The fundamental hypocrisy of cherry picking the bible
Read Time:3 Minute, 44 Second
In 2009, a 49-year old gay man was brutally beaten outside a Queens, NY deli. The attack was caught on tape. Two men, Daniel Rodriguez and Daniel Aleman were arrested and charged with a hate crime. The victim, Jack Price, was in a medically-induced coma for four days.
A friend of Daniel Rodriguez, Marcel Gelmi, spoke to local news after the attack, and said that Mr. Price had blown a kiss at Rodriguez and “propositioned” him, thus justifying the brutal attack. According to Gelmi, Price should not have complained. Gelmi, told the reporter “I mean, I don’t want no man blowing me a kiss, either. I mean, things happen. I’ve been beat up like that too, but you don’t see me on the news and my family crying and this and that. Wounds heal.”
What apparently never heals is stupidity. Marcel Gelmi proudly showed off one of his many tattoos to the reporter, and the moment was captured forever on film. On his right upper arm, Marcel Gelmi has this passage from Leviticus: “Thou shall not lie with a male as one does with a woman. It is an abomination.” So, now that we all know Marcel Gelmi hates the LGBT community, let’s take a look at something else Gelmi might want to read in the book of Leviticus. From the New International Version of the bible:
“Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD.”
Well, that’s awkward.
Marcel Gelmi once again brings logical people to the conclusion that fundamentalists and professional haters are clueless when it comes to the bible. For God’s sake (literally), to TATTOO something from the book of Leviticus that contains a law forbidding you to have TATTOOS?
Fundies cling to the bizarre notion that parts of the bible are to be taken literally (things that encourage them to hate) while others parts are interpretive (things that make them think). For those of you who missed it, I wrote an article for Mad Mike’s about the fact that the bible, in numerous places, speaks to life beginning when you take your first breath. OH NO, they cried, that’s interpretive.
Fundies cherry pick the bible. It’s becoming more and more obvious, the more rational people call them out and ask questions, or write articles, or make videos. We want to have one person, one fundamentalist, one evangelical, someone, explain to us why you all are so hung up on gay people, but you’re wearing polyester, don’t honor the Sabbath and haven’t stoned an adulterer lately.
To Marcel Gelmi, I say, dude, seriously. Could you have made yourself look any more ridiculous? Tattooing a passage from the book in the bible that forbids you from having tattoos? I bet there are a TON of men, and women, who scream while frothing at the mouth about the evils of homosexuality, using Leviticus 18:22, while showing off their latest Confederate flag tattoo.
Do they really not get it? And if they do get it, why can’t they explain it to the rest of us? Why is Leviticus 18:22 the only thing in the bible any of them take literally? Help the poor? Screw that. Love thy neighbor? Screw that, too. Don’t get a tattoo. Life begins with the first breath. Honor the Sabbath. Sell all you have and follow Jesus. INTERPRETIVE! Gays are bad. LITERAL!
Explain it me, please. Tell me how it’s perfectly all right for fundies to be hypocrites of epic proportions. Tell me why every fundamentalist and evangelical doesn’t have a red tent in the backyard. Share the wisdom that allows right wing Christians to ignore practically everything in their own holy book but a few passages that seem to justify their own hate and bigotry. I want someone to clear up the mystery of cherry picking the bible.
Next, we’ll delve into the story of Ham, Noah’s naughty son who saw Noah nude and was cursed by God! (The Klan loves the story of Ham.)
Lord, protect me from your followers. Please.
Thanks to The Advocate for information on Marcel Gelmi and yes, the bible, for the Leviticus passages.
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Yeah, and what about the whole non-cud-chewing-cloven-hoofed or shellfish thing??
You should see the fat fundies around here, lining up at the BBQ places after church to gorge themselves on pork! Oink! Guess they decided to disregard that stuff, too!
This is a favorite quote of mine, attributed to Gandhi:
“I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”
Don’t forget Leviticus 19:33-34:
“When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born.”
Wait-a-minute. If God created the Earth out of the darkness, and the Sun and stars were created for Man’s pleasure, there can’t be any aliens.
Oh.
Oops. Wrong aliens.
The most glaring example of the hypocritical thought process of many fundamentalists is that the call themselves “Christian,” but yet cling to the Old Testament and reject the New Testament. The New Testament is Christ’s contract with his followers. You are completely forgiven of everything. There is nothing you can do that is unforgivable if you believe in him and his resurrection.(period) He says over and over to LOVE all others as you would him and yourselves. Don’t judge, forgive. Turn the other cheek. Give up your riches, give to the poor, be your brother’s keeper, etc., etc., etc. If they call themselves “Christian” why do they refuse to follow Christ’s teachings. WWJD – Hello!!
They should stick to “Fundamentalist” Or Old Testamenters. I don’t know?
I also have wondered for years about how Cain got a wife and no one has been able to tell me the answer. SO- he must have slept with his mother…..or an ape.
If you want to stop biblical literalists in their tracks, just ask them how the platypus and the kangaroo got from Ararat to Australia, how the panda got from Ararat to China, and how the penguin got from Ararat to the Antarctic.
Or ask them to explain the consequences of biblical pi being 3.0.
Dont forget that noah was drunk and ham was trying to get him to calm down because he had stripped all his clothes off embarrassingly. Because noah felt stupid, he selfishly cast his son out. They survived a flood for him to act like a petty, drunk jerk .
If you really think about it…..The Bible has been translated several times. What if that Greek slave who could write and was translating text from Hebrew decided to screw with his captors? Or how about that Roman
Catholic friar, locked up in some dank, dingy Monastery just wanting to be outside enjoying the fresh air, instead is inside trying to decipher a difficult language. Or the Roman Catholic cabal deciding what was politically correct, and true to the catholic program. I don’t think the Bible’s true meaning has made it through to the pages we read today. That is why we hear so many different interpretations by different sects. Cherry picking should be left to those who like cherries.
Lets not forget that every fable, message and trope mention in the Bible was lifted from previous cultures and civilizations. The Xtians hate for you to point that out, but there it is.
Theres nothing new in the bible, and what’s in there was stolen.
Bill – I’ve had many Christians tell me that they only follow the New Testament. So my follow up to that one is, ‘Does that make the Ten Commandments null and void?’ Crickets…
I particularly enjoy telling Christians that it’s a GREAT thing that they aren’t real Christians. A real Christian would follow the bible.
One particularly moronic wing nut told me that the difference between Islam and Christianity is that Islamists actually act out what their Koran says – a tacit admission that Christians pretty much blow off every part of the Bible that applies to them personally.
If Christians did follow their Bible they would be mass-murderers. You know those neighbors of yours that mow their lawns on Sunday. Yep, ya gotta kill ’em. They ain’t supposed to be working. The Bible commands it.
I still like my OOPS theory. It states that God realize that none of the idiots on earth were getting the message and suddenly realize that he had made them too stupid to understand and said “OOPS” and sent Jesus down here to explain it better. In this theory the Christians are only suppose to use the New Testament and forget about the Old Testament. Well, it turns out that they are still too stupid to understand so God gave up and went to another universe to start all over again and left us with these idiots. When the Romans killed Jesus it was a well orchestrated plan to get him off earth so he could leave with God and not have to listen to their stupid prayers all the time. By now the are so many light years away that the prayers offered up after Jesus died won’t reach them for another 2000 years.
Hey, my fairy tale is as good as theirs.
Bill, I love that. Now, just write it on parchment, age it to look 2,000 years old and then bury it in Isreal. Call it the book of punk’d, make sure it is someplace where they could find it. 5 years or 20 years from now, they find it, it is the end of the christian religion. That will be a good day.
All one has to do to be a Christian is to follow the ten commandments and the two supplied by Jesus. That second admonition of Jesus to love others seems to be the one Christians have the hardest time living up to, and it has everything to do with their twisted definition of love. Love, for most Christians, isn’t “real” love unless there is a wagging finger involved, and it’s turning people away from Christianity in droves. 60% of young Christians leave their faith when they leave home, and that number is up by 20 points in 30 years. This is a shining real-world example of what Jesus had to say in the Sermon on the Mount about good and bad fruits.
The fucked up part, is that some of the 20 somethings who leave the church end up going back in their 50’s or 60’s. Get that bad health problem, renew your faith and be the good little christian to save your soul at the end. That is the game. Others, like myself come to realize the buy-bull (i love that one), is bullshit. Religion is bullshit and it is run by a bunch of mother fuckers who belong in prisons for the cons they are running.
Why do you think we call it the “BUY-BULL”?
RickRay, there are moments when I really like you. This is one of those moments.
Come on, people. The damn thing reads like a Mel Brooks script. My favorite bit is Noah. If you try and follow the logic of that story, you’ll go blind. A 900 year old guy builds a boat the size of Titanic out of wood gleaned from a desert – with an adze – in 40 days. He then goes out an finds two of every species on earth, including those not indigenous to his area. What about those he couldn’t see, such as amoebae? What about ants? Noah would have needed both a drone and an Queen.
Why didn’t the two tigers eat the two gazelles? For that matter, what did he feed all those animals? Oh, and I can only imagine how that scow of his must have smelled.
Then we bump into the question of sea life. Noah didn’t save the fishies, because they already lived in water. But rain is fresh water, and fishies live in salt water. In fact, a global 40 day flood would change ocean pH, resulting in all the sea life dying as well.
The water on earth is a closed loop system. No new water is ever introduced. Rain is water that is stored in the atmosphere, from somewhere else on Earth – through evaporation. Where did Yahweh get all this extra water?
Not to mention the obvious questions about why a benevolent creator would go to all the trouble of making a planet, endowing its inhabitants with free will and then destroying it, when those inhabitants became displeasing to him. Something he seems to do a “Lot” of. Sorry – couldn’t resist.
ROFL! Bible puns for the win! Nicely done. 😀
My husband said “Oh the new water was angel pee.” See? FAITH, baby. 😛
That’s an awful lot of thirsty angels. 🙂
I think you give the bible to much credit. Mel Brooks was a far superior writer than the idiots who wrote the silly book.
Erin, first off, a great article that I plan to share if I can get it to post to facebook. Secondly, I would love to ask why most fundie christians like to ignore things like the virgin birth only being in 2 of the gospels, or why christians felt the need to rip off the 12 labors of hercules with sampson. I doubt any of them can answer either of the questions. Or here is a great one to ask as well, when cain kills able, leaving adam, eve and cain as the only 3 people the bible says are on earth, how is it that cain gets banished to the land of nod, east of eden, and takes a wife? 3 people, how did he get the wife? Also, if murder is wrong, (10 comandments), why was cain rewarded with a wife and new home for murdering his brother? Is that not a hypocritical stance for “god”?
Jason-I have asked the incest question (Eve was the only human with a uterus), and once again, I am told faith demands we simply believe God provided. Then where is THAT?? I tell ya, it makes me want to drink more. Thanks for reading.
Erin, I know what you mean. I was originally supposed to be a pastor myself, but the people wanting me to become a pastor couldn’t answer the questions I had. I realize now, it is because on some level, they don’t want to think about it, because they know the answer is bullshit. It would end their faith to think about it, blind faith, ignorance is just easier.