Jesus Said: One Man + One Woman = Marriage (Billboard in WI)

[undeterred]

Actually Jesus said nothing of the sort. But there's a "defense of marriage" amendment to the constitution in Wisconsin on the ballot, so words are being put in Jesus' mouth for the occasion.

[pooja]

1. I was going to say... Jesus didn't say that.... and they would know

this if they read their bible.

[gumby]

39. Wisconsin, home of the John Birch Society, is well....

schizophrenic.

This state is so two-faced, it's hard to figure out.

However, the change to our Constitution seems to be likely. That is the worst!!!!! The fundies and "right-to-lifers" have been very influential in this rural state that was once 'progressive.'

It's my opinion that the lack of information about how our state government works has left most citizens as prey to the fundies.

Edit: Ooops, meant to reply to OP

[3waygeek]

2. He also said

"Let he among you who is without sin cast the first stone." Interesting how the fundies seem to forget that one.

[Rocknrule]

66. I thought all Republicans were without sin

That's why Foley's child-raping is Clinton's fault
:sarcasm:

[Quixote1818]

3. No, it's one man plus his rib = woman nt

[ogsball]

44. I think the Hebrew implies. . .

that God to the Human (Adam = Human) and split the human making male and female for each other.

[undeterred]

4. Jesus never married, he was a momma's boy who hung out with other men

and a few loose women. A lifestyle nothing like the sacred "nuclear" family that the Christian right promotes. Jesus loved and accepted everyone.

If you want to know what someone is really about, look at what they do and how they live. Talk is cheap.

[patrice]

5. Jesus said "Love one another."

No ifs, ands, nor buts. No qualifications or footnotes, no conditions.

You have to be honest to really love anyone and if you're not, no amount of calling whatever it is "Love" will make it so, no matter how long you manage to do that, no matter how "perfect" the relationship is otherwise. Pretending doesn't make it so.

[undeterred]

6. and love the sinner, hate the sin is bullshit

[xchrom]

9. that's another thing jesus never said

but it's been said so often -- it's like it's in there.

[undeterred]

11. or "God helps those who help themselves"

not in the Bible

[SharonAnn]

59. Aesop's fables, I believe. "The gods help those who help themselves."

[patrice]

13. Right! That's a cop-out! An excuse not to recognize your own

responsibility in their "sin" by failing to understand what people are doing and why.

[TechBear_Seattle]

16. Incorrect. There is one qualification.

The Gospel of John, chapter 15, verse 12, Revised Standard Version: This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

Most Talibangelicans seem to think that Jesus absolutely despited them. :rofl:

[Azathoth]

7. Jesus also used to write an op-ed column for the Washington Times

But he quit after the paper started getting too librul... :eyes:

[Cameron27]

25. !

:rofl:

[Bitwit1234]

8. WHICH PASSAGE

You know what makes you soooo mad about these hypocrites is this. No where in the Bible does it say anything even resembling that. When you ask them where it is in the Bible they have a round about answer. Can understand why the most common, greedy, lying individuals are the ones who are always yelling from the pulpit saying they are religious.

Their actions prove they aren't. They steal the money the poor parishioners donate, buy themselves cars, houses, cable sites and businesses. If they were so religious why don't they give the money to charity, which is what they were supposed to collect it for in the first place.

[TechBear_Seattle]

10. Chapter and verse, please

Such is my customary response to nonsense like that. The customary reply is, "Uhh.... uhhh.... well, my pastor said it is in there, and he would never lie about something like that. So there!"

[Cha]

12. How about a dueling billboard that says

"Jesus didn't say that but He did say.."Thou shalt not kill"..he did say that didn't he?

[undeterred]

15. Well its one of the ten commandments

so Jesus probably had to memorize it in Hebrew school, but I don't know if he's quoted saying that in the New Testament.

[kdmorris]

26. However...he DID say

Blessed are the peace makers.

[zeemike]

42. Yes he actually did say it

When asked "what must I do to attain eternal life"
He said Obey the ten commandments and then gave a summery of them. But he never have it as his commandment.

[patrice]

17. He died rather than support violence and killing.

Many Jews wanted him to lead a revolution. Rome and Jewish leaders feared that he'd do that.

If he had done what the rebels wanted, he wouldn't have been handed over to the state.

He died for deciding for himself, independent of peer pressure, independent of his church and state, what is right. He died because he was a truly Free man and, thus, a danger to organized religion and the state.

[undeterred]

19. Nonviolent resistance and forgiveness are radical ways of being

in this world.

[patrice]

24. And a great personal challenge because violence has become

so wholistic and reflexive on the personal level. We are so programmed by our culture that there is a great deal of psychological violence that never makes it into overt behavior.

[smoogatz]

28. Mostly he was concerned with helping the poor, and getting people

to love one another. He had little tolerance for rich, self-righteous assholes. That's why the radical Christian right doesn't talk a whole lot about what Jesus actually said. He was, it turns out, a commie hippie freak.

[gumby]

33. Well, "they" have an out for that one.

The fundies, especially the Reconstructionists, have made a clear distinction between "killing" and "murder."

In fact, they insist that God insists on "killing" as in cases of War and the death penalty. (see the OT)

Just as the Republican Party has been taken over by the fundamentalists, so have the fundies been taken over by the Reconstructionists. That's the crazy aunt in the basement that no one wants to talk about.

Anyhow, according to current reconstructionist thinking, it's quite OK (and even mandatory) to "kill," including insolent children.

So, to many people in this country, their Christan religion tells them to kill, kill, kill....... but not to "murder."

[Cha]

37. Yeah, that's why I don't like

their god. Mean ol' vengeful god.

[jody]

14. But Jesus did say in Matthew 19:3-6

QUOTE
The Pharisees also came unto him, tempting him, and saying unto him, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?

And he answered and said unto them, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female,

And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?

Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.
UNQUOTE

:shrug:

[undeterred]

Well um, Jesus wasn't married so he didn't know how hard it is

and he couldn't have known that divorce would be necessary... so, we um, disregard that if need be.

[jody]

20. No problem, I was just quoting what Jesus supposedly said. n/t

[patrice]

21. That's his blessing on heterosexuality. Good.

But it doesn't say anything about homosexuality.

Jesus also never said anything about women priests or ministers.

[jody]

27. Sounds good to me, anything Jesus didn't mention is morally OK. n/t

[patrice]

34. Straw man: That's not what I said. Are you a troll?

I only said he didn't say anything about it.

That doesn't necessarily make it okay.

It may be okay it may not be okay.

In the same way that even though he said heterosexual marriage is good, any given marriage may be a sin.

Did you intend to mis-characterize what I said on purpose?

[jody]

36. But you gave two examples of things Jesus didn't mentioned and I

assumed you supported those things.

Are you now saying you oppose the two examples you gave?

I'm not a troll, are you?

[patrice]

40. I do support honest homosexuals and female clergy, but what I

think about them is beside the point.

My point was that he didn't say anything about homosexuals or women priests. That doesn't have anything to do with whether I am for or against them.

I could just as easily be against them if I felt that was right.

Pardon my reference to trolling, but that particular sophism, whatever isn't expressly forbidden is okay, is pretty juvenile and typical of a certain mindset, so I thought you were ridiculing me.

[jody]

41. The OP was about marriage. The quote I gave was Jesus re marriage. n/t

[patrice]

46. And I said that it was indeterminent on the matter of homosexuality.

The quote is about heterosexual marriage nothing else.

It doesn't say marriages are only heterosexual. It simply describes what heterosexual marriage should be.

By way of logical analogy, if a person were to say something about the good effects of combining two ingredients in a recipe, we wouldn't assume that good effects could not be achieved by combining other ingredients in other recipes. There are many ways to make bread.

[jody]

49. In context, Jesus was talking about marriage between man and woman. Jesus

said elsewhere, "Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil."

It's my understanding that the law to which Jesus referred proscribed various types of sexual contact but approved such relations between husband and wife.

Please understand that my comments are about the OP which was about marriage being between a man and woman as it was in the Jewish culture and first century in which Jesus lived.

IMO what Jesus might say today is open for speculation.

I'm confident several DUers will jump in an give alternate interpretations but that's what makes discussing religion interesting.

[Exiled in America]

43. anything jesus didn't mention we are free to decide.

That's what I would say.

I mean, if you are trying to practice a faith based on his teachings, then follow them and use them as a guide to help you make complicated contextual choices about issues to which Jesus did not directly speak, then use your own convictions and moral judgement in harmory with those guides to figure out the rest.

[patrice]

52. That's what I say. We're supposed to apply the principles and

figure the particulars out FOR OUR OWN BEHAVIOR, not for that of others.

We're supposed to do our best to be moral while recognizing that there is no quid pro quo. We're just supposed to do our best without ever being completely sure that you ARE right and "good", but brave enough to cast those actions, you life, into the void, with no assurance of reward.

Something else Jesus said, "Father, why hast thou forsaken me?"

In their relationships people, heterosexual or homosexual, are supposed to try their hardest to be the best person they can be knowing that they'll never actually achieve that, but try anyway, hope for the best, but no gaurantees. Our actions are supposed to justify themselves, not as payment for "heaven" or "love" or marriage or a relationship or whatever. Incomplete though it may be, our actions are supposed to have their own merit. The sex of the persons we interact with does not insure nor prevent that.

[Igel]

30. Well, that certainly shows your Bible ignorance.

Quoting things like the Bible like that.

Like the Bible has anything to say about Jesus or what he said.

On the other hand, the conclusion, the focus of the passage, referred to divorce, not to the sexes of those married.

However, I personally believe Jesus was quoting himself, so that certainly puts my views on the margin of what's acceptable.

[jody]

32. How can CORRECTLY quoting the Bible show Bible ignorance? n/t

[Viva_La_Revolution]

51. because the bible in your hands is not the true bible

it's been edited, translated and 'explained' to us for hundreds of years by people, churches and men with agendas. It is NOT the original text, which probably wasn't completely accurate either.

[jody]

54. I understand about the Bible but doesn't Jewish law say the same thing as

the quote I gave for Jesus?

I thought Jewish writings from the first century have survived intact as to meaning so I would rather defer to 1st century Jewish law if citing Jesus gives someone a problem.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

58. I don't know if it does or not...

I was just commenting on the accuracy of the bible. :shrug:

[Igel]

53. Obviously one more thing is needed in my post:

:sarcasm:

No so much directed at you (except tongue in cheek), as at whoever said Jesus never said such a thing, and those that chimed in in agreement.

It's silly to be wrong about something like that these days, with so many websites listing the full (searchable) text of so many translations, editions, paraphrases, and revision of the Old Testament, New Testament, and even Apocrypha, along with numerous concordances and commentaries.

[jody]

55. Thanks for the clarification.

:hi:

[susanna]

63. Well, then I'm hanging out with you...

....on the margin of what is acceptable.

I see the same thing in the passage. It condemns nothing about homosexuals; it simply clarifies the right behavior for heterosexual marriage, which was obviously the common denominator of the time.

[HardRocker05]

62. doesn't preclude homosexuality or polygamy; does preclude divorce. nt

[susanna]

64. Jesus REALLY did not like divorce. n/t

[baldguy]

18. That's right up there with "Jesus is a Republican".

[Ian David]

22. You have killed 655,000 innocent people because you think...

two dudes kissing is yucky."

That would be my billboard.

[patrice]

29. Bingo! Homophobes put this guy in office.

Homophobes and Right to Lifers.

[smoogatz]

23. FAIR Wisconsin is running a great campaign against the Amendment--

it looks like it's going to lose. Though we'll still be an election or two away from winning back the State House.

[ck4829]

31. These people should actually try reading the bible once in a while

And be sure to NOT skip the parts about caring for the poor and about peace too.

[sakabatou]

35. These people re-write the bible to fit their needs

Just like what happened in the Inquisition.

[AIJ Alom]

38. Want to defend marriage ??? Stop WEALTH CONCENTRATION.

Stop letting the have mores accumulate wealth at the cost of middle class families. Quit making working people squabble with each other over money, let them keep more of it and help prevent divorce. Best thing I can think of, is don't vote Republican, so Democrats can repeal tax cuts for the rich and save the married middle class.

[JeffR]

45. The quote is from the Gospel of Dick, Chapter 6, Verse 18

where he's also quoted as saying, "What's a messiah gotta do to get a tax cut around here?"

[magnolia]

47. If Jesus...or God...

...said marriage is one man and one woman, then why are most of the marriages in the Bible one man and MANY women????

[patrice]

57. Good question!!

????????????????????????????

[StoryTeller]

48. Using Jesus as a political tool

...no matter what political viewpoint you are coming from, using Jesus as a political tool is really absurd. And I say this from the vantage point of having grown up in a fairly conservative evangelical family and gradually moving further left as I got older. I can speak from both sides of the spectrum.

In the case of this stupid billboard, the person that quoted the Matthew verses is correct--this is what the Bible records Jesus as saying. And it's not exactly what the billboard claims he said. But even using what he did say as a tool in this political battle over who can get married is just plain wrong--theologically and morally. The context of his discussion of marriage has nothing to do with homosexual or heterosexual marriage. In fact, that question would be completely anachronistic to that time period. It would have never crossed the mind of a Jew in first-century Israel!

But that means that it is equally useless to use what Jesus DIDN'T say as a political tool to defend homosexual marriage. Again, the concept of homosexual marriage is completely anachronistic to the time and culture. It wasn't an issue. The Greeks and Romans, I believe, had some sort of legal arrangement for homosexual partners, but they also had several different kinds of heterosexual marriage as well, and I'm not well-versed in what all those were. However, Jesus' audience was primarily a Jewish audience, and for them, homosexual anything wasn't even a matter open for discussion.

I'm not saying whether or not Jesus would have been for or against homosexual marriage. I'm just saying that you can't use his words on marriage or his silence on the issue of homosexuality to prove a point EITHER direction.

I can say that, based on how Jesus is shown treating the oppressed and those his society did not value, he would probably have far harsher words for the religious leaders of our time who--like the religious leaders of his time--blend politics and a flawed, legalistic interpretation of their faith, than he would for those who are struggling, who are in pain, who are hurting, who are oppressed, who are poor, who are despised, and who have no voice. He never excused the wrong things that people did, but he did offer forgiveness and a call to change and start over. And that offer extended equally to both the outcasts and the religious leaders and everyone in between.

I think when we try to use him as a tool for our own agendas (no matter the virtue of that agenda) we risk becoming as arrogant as the people we are speaking out against. A bit of humility and willingness to learn from, instead of use, the very wise teachings of a leader like Jesus would serve us all very well.

[patrice]

56. Well said!

Good job.

[susanna]

65. You said it so much better than I could have. Well done. n/t

[Vidar]

50. Not in any version of the Bible I've read. Maybe it's in that new

one that leaves out all references to money & greed.

[leesa]

60. My boss made an idiotic statement that his wife could no longer be his

domestic partner because of domsestic partnership laws in California. I was really pissed but too new on the job to challenge him. Heterosexuals are really greedy...they want it all for themselves.

[HardRocker05]

61. Nowhere in the ENTIRE BIBLE does it say that or even suggest that;

that's what's such a joke about the fundie claim that one man- one woman marriage is a fundamental christian value. Marriage in the biblical understanding was always polygamous, and sex was in no way prohibited between a man and any woman who was his property, be that woman a female slave, a concubine, one of multiple wives, or whatever. In fact, the definition of adultery was sex between a man and a woman who was not his property; it absolutely did not mean sex outside of a one man - one woman marriage, and i challenge anyone to provide convincing argument otherwise.