The Sex, the Violence, the Hideous Crimes in the Holy Bible: Lot’s Story

[huckelberry]

I actually thought the biological point of sex was to procreate and the pleasure, hormones and orgasms were part of a reward system to encourage people to make babies.

All the pleasure aspects are what makes humans want to have sex and so yes the point in the human mind, the means, is to have pleasure. But purely in terms of nature and biological processes, the point is to breed.

Well, there is also the part about establishing and reinforcing connections between individuals.

This matter of connections is biologically important for children support, community stability, and cultural development, all of which are evolutionarily critically important.

[huckelberry]

TL;DR sorry. Lot’s story always touched me as dissing your neighbors (heck you’re writing the chapter) saying they were the inbred hillbillies and God says we get their land. I can’t believe in the 70s they had an Old Testament seminary year. I’m glad things didn’t leap out at me at 6:10 a.m. Total failure of old white men from Utah, Idaho men.

yellowstone, I find I cannot avoid thinking of the Lot story in the way you point to. However (my mild complaint), why pick on hillbillies? They are nice rural folks. My seminary teacher for Old Testament was an older woman.

I do not remember any review of this Lot story. Perhaps it slipped by at 6:15.

[markc]

Hmm, I'm from Taiwan, and I went to seminary (Saturday afternoons) in the 80s (and we kids would play basketball right after). I believe we went through the Old Testament, though not as much as Book of Mormon and church history. I do NOT believe we talked about Lot ever--except how his wife is turned into a pile of salt because she disobeys God. The Mormon church would never miss a chance to tell everyone how important obedience is and we're all sinners.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

Hmm, I'm from Taiwan, and I went to seminary (Saturday afternoons) in the 80s (and we kids would play basketball right after). I believe we went through the Old Testament, though not as much as Book of Mormon and church history. I do NOT believe we talked about Lot ever--except how his wife is turned into a pile of salt because she disobeys God. The Mormon church would never miss a chance to tell everyone how important obedience is and we're all sinners.

I have a small sidebar question for you. Do you have any sense of your culture or cultural identity being erased by Mormonism? If so, in what way?

- Doc

[markc]

I have a small sidebar question for you. Do you have any sense of your culture or cultural identity being erased by Mormonism? If so, in what way?

- Doc

Wow, great question.

First, I want to talk about an incident: when I graduated from BYUH and went back home, one day I was at a big church conference, and there was a talk I believe by one general authority member. He emphasized an idea, "If your culture conflicts with the church's teaching, you always need to obey the church's teaching" or words to that effect.

At that time, due to 2 incidents at BYUH, I had already started having doubts about the church, and this talk just upset me more. I couldn't help but think, "How is it different from cultural invasion?" I can see some bad cultural practices should be abandoned (e.g., binding feet in China a long, long time ago), but sometimes the church's teachings can lead to family problems. For example, in Taiwan, it's very common to worship ancestors at home, but the Western thinking is, "That's worshipping idols!" The thing is: the main point of this practice is NOT exactly worshipping idols, but respecting and remembering the ancestors (though we more or less do "pray" to them to protect the family). If we listen to this teaching and refuse to "worship ancestors," the older generations will be saddened, angered, and disappointed. Do we want to cause tension in the family? Isn't family the most important thing in our lives? Shouldn't we exercise our best judgment?

Another experience: when I was in seminary, one day the teaching was about Zion. I opened a book for the lesson, and it showed us a map of the USA, asking me to point out where Zion, the new and only promised land was. At that moment, I was, to be honest, offended: "How do I know this is not an American religion trying to sell us something? That it is saying only Americans are the chosen people and the USA is the only promised land?" I mean, even Jesus isn't White, he's a Middle-East Jew! I started feeling: Is Christianity "White-washed?"

So to your question, I think more or less, indeed, I had to change the way I behave or think in order to "fit in" to the church's culture. The scenarios described above, along with some other situations, did happen to me when I was an active Mormon, and I did experience some discomfort. Not to the point of an identity crisis, but it was uncomfortable.

On the other hand, however, I think I have been "Westernized" to a high degree, so I don't necessarily experience a lot of "conflicts." In some way I was lucky, cause my grandma, who was a traditional woman worshipping ancestors and Taoism, changed her religion to Christianity (not Mormon though) due to some very strange incidents, so she didn't give me too much hard time.

But maybe I was in the Mormon church too long, I didn't even recognize my change of identity.

I don't know if I've 100% answered your question; I feel like I didn't (sorry), cause at this point all I could think of was some "practices" or incidents that just scratched the surface. A person's identity is so complicated and profound; this is a very deep question that needs to take a long time to ponder.

Appreciate the question; it's very good.

[Everybody Wang Chung]

[markc]

[Dr. Shades]

However (my mild complaint), why pick on hillbillies? They are nice rural folks. My seminary teacher for Old Testament was an older woman.

Yeah, but was your seminary teacher for [the] Old Testament a hillbilly, too?

[yellowstone123]

TL;DR sorry. Lot’s story always touched me as dissing your neighbors (heck you’re writing the chapter) saying they were the inbred hillbillies and God says we get their land. I can’t believe in the 70s they had an Old Testament seminary year. I’m glad things didn’t leap out at me at 6:10 a.m. Total failure of old white men from Utah, Idaho men.

yellowstone, I find I cannot avoid thinking of the Lot story in the way you point to. However (my mild complaint), why pick on hillbillies? They are nice rural folks. My seminary teacher for Old Testament was an older woman.

I do not remember any review of this Lot story. Perhaps it slipped by at 6:15.

You're right and I apologize to the Hillbillies. They can be faithful and hard workers. I do say as you read the Old Testament that it had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. I ask people to explain the first ten chapters of Isaiah and they can't. It's clear it's a sort of Ensign of the times, picking stories that will promote the faith and get land which was a great objective. But as you read about Moses and the sexual laws he set down saying other tribes do these things and we get their land. and then Joshua reported left nobody alive in the conquered tribes. It's sad.

The Crazy thing is Joseph Smith cherry picked the laws about not marrying a mother and daughter, not marrying another man's wife unless he passed. Those rules didn't apply to him.

But the Old Testament is interesting and I read a lot of books on the late 1800s and early 1900s Jewish settlers to the area from eastern europe. Also, read online Jewish newspapers and subscribed to Haaretz, which has a quick pay wall but very interesting stories. Sephardic Jews came to Palestine came from the Middle East in 1947/1948 when Arabs were leaving and finding new homes in friendly Middle East countries.

[huckelberry]

yellowstone, I find I cannot avoid thinking of the Lot story in the way you point to. However (my mild complaint), why pick on hillbillies? They are nice rural folks. My seminary teacher for Old Testament was an older woman.

I do not remember any review of this Lot story. Perhaps it slipped by at 6:15.

You're right and I apologize to the Hillbillies. They can be faithful and hard workers. I do say as you read the Old Testament that it had nothing to do with Jesus of Nazareth. I ask people to explain the first ten chapters of Isaiah and they can't. It's clear it's a sort of Ensign of the times, picking stories that will promote the faith and get land which was a great objective. But as you read about Moses and the sexual laws he set down saying other tribes do these things and we get their land. and then Joshua reported left nobody alive in the conquered tribes. It's sad.

The Crazy thing is Joseph Smith cherry picked the laws about not marrying a mother and daughter, not marrying another man's wife unless he passed. Those rules didn't apply to him.

But the Old Testament is interesting and I read a lot of books on the late 1800s and early 1900s Jewish settlers to the area from eastern europe. Also, read online Jewish newspapers and subscribed to Haaretz, which has a quick pay wall but very interesting stories. Sephardic Jews came to Palestine came from the Middle East in 1947/1948 when Arabs were leaving and finding new homes in friendly Middle East countries.

Yellowstone, perhaps just for discussion I find myself responding to a couple of your observations.

Well I am just puzzled as to why you find people unable to understand the first ten chapters of Isaiah. In large part it appears simple and straightforward. There are details of then current events which I do not remember so would like to review to get a fuller picture. 10: "Woe to those who decrees iniquitous decrees and the writers who keep writing oppression."

I find myself thinking sometimes people think of Israel as a dominating power. It should be remembered that Judges makes it clear the prior inhabitants survived and had significant control. The rest of the Old Testament is clear that the balance of control remained in question. Israel was a limited power surrounded by powerful and dangerous neighbors. The put-downs of neighbors was in significant part a result of a hope to survive despite the threats.