Muffti isn’t dimissing religion; but as an atheist he does dismiss God. There is a deep question as to what the value of religion is when you take God out of the equation that truthfully, Muffti isn’t sure how to answer. But he does think it frees you up a little bit to reject the parts of religion that you find odious: the view of homosexuality as a prime example.

And trust me on this one– if you were Christian, you’d be a papist, too. I can even see you as a worthy successor to Cardinal Ratzinger in his former gig at enforcing doctrinal purity….

Adding some Marker’s Mark and a roll of weed, I come to realize great spirits always encounter irritating opposition from mediocer minds.

The fragmented, federal nature of Protestantism is one lasting legacy of this.

So large numbers of Christians – especially in Protestant America – still do put direct Bible reading front and center in their religious/moral program.

It’s also important to add that lots of Christians are revisiting traditional teaching on homosexuality. Most advocates of that change, though, aren’t basing it on a reading of a passage here or there– rather, in a broad way, on Jesus’s teachings of love, acceptance and inclusion.

That having been said, if, as you said
“the Christian approach is to view the Bible as a whole and ask: what vision of sexuality and family is advanced in Scripture?”
then I don’t understand why the prohibition against homosexuality sticks, but issues of sexuality which included lots about refraining from sex around menstruation and in many other circumstances did not.
Why is one vision of correct sexuality more valid than the other, when taken as a whole?

As for Dawkins, Muffti thinks the guy is awfully clever but he’s not a huge fan. But anything that shakes you lose of faith Muffti is willing to endorse.

He’ll be glad to let you know when the grand metal opera is ready to be unveiled that proves the non-existence of god. Until then, Muffti will sit around trying to play as fast as Metallica did on Battery. And probably fail

Ah, the genetic fallacy! How long has it been since Muffti saw you rear your ugly head? Muffti can’t help but love the irony that it pops up in a comment dedicated to calling soemone else ‘illogical’. Think before you speak, dude.

It’s inconceivable, for example, that the Pope, or Orthodox Christians, or Methodists, or even evanglicals, would join Conservative rabbis in parsing Deuteronomy to conclude that, for gay guys, oral sex is fine but anal isn’t. Like the result or not, the Christian approach is to view the Bible as a whole and ask: what vision of sexuality and family is advanced in Scripture?

The essential difference between Christians and Jews in their views of the Bible may be different views of the Covenant created by God. Catholics believe that the Jews have their own such Covenant, and for all the things we have in common, that Covenant is very, very different from the one Christians believe arises from the New Testament.

Anyone else with shaky faith get bent out of sorts when super bright folk like Dawkins and Harris make the whole God things seem so silly. Or am I just too easily influenced?

The Jewish tradition, as mother in israel pointed out, uses the bible as a type of base, but then adds midrash, talmud and other responsa to explain and allegorize much of its contents, like what dave offered in the above comment.

I’m not making a value judgment on with approach, but rather commenting on the process by which Jews have tried to understand the…umm… oddities of the bible.

At the end of the day, our religion, laws and moral codes are not based on biblical sources but rather on rabbinic ones.

Reconciling some of those opinions, influenced as they were by prevailing moral codes of the time, well, that’s another story