--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, "shempmcgurk" <shempmcg...@...> wrote: > > I have read -- on this forum -- that Maharishi said > regarding a question on homosexuality: "Better to be > dead." But this is at least third hand.
And interestingly, MMY has gotten vastly more flak here for that alleged remark than Obama has for his equally repellent treatment of gay people--actually, significantly *more* repellent, given his pre-election assurances of solidarity and promises to fight for gay rights, which he has not just neglected but overtly betrayed. <snip> > I am always amazed at the utter lack and very minimal > "guidance" on this question in holy books. Aside from > that famous Leviticus quote -- which is, by virtue of > the other admonishments contained in the same quote, > very vague -- where else in the Bible does it tell us > that homosexuality is bad? The story of Lot's visitors in the town of Sodom (Genesis) is generally said to portray the men of Sodom as homosexuals, and the destruction of the city to have been punishment for that "sin." Jesus, however, pretty much contradicted this, telling his disciples that the sin of Sodom was that its inhabitants didn't show hospitality to strangers or care for widows and orphans. (He didn't mention homosexuality, then or at any other time, at least as recorded in the Gospels.) The Sodom story, in any case, isn't about homosexual *orientation*. The men of Sodom threatened Lot's visitors with rape to intimidate them and embarrass Lot for having given hospitality to strangers. Then there's Paul's rant against homosexuality, but it's rather obviously not against homosexual orientation either; it's about homosexual behavior by those of heterosexual orientation for the purpose of stimulating jaded sexual appetites. > For something that obviously affects a wide range of > people in the human genome, it amazes me that holy > books don't devote at least a chapter or two telling > us why it is good, bad or whatever. Sexuality is, was, > and always will be such a big part of our lives that > it seems quite obvious that there should be instructions > on it for those that aspire to a spiritual life. It's a good point, Shemp, especially in regard to homosexuality. It seems to me the people of biblical times didn't grasp the fact of homosexual orientation as a condition of birth versus a choice. > This utter lack of guidance on the subject tells me > that holy books aren't there to serve as "Do's and > Don'ts" instructions but, rather, as -- as I remember > Maharishi once putting it -- encyclopedias of human > experience. That is, the value of reading or hearing > scripture is not as instructions to GET to the goal > but, rather, as descriptions OF the goal and in > hearing or reading scripture one gets a confirmation > of where they're at. Kinda like a science course: you > get the experience in the lab and confirm those > experiences when you are in class in front of the > blackboard or reading the science book. I think you can find some of that, but there's a lot of stuff that doesn't fit the DEscriptive vs. PREscriptive formula. And if the Bible is an "encyclopedia of human experience," how come it doesn't deal at all with homosexual orientation, which, as you point out, is certainly part of human experience?
