or not, you have to admit he had some sort of foot fetish.

Subject: RE: BS: the sayings of elton john
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Feb 10 - 05:16 PM

Yeah, yeah... (grin)

And you have to comprehend what an enormous symbolic gesture of humility and respect for others it was for a person of higher position or status in that society to humble himself by washing someone else's feet, especially someone of lower status!

It was a very dramatic gesture on his part to make the lesson of equality, respect for others, and willingness to serve others selflessly very clear to his close followers...because their natural instinct would have been to put him up on a huge pedestal and put themselves down below that.

(This is assuming that the stories we've heard about the foot-washing are accurate, and they probably are. It was very unusual behaviour in that society...feet being seen as the dirtiest exposed part of the body among those people in that region...and throughout the East. It's still seen that way. That's why the guy in Iraq threw his shoes at George Bush as a sign of his total disrespect for Dubya.)

Jesus could hardly have picked a more dramatic way of emphasizing that no one is intrinsically above (or better than) anyone else.