The straightforward way to read a self-professed Christian—and biblical literalist—characterizing a chapter of the Bible as “affirm[ing] God’s perfect law” is as an endorsement of the laws in that chapter—in this case, condoning the stoning to death of non-celibate gay people.

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bigmealbigmeal 2 days ago | parent [-]

It doesn't matter what is "straightforward", it matters what is true.

Kirk was being criticised by Ms. Rachel, who used a section of Leviticus ("love thy neighbour") to push back on Kirk's assertion of homosexuality as a sin. Kirk's response to Ms. Rachel was that merely a few sections later, the same Leviticus says that gays should be stoned to death.

That's a way for him to win an argument over the Bible's view on homosexuality, not a way for him to endorse the notion that gays should be stoned to death.

(And most importantly, literalists assert that that laws of Leviticus were repealed by Jesus, so even if he were a literalist Christian, the straightforward interpretation is that he does not endorse stoning gays, since Jesus repealed that law)

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Throaway199999 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

He's saying that instead of loving gays as your neighbour you should kill them

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ButlerianJihad 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

"You" should? Who is "you"? Just any guy on the street who decides someone else is wrong?

I am afraid that people toting this canard are seriously misinformed about the nature of Sacred Scripture, and Moses' role in leading the Israelites at that point in time.

For the Israelites, and the Jews living in Israel, Moses' law was the law of the land, the law ordained by God. It wasn't vigilante justice or extrajudicial killing. It wasn't no angry mob picking up rocks to stone someone they didn't like.

The stoning of guilty parties that was prescribed, was a state-level execution. It would be the same as any criminal who undergoes arrest, trial by peers, conviction and sentencing.

So if Kirk was saying that God's law prescribed some sentence for some offense, I hope that we can agree that Kirk wasn't encouraging gun-toting vigilantes to go out lynching people in the night without due process or without actual legislation.

Furthermore, we also need to consider the context of these citations in the course of a debate process. Kirk was not a deranged pastor shouting for violence from his bully pulpit. Indeed, many of the debates found him confronting students who were deranged or deluded in many ways, and Kirk would never shy away from meeting them where they were at.

	▲	pstuart a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> I am afraid that people toting this canard are seriously misinformed about the nature of Sacred Scripture I am afraid that people are seriously misinformed about the nature of Sacred Scripture. It's an open-ended justification for lots of horrible things. Everybody deserves the right to worship as they see fit. The problem is that the overly enthusiastic adherents want to force everybody to live under their interpretation of the texts. Failing to recognize this is either willful ignorance or duplicity.
	▲	momdad420 a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
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bigmealbigmeal 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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rexpop 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

We don't actually know what is true. We can only surmise from the content of his speech. Usually, when one is making assertions about one's own beliefs, one intends to be understood and so the most straightforward interpretation is likely to be the most accurate.

Or are you suggest that he was being deliberately obtuse and cryptic?