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Monday, November 14, 2005

Paul, repressed homosexual ? / ID questions again

An interesting circumstantial case for Paul's repressed homosexuality, from the enlightening text "The Bible and Christianity - The Historical Origins" :

Saul, the pre-conversion Roman Jew, was a man with an intense self loathing. He doesn't tell us why, but time and again, he describes himself as a sinner who was far beyond any possible redemption. A man who stood condemned in the eyes of God. A man clearly destined for hell, and there's nothing he himself could do about it, especially since his body's 'member' would not cooperate. (...) So mething was eating at Saul. It clearly related to behavior, because he describes himself as being a sinner. Over the centuries, many suggestions have been made as to what might have been the source of that self loathing. Few of them are really convincing, they all seem to have serious problems - except for one: the suggestion that Paul was a repressed homosexual. Homosexuality was not widely condemned in this region at the time, yet it could possibly have been a personal interpretation of Levitical proscriptions that drove him to consider himself a sinner for being a homosexual. Yet when he experiences his conversion, he realizes that by the grace of God, his homosexuality no longer matters, for God loves him the same as all men. I say this after having read the references in the New Testament in which Paul speaks of his shame and his self loathing: his words have a startlingly deep resonance with every gay man who was ever brought up in a Christian environment. This theory alone to the exclusion of all others I've seen explains all the strange aspects of Paul's attitudes towards sexuality - the proclivity to a monastic degree of chastity, the extreme mysogony, the fact that he remained single and urged others in his situation, whatever that was, to do likewise, and the frequent discussions of how the 'members' of his body do not cooperate with his spiritual goals, and his despair over his inability to effect the changes he would like. All of these evidences are consonant with the repressed-gay theory; no other theory I know of account for them all.

(...)

If this theory is true, it may well be that the whole of the Christian edifice of sexual doctrine, and even of Christianity itself, is built on the foundation of the self-loathing of a repressed gay man, unable to change himself or find salvation within himself, but finding salvation only in the grace of God. Again, if this theory is true, try to imagine how world history might have been different had Saul not been born gay and suffered the self-loathing that resulted from that circumstance of his birth.



Due to the raging controversy over recent ID decisions, I thought I'd remind the ID-worshippers that they have failed miserably in answering my questions. Why can none of these demagogues in high places stoop to answer basic scientific questions ? Are they afraid that, like Mr. Dumb-ski, they will end up putting ID on the same footing as astrology and stick their feet in their considerable mouths ?

Once again :

1. How can Intelligent Design be falsified ? An unfalsifiable belief is not scientific.
2. Please give a few accepted scientific laws or principles on which Intelligent Design is based. A belief that does not build on established knowledge is not scientific.
3. Please name an Intelligent Design-supporting study published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.
4. Who is (or are) the Designer ? How can we observe this Designer ?
5. Is such a Designer complex ? If so, who or what designed the Designer ?
6. How does Intelligent Design explain suboptimal, bad or evil design in nature, including but not limited to : predation, sea mammals that cannot breathe underwater, the blind spot in the human eye, and wisdom teeth.
7. How does Intelligent Design explain vestigial organs, including but not limited to : the appendix, the leg bones in whales, the wings of flightless birds, and tails in human embryos.
8. Please define how you measure "complexity" or "information" (depending on your flavour of Intelligent Design). Give us a numerical measure of complexity or information for a simple organism of your choice.


And don't miss my article on miracles and materialism, just below. Thank you !

Post a Comment


8 Comments:

At 11/14/2005 2:37 PM, Blogger Nielsio declaimed...

9. What percentage of IDiots are theists? How many different beliefs do they hold as a group. How come infidels see ID as true and atheists can't?

 
At 11/14/2005 2:38 PM, Blogger mathyoo declaimed...

That's a pretty interesting theory. Wasn't Paul the first Pope, too? that would explain why priests are required to be celibate. I've also heard that in the early days of the church, the clergy was sort of a secret refuge for gay men-it gave them an excuse for not laying with women and brought them into contact with other gay men.

I read an article a while ago (couldn't find it though) that talked about same sex marriages being performed by the catholic church in its early days as well.

 
At 11/14/2005 4:43 PM, Blogger Aaron Kinney declaimed...

LMFAO I love it when Paul is referred to as a repressed homosexual. Seriously, any psycho-analyst could build a profile on this guy and come to that exact conclusion.

 
At 11/14/2005 4:53 PM, Blogger Zachary Moore declaimed...

Mathyoo-

Peter is traditionally thought of as the first Pope, not Paul.

The reason why priests have to remain celibate probably has more to do with economics than sexual politics. The Church had a problem with priests bequeathing Church property to their children.

Since that change, however, many homosexual men (and women) have sought refuge in the Church for specifically the reasons you postulate.

 
At 11/14/2005 6:56 PM, Blogger Zachary Moore declaimed...

Olly-

That's an interesting case. As a scientist, however, when I see the phrase, "Proceedings of," at the beginning of a journal title, I immediately take the idea of "peer review" very lightly. This type of journal doesn't allow for open submission- only members of whatever society publishes the journal are allowed to publish. The most prestigious of these, PNAS, is still a journal that we take with a grain of salt, because the "peer" review process is usually just one person.

In this case, Sternberg was the "peer." His reasons for publishing it are his own. I certainly wouldn't have done so in his place.

Show me an ID paper that makes it into Cell or Nature, and I'll take notice.

I also can't help but point out that the paper in question is nothing more than a review. No new data, of course- nothing but more criticism of evolutionary theory. And to top it all off, Meyer brings up information theory- a sure sign that he has no clue.

 
At 11/14/2005 8:11 PM, Blogger breakerslion declaimed...

Paul, being the father of Christian doctrine, might have been a pedophile, not a homosexual, and that would certainly explain a lot!

 
At 11/15/2005 8:57 AM, Blogger Francois Tremblay declaimed...

Pedophilia doesn't explain the symptoms though.

 
At 4/26/2007 9:56 AM, Blogger Umesh R Bilagi declaimed...

Intelligent Design & Vestigial Organs
By
Dr Umesh R. Bilagi
Associate Prof of Medicine
KIMS Hubli
Karnataka
INDIA
umeshbilagi@gmail.com

http://umeshbilagi.blogspot.com/


Topic :-Vestigial organs not necessarily proof of evolution for Darwin


I would postulate that it is possible to have a vestigial organ [ananatomical structure in organisms in a species, thought to have lost its original function through evolution] without the process of evolution. Let me illustrate this idea using an analogy drawn from popular computer software.

Assuming, I have a reasonable amount of storage space on my computer hard disk, if I first create an unformatted document using Microsoft(MS) Word, and then a second MS Word document that I format very rigorously, I do so because I consider MS Word software to be the best option for my purposes, as opposed to using, say, the less sophisticated Notepad software, where little formatting of documentsis possible.

Now, if you argue that there is a vestigial structure to the first MSWord document (the capacity - in this case, unused - for formatting)and that this only became functional in the second document,ultimately concluding that the first document evolved from the second document, you would be incorrect, since I am the creator of both documents.

Similarly, I would argue that vestigial organs do not necessarily confirm evolution; they only point to what tools - improvable overtime - the creator used while making the species. This same principle is seen even in electronic gadgets today.

Most probably, such an explanation did not occur to Darwin given that, in his time, there were no common tools to carry out varied, complex,seemingly disconnected jobs. So he concluded that unless a creator planned to mislead us, vestigial organs should not have existed

It is tendency of creators of to make some useful common tools, which can be used to carry out multiple jobs (or to make machines). so by virtue of this comman tools (if tools get fitted into machines), vestigenesity will come up.


Vestigial organs can be classified in to verticle & tranverse ones

Verticle ones are like appendix which are inherited from ancestor to next species

Tranverse one are in which one sex has fuctional capacity & in opposite sex it is vestigineous

Example
Vertiginous Male breast can be better explained tools of intelligent design than Darwin evolution now look at male nipple which are functional in female. Male & female have come much before mammals, so presence of male nipple in mammals can be explained by theory of tools of intelligent design better than Darwin evolution.

 

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