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Comment by Loughla | Hacker News Reader

Not to get too far afield from the original post, or to start a religious debate where we end up calling each other Hitler, but I've got some good stuff for you:

"But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart." (Matthew 5:28)

"If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death." (Leviticus 20:10 NIV)

"As for your male and female slaves whom you may have: you may buy male and female slaves from among the nations that are around you." (Leviticus 25:44 ESV)

So, um, not a great book to pull random quotes from as a source.

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I think the point was that homosexuality has been taboo for a lot longer than the CIA has been around. So while they obviously have found it useful there's no reason to think they needed to work to keep it taboo for so long.

It has been both taboo to the point of the death penalty, and widely and openly practiced all the way through to outright championed (Relevant Futurama quote: "Let us party like the Greeks of old... you know the ones I mean!"), by any number of societies throughout history.

I've always thought it was odd that people got upset about homosexuality and not about adultery. Religiously they are equally bad.

Perhaps it's because it's not really a religious issue (just using that as an excuse).

Biologically people are repelled by homosexuality and attracted to adultery. That affects their state of mind, and they look for a reason for that and catch upon religious arguments.

> I've always thought it was odd that people got upset about homosexuality and not about adultery.

What people get upset about is a cultural variable that is not consistent across times and places. Plenty of times and places, people have gotten at least as upset about adultery as about homosexuality.

Other times and places, not so much.

You can say "I am a homosexual", and identify as such. You cannot say "my sexual preference is adultery".

James Bond does say this in Casino Royale.

To be fair, knowing that your political enemies had purchased male and female slaves would also be useful political blackmail.

Hahaha! It has always amazed me how people indebted to intellectual discussions via the culture of a forum completely disregard all historical context of an ancient peoples. xD

I get that it's the "in" thing now to hate on ancient texts to seem smart but ...

Quoting a writing from the ancient Jewish leader Moses is equivalent to studying the history of the peoples in those times and locations. Please, note that basically ALL nations used an enslavement "banking" system that basically boiled down to: You pay off your credit card by working for the creditor for a few years (or for however many years the owner thought was sufficient).

It has absolutely nothing to do with recent American slavery traditions embedded in deep racism and superiority complexes.

The only similarities are the translation of the word: slave.

The economics of ancient cultures was drastically different from how it has been for all post-1600s Bank of England cultures. :P

I like your use of emoticons to express your opinion about the historical context of text.

Ancient texts are fine. Great fun, so long as they are treated as ancient texts.

I don't think that anybody is distressed by the Code of Hammurabi, but that is because there are not people going around sincerely stating that they believe the Code of Hammurabi to be timeless and perfectly just, and Hammurabi himself to be someone to look to for ethical or moral guidance.

It is only when the historical context of ancient documents is purposely ignored or denied that those ancient documents become the targets of modern criticism.

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