Thursday, September 21, 2006

The 3rd Testament law: Thou shalt cherry-pick from the Old and New as you please

In a discussion board, a Filipino bible thumper was instructing a fellow Christian. The lesson for the day: men ought to wear men's clothing and women should stick to women's clothing. He zeroed in on the divine ordinance prohibiting women from wearing pants, since pants are--obviously--a male thing. According to this Xian, his fashionista deity had already set the eternal apparel trend and we alter/trangress it only at our peril:

A woman must not wear men’s clothing, nor should a man dress up in women’s clothing, for all who do this are an offense to the Lord your God. (Deut. 22:5)

Donna Karan, Dolce y Gabbana, Versace, ... --you're all going to be cutting nothing but loincloths in hell!

I'm a little curious though as to whether this non-crossdressing Xian is really a devotee and is truly faithful to God's will. For instance a couple of verses down, among the stipulations in the Christian Building Code (eternal edition) is:

If you build a new house, you must construct a guard rail around your roof to avoid bringing culpability to yourself in the event someone should fall from it. (Deut. 22:8)

Does his home comply with this provision? Well, I've been looking around the metro taking note of any railings around roofing shingles and corrugated galvanized iron sheets that crown people's abodes. I must say I have yet to see this safety regulation complied with in--as I hear--a land where over 90% are Christian woowoos. Tsk, tsk. I'm really disappointed how His children are blatantly disregarding this very explicit instruction of His.

But what about other commandments of this deity, as in the following? Does he obey and enforce them?

If it should come to your attention in one of your cities that the Lord your God is giving you as a place to live that some evil people have departed from among you to entice the inhabitants of their cities, saying, “Let’s go and serve other gods whom you have not known before,” you must investigate thoroughly and inquire carefully. If it is true and certain that this abomination is being done among you, you must by all means slaughter the inhabitants of that city with the sword; put under the divine curse everyone in it, even the livestock, by the sword. You must collect all of its spoil into the middle of the plaza and burn the city and all its spoil as a whole burnt offering to the Lord your God. It will be an abandoned ruin forever—it must never be rebuilt again. (Deut. 13:12-16)

If a person has a stubborn, rebellious son who pays no attention to his father or mother, and they discipline him to no avail, his father and mother must seize him and bring him to the elders at the gate of his city. They must declare to the elders of his city, “Our son is stubborn and rebellious and pays no heed to what we say—he is a glutton and drunkard.” Then all the men of his city must stone him to death. (Deut. 21:18-21)

Or say, His culinary laws? Is this Xian keeping himself gustatorily pure in the eyes of his god?

You must not eat any forbidden thing (Deut. 14:3)

The pig, though it has parted hooves, does not chew the cud and is therefore unclean to you. You may not eat their meat or even touch their remains. (Deut. 14:8)

These you may eat from among water creatures: anything with fin and scale you may eat, but whatever does not have fin and scale you may not eat; it is unclean to you. (Deut. 14:10)

I don't know about the Xian above, but I'd like to poll the audience. Christians who have never tasted and promise never to dig into roast pig, adobong baboy (pork in soy sauce), dinuguan (pig's blood stew), ham, bacon, sausage, chorizo, chicharon (cracklings), crabs, shrimps, prawns, clams, mussels, oysters, lobsters, scallops, abalones, crayfish, ... please raise your hands. Don't be shy now. No false humility, ok?

Hmmm, I don't see any hands going up. Guess there aren't Christians in this crowd. You must all be Hindus then. Namaste, cow worshippers! Shall we all skip on over to McDonald's for burgers? My treat.

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