5 ms·

In the century that the printing press was invented, one of the most popular books to be printed was the Malleus Maleficarum, which systematized the practice of

In the century that the printing press was invented, one of the most popular books to be printed was the Malleus Maleficarum, which systematized the practice of witch burning in the following centuries. Better dissemination of ideas does not necessarily mean better ideas. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malleus_Maleficarum

lopmotr 7y ago
Nevermind that. The most popular book of all time tells its readers to kill gays.
- shijie 7y ago
  If you’re referring to the Bible verse Leviticus 20:13, well, I’m sorry to say that the excerpt from “The God Delusion” or wherever you learned this simplistic piece of misinformation is, in fact, incorrect. Shocker. In fact, there is no account of capital punishment, in regards to this law (killing homosexual men), in Jewish history. As for Judaism, Rabbinic tradition understands the Torah's system of capital punishment to not be in effect for the past approximately 2,000 years, in the absence of a Sanhedrin and Temple. And as for Christianity, Leviticus and indeed the entirety of the Law of Moses was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. And so no, neither Jews nor Christians practice this at all.
  - lazysheepherd 7y ago
    Did not know about it, so just checked +20 different versions/translations[1] of the said verse in the bible, and scripture could not have been sharper and clearer on several points; - men who had sex with another men - should be killed - they deserve it Would you point me to a source/insight maybe? Else I will believe, that this is too, as I have witnessed countless times personally, nothing but an apologetic approach to horrors religious scripture in modern age. 1: https://biblehub.com/leviticus/20-13.htm https://biblehub.com/leviticus/20-13.htm
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      It says the same thing about men who have sex with their wives during the latter’s menstrual cycle, in the same chapter. OTOH, like virtually of the rest of the old testament statutes applicable to the Jewish people, these and most of the other prohibitions in that chapter and the surrounding ones is voided as to non-Jewish Christians (though one might infer from it a continuing prohibition on same sex marriage from it), see Acts 15:28-29, where the apostles, addressing the acts of some in the early Christian community attempting to apply the Mosaic law in its entirety to gentile Christians, declared: “It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell.” Now, it's true that some modern Christians do exactly (or, rather more often, a cherry-picked subset of it) what the council in Acts 15—directed, as Scripture says, by the Holy Spirit—reacted against and declared invalid.
      - tripzilch 7y ago
        .. so we should be thankful that there's even worse ideas in there that nobody is doing!
    - sgt101 7y ago
      Ask yourself (and your bible) "what did Jesus say"? And "what would Jesus do"? I believe that Jesus did not speak at all about homosexuality. There is no indication that he attacked or held any anger towards homosexuals. Conversely Jesus was strongly anti-capitalist! No money changing or animal selling in temples folks! But fundamentally - when reading the bible your question must be "am I a Christian - or not?" what is the purpose of Jesus's ministry and passion if he did not bring a message and a purpose beyond and more significant than the messages revealed to prophets and his servants? If you are a Christian surely your preoccupation must be his word - and more importantly his meaning; interpreted in the context of his explicitly stated principles and lived actions.
      - ben_w 7y ago
  - MiroF 7y ago
    But the book straight up says that, right? Like regardless of what was actually done, it literally says it right there: 'If a man lies with a man as with a woman, they have both committed an abomination. They must surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.'
    - swiley 7y ago
      That sounds like ancient Jewish law. The whole point of Christianity is that the ancient Jewish law isn’t valid anymore because of Christ.
      - ohithereyou 7y ago
        Incorrect: https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-17.htm https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-17.htm
        nzealand 7y ago
        The christian bible was independently written by multiple authors over hundreds of years. If you are going to treat these writings as a single cohesive narrative, you still have to keep in mind the context. One of the most interesting aspects of the writings Jesus, is that he only ever taught Jews. Jesus in fact never really laid out a formal theology of what to do after his death, he simply stresses that the second coming would be very soon. The only person to discuss the applicability of the Torah to non jewish followers of Jesus is Paul. Paul is extremely clear that the Jewish law does not apply to non Jews. It's also interesting that Paul never met Jesus, that Paul persecuted christians until a burning bush talked to Paul in a moment of divine inspiration, and afterwards Paul largely relied on his excellent knowledge of jewish scripture to explain why the jewish scripture no longer applied anymore.
        drdeca 7y ago
        I think this point could use more commentary and context. There are many verses which deal with “what now if the law?”, and I think a fuller understanding requires reading more than one of them. For example, there is, of course, the parts about the dietary restrictions part of the law. But that isn’t all. Male converts to Judaism were required to be circumcised, but NT verses say that this is not required to convert to Christianity (though, not phrased like that of course), and in talking about this, it also talks about what the law succeeds in, and what it, well, not fails in, but, it’s insufficiency in the face of human failure? I’m saying this not to say that the NT condones sex between two cisgender men (indeed, I believe that at one point after the resurrection, some apostles are on an island, and are telling the people there about Christ, and the text describes the homosexual sexual practices practiced by those native to the island as (in at least one common translation. This is by memory.) as “unnatural”, which seems to me to indicate disapproval, though I haven’t looked at commentary on how this was worded in the original Greek.) My apologies for not including links and citations; I haven’t gotten out of bed yet this morning, and am typing this on my phone.
- linusnext 7y ago
  Letting your inner Schicklgruber show...
lostgame 7y ago
Yeah, and then, almost as bad, we have the Bible, and as a result, Westboro Baptist Church.

lopmotr 7y ago

Nevermind that. The most popular book of all time tells its readers to kill gays.

shijie 7y ago
If you’re referring to the Bible verse Leviticus 20:13, well, I’m sorry to say that the excerpt from “The God Delusion” or wherever you learned this simplistic piece of misinformation is, in fact, incorrect. Shocker. In fact, there is no account of capital punishment, in regards to this law (killing homosexual men), in Jewish history. As for Judaism, Rabbinic tradition understands the Torah's system of capital punishment to not be in effect for the past approximately 2,000 years, in the absence of a Sanhedrin and Temple. And as for Christianity, Leviticus and indeed the entirety of the Law of Moses was fulfilled by Jesus Christ. And so no, neither Jews nor Christians practice this at all.
- lazysheepherd 7y ago
  Did not know about it, so just checked +20 different versions/translations[1] of the said verse in the bible, and scripture could not have been sharper and clearer on several points; - men who had sex with another men - should be killed - they deserve it Would you point me to a source/insight maybe? Else I will believe, that this is too, as I have witnessed countless times personally, nothing but an apologetic approach to horrors religious scripture in modern age. 1: https://biblehub.com/leviticus/20-13.htm https://biblehub.com/leviticus/20-13.htm
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    It says the same thing about men who have sex with their wives during the latter’s menstrual cycle, in the same chapter. OTOH, like virtually of the rest of the old testament statutes applicable to the Jewish people, these and most of the other prohibitions in that chapter and the surrounding ones is voided as to non-Jewish Christians (though one might infer from it a continuing prohibition on same sex marriage from it), see Acts 15:28-29, where the apostles, addressing the acts of some in the early Christian community attempting to apply the Mosaic law in its entirety to gentile Christians, declared: “It is the decision of the holy Spirit and of us not to place on you any burden beyond these necessities, namely, to abstain from meat sacrificed to idols, from blood, from meats of strangled animals, and from unlawful marriage. If you keep free of these, you will be doing what is right. Farewell.” Now, it's true that some modern Christians do exactly (or, rather more often, a cherry-picked subset of it) what the council in Acts 15—directed, as Scripture says, by the Holy Spirit—reacted against and declared invalid.
    - tripzilch 7y ago
      .. so we should be thankful that there's even worse ideas in there that nobody is doing!
  - sgt101 7y ago
    Ask yourself (and your bible) "what did Jesus say"? And "what would Jesus do"? I believe that Jesus did not speak at all about homosexuality. There is no indication that he attacked or held any anger towards homosexuals. Conversely Jesus was strongly anti-capitalist! No money changing or animal selling in temples folks! But fundamentally - when reading the bible your question must be "am I a Christian - or not?" what is the purpose of Jesus's ministry and passion if he did not bring a message and a purpose beyond and more significant than the messages revealed to prophets and his servants? If you are a Christian surely your preoccupation must be his word - and more importantly his meaning; interpreted in the context of his explicitly stated principles and lived actions.
    - ben_w 7y ago
- MiroF 7y ago
  But the book straight up says that, right? Like regardless of what was actually done, it literally says it right there: 'If a man lies with a man as with a woman, they have both committed an abomination. They must surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.'
  - swiley 7y ago
    That sounds like ancient Jewish law. The whole point of Christianity is that the ancient Jewish law isn’t valid anymore because of Christ.
    - ohithereyou 7y ago
      Incorrect: https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-17.htm https://biblehub.com/matthew/5-17.htm
      - nzealand 7y ago
        The christian bible was independently written by multiple authors over hundreds of years. If you are going to treat these writings as a single cohesive narrative, you still have to keep in mind the context. One of the most interesting aspects of the writings Jesus, is that he only ever taught Jews. Jesus in fact never really laid out a formal theology of what to do after his death, he simply stresses that the second coming would be very soon. The only person to discuss the applicability of the Torah to non jewish followers of Jesus is Paul. Paul is extremely clear that the Jewish law does not apply to non Jews. It's also interesting that Paul never met Jesus, that Paul persecuted christians until a burning bush talked to Paul in a moment of divine inspiration, and afterwards Paul largely relied on his excellent knowledge of jewish scripture to explain why the jewish scripture no longer applied anymore.
      - drdeca 7y ago
        I think this point could use more commentary and context. There are many verses which deal with “what now if the law?”, and I think a fuller understanding requires reading more than one of them. For example, there is, of course, the parts about the dietary restrictions part of the law. But that isn’t all. Male converts to Judaism were required to be circumcised, but NT verses say that this is not required to convert to Christianity (though, not phrased like that of course), and in talking about this, it also talks about what the law succeeds in, and what it, well, not fails in, but, it’s insufficiency in the face of human failure? I’m saying this not to say that the NT condones sex between two cisgender men (indeed, I believe that at one point after the resurrection, some apostles are on an island, and are telling the people there about Christ, and the text describes the homosexual sexual practices practiced by those native to the island as (in at least one common translation. This is by memory.) as “unnatural”, which seems to me to indicate disapproval, though I haven’t looked at commentary on how this was worded in the original Greek.) My apologies for not including links and citations; I haven’t gotten out of bed yet this morning, and am typing this on my phone.
linusnext 7y ago
Letting your inner Schicklgruber show...

lostgame 7y ago

Yeah, and then, almost as bad, we have the Bible, and as a result, Westboro Baptist Church.