Sodoma and Gomorah.....?

Question

some people seem to think that the paragraph from the bible about sodoma and gomorah refers only to gay sex!and i consider that to be wrong.....it speaks about all kinds of sinful sex, adultery, incest etc in conclusion gay and str8 sex, not just gay sex. your opinions please

Answer 1

Actually, it doesn't mention sex at all.

In the book of Ezekiel the Bible clearly states the sins of sodom and sexual immorality isn't included in that list.

I'm well aware of the "common" belief that sodom was destroyed for homosexual behavior, but if that is the case, why did god destroy the women and children as well?

Answer 2

Yes yes. Fundamentalists have always cherry picked the Bible, if they didn't they would notice the internal disagreements, the historical and scientific errors and the prophetic failures, and they would stop worrying about what it says about anything.

The story of Sodom and Gomorrah is taken out of Sumerian myth -- that is why there is one reference to the cities of the plain. The Sumerians claimed that Sodom and Gomorrah and the other cities of the plains followed En.ki against En.lil -- his brother and Lord of the Earth. The cities that were ruled over by the gods who backed En.ki were destroyed by the I.gig.i with magical darts shot from the dome over the earth. The darts killed everyone in them, including some of the gods who stayed with their people. That's what the Sumerian Lamentation texts (Lamentation of Uruk, Lamentation of Ur, etc.) are all about, the devastation, the deaths, the "killing clouds," the one brave goddess who said "my people I will not leave, my city I will not abandon" and rose up against the cloud of death that was coming to her city and "like a mortal, she died."

The Biblical tale is taken directly from the Sumerian, but it concentrates on only the two cities and tries to add reasons that fit monotheism, rather than the polytheism that had gods fighting each other. *shrug* The Bible is myth in general, and we know that Abraham supposedly came from Ur originally -- one of the other cities devastated by the servants of En.lil -- so it is reasonable that their myths transliterated nicely.

Sin is a human construction, as is the canonical bible. While we have none of the autographs of the Bible, the early manuscripts we do have have and that are known to be genuine, by the most conservative estimates, have 200,000 differences between the wording in them, and while many are not meaningful, some completely change the doctrine of the church. (Ehrman, Bart, Ph.D.; Misquoting Jesus: The story behind who changed the Bible and Why; Harper Collins, 2006 -- p. 89). less conservative estimates range up to about 400,000 -- and there are programmers now endeavoring to write a program that will be able to count the exact number of variances.

And that's only the start of the difficulties for the Bible. If you only use the Textus Receptus (Received Text) as it is printed in modern Bibles then you are looking at enormous problems anyway -- in fact insurmountable ones. The World does not have corners (Isaiah 11:12), nor does it sit on pillars (I Samuel 2:8), nor water (Psalms 24:1-2). God did not establish a solid dome over the earth (that's what firmament literally means) and he does not have a palace on top of it from which angels can come and go up Jacob's ladder -- which might be reached by the tower of babel -- and where he keeps "treasuries" of hail and snow (Job 38: 22-23). For the sake of all that is decent, you can't even harmonize the 1st and 2nd chapters of Genesis with each other, say nothing of being able to defend the Biblical creation as scientifically factual. That's no surprise though, as the Bible tells us that beetles have four legs (Leviticus 11: 21-23) and that rabbits chew their cuds (Deuteronomy 14:7). It says that pi is 3, not 3.14 (I Kings 7:23 and 2 Chronicles 4:2) and that the mustard seed is the smallest seed in the world and grows into a tree [neither of which are true] (Matthew 13: 31-32). It is hardly a font of rational thought or scientific accuracy. Furthermore these errors only scratch the surface. Try harmonizing accounts in Joshua and the telling of the same tales in time-line in Judges sometime. If you can you are more proficient than any theologian I've ever met, and I've met a few.

Late bronze age men created the OT and early iron age ones the NT. It is not surprising therefore that God cannot lead Israel to defeat Iron chariots after promising he would (Judges 1:19), and it is not surprising that the flight of Israel from the god Chemosh, after the king of a city the Jews were besieging and that God had promised them they would overthrow The King of the city offered his own son to Chemosh as a human sacrifice, resulting in Chemosh driving the Israelites away (2 Kings 3: 19-27) -- further it is not surprising that no punishment is mentioned -- the Israelites were still sacrificing their own children, as is evidenced in several places, but most graphically in Judges 11:30-39

The long and short of it is, the Bible is a mythic book, written by bronze and iron age men who were recording primarily oral legends in written form. In any realistic sense it is drivel. You can see, just in the passages I noted above from 2 Kings -- the last vestiges of polytheism fading away. Chemosh was supposed to get power from human sacrifice, just as Jehovah did -- and that power allowed him to turn the table against Israel, despite the fact that God was with Israel.

Read the verses, read the context -- to all the things I've suggested, calm your breathing and thinking and ask yourself if this is really the God of the Universe you are reading about -- or a tribal deity, which has now evolved into the one we worship. I think you will find bible-god sadly lacking -- something the liturgical churches have been saying for hundreds of years. If you find yourself unwilling to even look -- ask yourself why? Are you willing to sacrifice the truth, in order to maintain a comfortable myth for yourself?

And if you want a chuckle, read the second, and theoretically final version of the ten commandments. They are in Exodus 34: 10-26. That is the covenant Yahweh actually made with Israel. No seething here.

Have a nice day.

Regards,

Reynolds Jones
Schenectady, NY
http://www.rebuff.org
[e-mail]

Answer 3

No. Genesis 13:13 says the people in Sodom were wicked, but does NOT NAME THIER SINS. There is NO reason to associate this with being gay. Genesis 19:4 The men of Sodom want to screw two angels. Angels are not human beings, thus their sin would have been bestiality, not homosexuality. Furthermore, this was an attempted RAPE. In the ancient world, as in many parts of the world today, male on male rape was/is used for humiliation, dominance behavior, and other non-sexual purposes. Warriors used to rape their defeated enemies for instance.

In Genesis 19:8 Lot is willing to trade his own two daughters for the two angels.

At this point I must say, if you want to believe that this is moral behavior, that this ridiculous story is a guide by which you should lead your life, you have problems.

So this supposed god of the bible cannot stand two men or two women being in love and sharing each other's bodies as part of that love, but allowing a mob to rape your daughters is A-OK and moral behavior? Now you know everything you need to know about this issue - the bible's opinion on sexuality is useless bunk.

Further-furthermore, Ezekiel 16:49 lists the supposed sins of Sodom as:

"Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy."

NOT GAY SEX. If it were so damn important to NOT be gay that god would bother leveling a city over it, you would think that one of god's most important prophets would - oh I dunno - mention it?!?!?!

Fight Bible abuse. Combat this fantasy that the bible condems homosexuality. Do your homework. Links follow.

Answer 4

Lot offered his daughters to save his guest (Middle easter culture are very protective of thier guest), His daughters were engaged to men of the city. Sodom was destroyed for a variety of sins Hpmsexualixty was just one of them

Answer 5

...and the good man in the city was the one who would give up his daughters for the city to have sex with... and then later, they try to have sex with him. There's an example to live by.

Answer 6

I'll hold to my belief that bible writers / editors left us nothing enlightening about Gays, Lesbians, homosexuality, etc. worth reading.

Answer 7

I don't think that there is anything sinful about sex, gay or straight,---unless someone is getting involuntarily hurt by it.