More on Gay Sex and Earthquakes

[rozk]

"We have seen the underground earthquake, tsunami, Katrina, and now Haiti. All this is in sync with a two thousand year old teaching in the Talmud that the practice of homosexuality is a spiritual cause of earthquakes. Once a disaster is unleashed, innocents are also victims just like in Chernobyl."
- Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for the Rabbinical Alliance of America

What I don't know is whether Justinian got it from Talmudic scholars or whether Rabbi Levin is claiming something as long-standing rabbinical tradition that Justinian made up in the first place.

Comments

[ffutures.livejournal.com]

I suspect that like most of this stuff it's pretty much pulled out of the arse of whoever wants to cherry-pick the quotations / prophecies to support their argument.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I'm sure you are right - but it's interesting that it suddenly gets dragged out again in the context of DADT. Gays in the Military = Earthquakes.

[feorag.livejournal.com]

Well, you've witnessed how every major city in the UK has been destroyed by earthquakes since we started allowing LGB folk to serve openly.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

Indeed. And much of the talk of this comes from the religious parties in Israel where the same applies.

[feorag.livejournal.com]

Where indeed, LGB people have no choice other than to serve!

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

Is it just me or are these people getting madder by the day?

[rozk.livejournal.com]

No, they've always been that mad, but modern media means that we get to notice early in the morning or late at night when we are angry enough to start throwing things at them.

[gonzo21.livejournal.com]

And apparently now we have Sarah Palin calling for a new American revolution. Presumably to put all those uppity liberals back in their place.

Shame they can't arrest these people for preaching sedition.

[calimac.livejournal.com]

Well, the Bible says that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of ... so I suppose one could read modern earthquakes the same way.

But if the Haiti earthquake is God's response to gays in the U.S. military, it leaves me even more strongly with the impression, which I had to the argument that AIDS was God's punishment to homosexuality, that God has really bad aim.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

I wasn't aware that anyone in Haiti or anywhere else tried to rape an angel lately. An angel who was someone's guest. The Sodom fairy story is about not being inhospitable, surely.

I have always wondered what the inhabitants of Gomorrah did to annoy him, or were they two halves of the same city like Buda and Pest.

In the 1962 movie, with Stuart Grainger as Lot, there is the classic line 'Watch out for Sodomite patrols'. Looking back at that, I see it was directed by Aldrich.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

The inhabitants of the other city were guilty of the sin of Gomorrahy, obviously...

[rozk.livejournal.com]

But what was it? I hate the idea that there is some sin out there waiting for us to commit it without knowing about it.

[haggis.livejournal.com]

Original sin - it's hard to sin with any degree of originality but people keep trying...

[ansiblenews.livejournal.com]

One of the late Discworld novels has a throwaway line about classical images of virtues (called Tubso and Bissonomy) which are no longer practised in these sad times because no one can remember what they are.

[abigailb.livejournal.com]

Perhaps we set up a research group. Put fifty people on an island near an active fault, under constant CCTV, and then leave them to it. When the quake hits, see what they were doing at the time. If what they were doing was an existing recognised sin, start again. If not, then we've found a new sin.

[avram]

It had to wait for the invention of space travel.

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

It's approaching people in public conveniences and playing the bagpipes at them.

Aye, and...

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You know how there are people who have a kink for latex? Well, clearly they couldn't be satisfied before 1945 and the invention of latex, but there must have been people with that kink through all of history before that, with sort of vaguely unfocused sexuality, knowing they wanted something but not knowing what.

I think Gomorrahy may be free fall sex, or possibly sex with robots -- but anyway something that we haven't technologically got to yet.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

Well if you do, you'll soon know- you'll turn into a pillar of salt :op

[murphys-lawyer.livejournal.com]

From the book of Isiah:

"Hear the word of the Lord, you rulers of Sodom; listen to the law of our God, you people of Gomorrah! Take your vile deed out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, rebuke the oppressor. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow."

Yup, really sticking it to the gays there...

[auroramama]

Thank you! I keep wanting to quote from the prophets on the relative importance of observing rituals vs doing justice to those who can't fight back, but it's a long time since I read the text.

[avram]

Well, the Bible says that God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah because of

No, it actually doesn't. That's a Christian gloss on the text. The Jewish tradition is that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because the inhabitants were generally cruel and corrupt. The particular sin of Sodom was being inhospitable to strangers.

[jessie-c.livejournal.com]

I still say that's where the line "Did the earth move for you, too?" came from.

[nwhepcat.livejournal.com]

Gee, the message I've been getting from all this is "God sure seems to hate poor people."

Wow, at least the stupid isn't confined to one religious tradition.

[onyxlynx (from livejournal.com)]

The last time I checked, Katrina was a hurricane.

Also the last time I looked, there have been no earthquakes in Massachusetts, Iowa, Spain, Sweden, or Canada lately. I am forced to agree with Calimac: crummy aim.

one religion

[auroramama]

Hepcat, I'm beginning to think that fundamentalism is one religious tradition. The same religion everywhere, with a few differences in the details, but the same basic beliefs and principles. If there's a religion that's immune to the disease of fundamentalism, I'd like to know what it is. It isn't mine, damn it, or Christianity, or Islam.

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

I still haven't figured out where in the Tanakh -- Oh, that's my problem, it's the /Talmud/. (I.e., embroiderments on the actual text.)

Well, where in the /Talmud/ does it say that? I mean, sure, I bet a lot of rabbis embroidered on the Sodom & Gomorrah stuff.