So, tell me, do you eat lobster?

[garybeck]

Next time you hear a "Christian" claiming that the bible says it's wrong to be gay, ask them if they eat lobster or clams.

Then impress them with your knowledge of Leviticus 11:09 which has the exact same wording around eating shellfish.

Leaves them speechless and dumbfounded.

Leviticus 18:22
You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.


Leviticus 11:09
These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters: whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, and in the rivers, them shall ye eat. And all that have not fins and scales in the seas, and in the rivers, of all that move in the waters, and of any living thing which is in the waters, they shall be an abomination unto you. They shall be even an abomination unto you; ye shall not eat of their flesh, but ye shall have their carcases in abomination.

Shuts 'em right up.

[NowISeetheLight]

1. Ban Lobster!!!

I bet we won't see any of those Christian hate pastors on the pulpit on Sunday saying Red Lobster diners should get a bullet in the head. Anyone care to wager?

[garybeck]

2. ban talking about lobster!

[garybeck]

4. ban telling your kids that lobsters exist!

[NowISeetheLight]

7. Flori-duh

Yes!!! New Flori-duh curriculum.

"Lobsters don't exist.. if they did they benefited by being boiled alive in a pot of scalding water because they learned a "skill". (How to feed hypocritical Christians).

[The Unmitigated Gall]

10. Stamp out Critical Lobster Theory

Wherever it raises it’s beady little eyestalks.

[wnylib]

35. Not a bullet. That would not be Biblical.

The proper Biblical death sentence is stoning.

[Liberty Belle]

3. This also rules out clams,oysters,scallops and other shellfish.

[garybeck]

6. correct!

as ^^ pointed out, I'm sure they will want to ban lobster and all of those things, once they realize it's an abonimation!

[Progressive dog]

13. add in catfish and shrimp

since neither has scales.

[NowISeetheLight]

20. So Louisiana

So red Louisianna.. a huge taker state of low income Magats... they have a big ABOMINATION INDUSTRY. Quick.. the RepubQcan legislature there needs to ban fishing for these creatures. For it is an ABOMINATION!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

33. Louisiana crawdads!

[Hermit-The-Prog]

34. I was told catfish have scales; they're just tiny.

[Progressive dog]

55. Catfish do not have scales; their bodies are often naked.

In some species, their mucus-covered skin is used in cutaneous respiration, where the fish breathes through its skin.[7
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catfish

[Judi Lynn]

19. Crabs want you to remember they are abominations, too. 🦀

[csziggy]

48. So much for the Panacea Blue Crab Festival!

In addition to all the other Blue Crab Festivals held all over the Southeast.

[roamer65]

5. I could almost be Jewish.

My only thing I like that is forbidden under Hebrew dietary restrictions is pork.

I love pork sausage every now and then.

[PJMcK]

11. Then you're Jew-ish! (n/t)

[yorkster]

8. And there's that whole mixing of fabrics thing - and I don't

mean cotton and poly....

[NowISeetheLight]

9. A List

I found a short list of things the Bible says are abominations. It's not really short.

https://believersportal.com/list-abominations-bible/

Another list is online too. I noticed LYING is on the list. So much for most RepubQcan members of Congress.

https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Abominations

[greatauntoftriplets]

12. Not often enough.

[Swede]

14. The West Wing had a good scene with the rightwing hypocrisy of the cristofascists.

&ab_channel=NickC

[NowISeetheLight]

21. Still Watch This

I still watch this at least once a month. It's a real feel good clip.

[CincyDem]

22. I don't have to even watch it to know this one !

And the closing line, as he turns back to her sitting in her chair all prim and sanctimonious (something like)…”and, in this house, when I stand everybody stands”. And then he waits for her to slowly stand.

What a great great scene.

[hlthe2b]

26. I post that whenever this comes up and was just about to go find the youtube link

Great minds and all that.

[dalton99a]

27. +1

[Trueblue1968]

53. i love you Soooooooooooooooooo Much MARTIN SHEEN. You The King !

[anciano]

15. When someone starts quoting "scriptures" I like to refer them to a quote from Mark Twain:

"You believe in a book that has talking animals, wizards, witches, demons, sticks turning into snakes, burning bushes, food falling from the sky, people walking on water, and all sorts of magical, absurd and primitive stories, and you say that we are the ones that need help?"

[maxsolomon]

16. I eat crab, it tastes better and it's easier to cook well.

Are Xtians beholden to the strictures of the OT? I thought there was a hall pass for that stuff.

[Act_of_Reparation]

17. Eh, it's not as effective as you'd think.

Perhaps less-literate Christians will shut up and walk away when confronted by their noncompliance with Levitical law, but I wouldn't take that as indication you've somehow changed their minds.

As for the more experienced Christian apologists, they already have an arsenal of counterarguments at the ready. Levitical law doesn't apply to them, they will insist (and they're not necessarily wrong about that, given Christians of the Pauline tradition -- and that's pretty much all of them -- do not follow Levitical law). Then they will go on to cite some passage in Romans condemning fornication.

As for lobster... no, I don't eat bugs.

[NowISeetheLight]

24. Hypocrites

Is it the word of God or not? There is no "maybe". Ask them that.

[Mariana]

58. I don't know why anyone thinks they care.

They've convinced themselves that God agrees with them, and if the Bible doesn't agree, they simply "interpret" the Bible to mean what they want. Even if they're wrong, as Christians their sins get forgiven so it's all good anyway.

They can convince themselves of anything. The majority of Christian voters cast their ballots for Trump in 2016. It wasn't just white Evangelical Christians, either. The numbers were very little different in 2020.

[Effete Snob]

18. Haven't spoken to many, have you.

They have a standard answer for why Kosher dietary laws do not apply to them. Not the least of which, Jesus himself in Matthew 15.

10 Then Jesus called the crowd, and said to them, ‘Listen and understand. 11 What makes someone unclean isn’t what goes into the mouth. It’s what comes out of the mouth that makes someone unclean.’

12 Then the disciples came to Jesus.

‘Do you know’, they said, ‘that the Pharisees were horrified when they heard what you said?’

13 ‘Every plant that my heavenly father hasn’t planted’, replied Jesus, ‘will be plucked up by the roots. 14 Let them be. They are blind guides. But if one blind person guides another, both of them will fall into a pit.’

15 Peter spoke up. ‘Explain the riddle to us,’ he said.

16 ‘Are you still slow on the uptake as well?’ replied Jesus. 17 ‘Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth travels on into the stomach and goes out into the toilet? 18 But what comes out of the mouth begins in the heart, and that’s what makes someone unclean. 19 Out of the heart, you see, come evil plots, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, and blasphemy. 20 These are the things that make someone unclean. But eating with unwashed hands doesn’t make a person unclean.’

[hunter]

41. To which I might reply, "Is this about oral sex? Hand jobs?"

I suppose the greatest failure of my very, very, religiously insane childhood was that nobody ever punished me for blasphemy. My parents, my grandparents, and most of the adults in my life had a rigorously intellectual approach to religion, and they expected the same of everyone.

For example, none of them could agree when, where, how, or if Christmas should be celebrated but they'd always tell you why the believed that. The adults might fight furiously among themselves about Christmas, but they never demanded we choose sides in their battles.

Truth be told, me and my shallow siblings favored the U.S.A. traditional television Santa Claus Christmas Christian grandma because she bought most of the presents we found under the god damned pagan Christmas tree.

[Effete Snob]

43. They aren't going to entertain a religious argument from someone outside their cult

These sorts of "shut down religious nuts with this one weird trick" posts are pointless.

Their God doesn't care about Levitical dietary restrictions anymore, and that is the Bible passage they use as justification for that position. They've heard countless sermons and lessons teaching them that, and it's not open for discussion with them.

Their God hates gay people, and that's the end of it. And, don't buy the "we hate the sin, not the sinner" bullshit, because we all know that it's the sinner, not the sin, who is going to be cast into the Lake of Fire by Jesus his very own self at the end.

The website GodHatesShrimp.com has been making this dumb point for years.

I don't know why people believe that decades of foolishness drummed into people is going to be magically cured by a dumb talking point that they've already been drilled in the response.

Plus, another thing drilled into them is that Satan quotes scripture too.

[hunter]

46. I'm an evolutionary biologist by natural inclination and some formal training.

I learned a long time ago it's futile to argue with creationists, especially the sort who believe that all of earth's geologic record can be explained by a worldwide flood that their petty, cruel and capricious god inflicted upon mankind.

But there is a lot I can do to discourage them from indoctrinating others, and maybe even disturb that comfortable feeling they get hanging out with a bunch of like-minded fools. You do a fool no favor by pretending they are not a fool.

"Religious tolerance" is a bad thing whenever we tolerate the intolerant anti-intellectual religions.

I don't have any trouble telling people that the gods they worship are ugly, especially when these people are telling me straight up how ugly their gods are while bragging about their own "god-given" ugliness.

Anti-intellectualism, especially anti-intellectual religions, will happily destroy a nation in order to "save" it and this has happened again and again throughout history.

Sometimes you just have to say "Go fuck yourself!" to the more persistent fools and there are multiple ways to do that.

Punching them in the face is not socially acceptable, however much they might deserve it.

[Effete Snob]

47. Yep

Attempting to do so from within their own belief system is the error.

It is one thing to simply point to the evidence of evolution of life on earth, which evidence is abundant and obvious, and say that the story in Genesis is at best an allegorical fairytale.

It is another thing to say to a creationist, "Oh, but the Genesis 1:11-27 says God created plants, then fish, then birds, then other land animals, and then people. So it has the sequence of life on earth more or less consistent with evolution."

To imagine that they are going to even consider or care about a "Biblical" argument from someone who does not share their overall religious mindset is just bananas.

After all, there are countless Christian sects who all "believe the Bible" and who mutually consider everyone outside of their own Christian sect to be completely full of shit. Evangelicals don't believe Catholics generally are "Christian" absent an express confession of a particular set of doctrinal principles.

So some complete outsider, who is not any sort of Christian, telling them about the Bible is not something for which they are going to have the time of day.

[brooklynite]

23. Try to keep up...

According to evangelicals, Jesus got rid of those Old Testament rules.

[edisdead]

29. Right.

But he also never said anything about being Gay.

[sakabatou]

25. I've never eaten shellfish

[Mariana]

59. Some species of fish are not supposed to be eaten, according to the Law.

For example, catfish and eels don't have scales, so they are prohibited.

[sakabatou]

61. Believe me, I know about kashrut.

[edisdead]

28. What matters to Christians is the new testament.

Jesus clears those things up by forgiveness of sin. But also Jesus never said a thing about being Gay, so there is nothing that Christians can point to in the bible to be against it.

[mainer]

30. Just had a heartbreaking conversation with my 9-year-old granddaughter

who begged me not to fly a rainbow flag because "the Bible says that what gay people do is wrong." This granddaughter lives in a different state, so I only see her a few times a year and don't have as much influence over her as those around her. I told her that Jesus never said anything about gay people, and this confused her. Then I talked about her gay aunts (she had no idea they were gay!) and now she's even more confused.

I feel like I'm in an episode of Family Ties, where we're the lefty granola grandparents with the conservative grandkids. I hate contradicting what she hears from the family she's around, but I hope I'm making her think that just possibly, the Bible isn't saying what she thinks it does.

[edisdead]

45. Ugh

ughYeah its tough when dealing with someone else’s kid. Even moreso when it os family. Grandparents carry a soecial sort of weight in conversations like this so I have a feeling yours will be heard.

[Wonder Why]

32. Tell them lobsters are gay liberals. That'll stop them.

Then tell them what disgusting things shellfish do. They are "woke". They don't attack their neighbors no what color they are, they treat all their neighbors alike and don't care if their neighbors are gay.

[wnylib]

36. Here is a classic from a couple decades ago

regarding obedience to religious law. Some DUers might remember this one, a letter titled: Why Can't I Own a Canadian?

https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/areasontosmile/2011/11/dear-dr-laura-why-cant-i-own-a-canadian.html

[Bird Lady]

37. I don't see maga's being able to read it much less follow it.

Someone would have to explain what kind of fish are they are talking about. Doesn't matter, they can't afford it anyway. I know I can't and I have a functioning brain ( I hope )

[electric_blue68]

38. Heh!

[Sneederbunk]

39. True Christians know the difference between

the Old Testament and the New Covenant.

[TwilightZone]

40. "Shuts 'em right up. " - no, it really doesn't.

As others have noted, many, if not most, Christians differentiate between the Old and New Testaments. They're quite aware of the shellfish and mixed-fiber stuff, and a common response is that the New Testament fixed all that.

[Effete Snob]

44. I wish I had the gift for saying more with fewer words

"Shut up Christians with this one weird trick!"

If only.

[BlackSkimmer]

50. I just wonder where it is that people have these conversations.

Just the thought is odd to me.

"Battling Bible verses"! It could be a show!

[Effete Snob]

51. In the line at the post office?

After people stopped caring about covid, I started wearing a balaclava down over my eyes, so now only my nostrils and mouth are exposed.

I approach people in the baking needs aisle at the grocery store and talk about the Bible.

Many of them have followed me home, started camping on my lawn and have devoted their lives to following me.

On edit:

[Retrograde]

42. No, but it's too expensive out here

Dungeness crab, however - my last meal will be crab Louis made with local dungeness crab on local romaine lettuce, with a crisp California white and sourdough.

[BlackSkimmer]

49. I've lived in the south most of my life.

Never have I had one of these conversations with anyone of any faith.

I've known quite a few who claimed to be "born again", but they never bothered me about my hedonistic, atheistic ways lol.

Where has this happened to you? What part of the country does this occur?

[Polybius]

52. I'm far from an expert, but I was told that the New Testament nullified that part

It supposedly says Jesus cleansed the animals, so Christians can eat lobster or pork.

[garybeck]

62. if that's the case then

there's nothing in the new testament about being gay

[JHB]

54. Depends on the audience. Lobser is mostly seen as high-end. Bring up crawdads, though...

...or any variety of shrimp, and it'll hit a wider segment.

[Skittles]

56. HELL NO

FUCK no

[Mariana]

57. They know they're hypocrites. They don't care.

[CTyankee]

60. Not to be snarky, but have you ever actually done that? If so, did it work out the way you thought

it would?

I don't know anyone to say that to, living in really blue New Haven, but I wonder if it DOES leave them speechless and dumbfounded.