The Bible

3/27/2013  

There has been a good deal of lime light on the LGBT community over the past few days. I don't really follow too well along with news and current events, seeing how most of the time it’s all one sided. However, due to my particular views on the topic at hand, Proposition 8, I could not turn a blind eye. The Supreme Court has heard cases that would essentially set a precedent for gay marriage to be legalized. The Supreme Court will spend the next several months debating on how to rule on both of these cases. If the Supreme Court rules in favor of both cases, that will essentially legalize gay marriage in the US. Personally, I have never and will never see where it is an issue for one man to marry another man. Yet, the question still remains, who said that being gay was wrong? Let’s investigate this in more detail.

When you hear the word gay marriage, you instantly think of several things. For me, when I hear that, I think of religion, and more specifically, the Bible. Now I by no means claim to be a religious man, and I have my own reasons for not doing so (I do not go around asking people why are you religious, so please do not do the same to me). However, this does not mean that I was not religious, nor does it mean that I do not understand why people are religious and believe in religion. In fact, I was raised in a Catholic family, went to Sunday school for eight years, and have been baptized, but the reason I choose not be religious is not due to me being gay. No, it is due to me being logical and rational. My problem with religion is first that I do not see any proof that God exists or that the Bible is an actual written testament of some holy being.

Let me first pose a question to you: When was the exact date the Bible was written? It is impossible to answer this question seeing as experts and researchers are not clear as to when it was scribed. Let me present another question to you, as well: What language was the Bible originally written in? Good luck answering this, considering most of the languages that the Bible was written in are gone or unknown.  And herein is my problem with the Bible. We have taken a text, in which we know little about its origins, a text that has been translated hundreds, if not thousands of times, and made it govern our lives and how we should live.

With this in mind,  how can we take a book that we know little about and use it to govern how people are “required” to live by some being that may have just been the farmer next door? The language that most people read the Bible in is English. Yet, this is a problem in itself. The English language is only about 1400 years old. That would put us at about 800 A.D. Which means that since the Bible is “theorized” to have been written about 3500 years ago, we would still have to make up for about 2100 years. So then how many times do you think the Bible was translated in that time period? And furthermore, how many times has the Bible been “amended.” Apparently, when God told Moses what to write, he must have left out a lot of topics that he wanted to be wrong with our way of life.  Off topic, I know. If we take a look at the English language itself, I think you will be able to see what is wrong with the Bible.

The English language itself, just like all other languages, has undergone a vast amount of change. Let’s first look at modern English. When I say “English,” you’re mind automatically tells you I am speaking about English. Simple right? No, when I reference English here, I am actually only hitting the tip of the iceberg here. There is American English, proper English, Australian English, old English, and so on. If I were to travel to England now, I would probably be pretty lost in their language. They speak proper English, and it’s more than a funny accent; which if you think about, American English probably sounds like trash to them. But I digress... Now if I transpose this thought, and add in the addition of inventing time travel, going back to England 1,000 years ago, what do you think I would say to you? Well for one, I better get a Nobel Peace Prize seeing as I just proved the theory of time travel. More importantly and more relevant to this conversation, I would probably think I had traveled to a completely different world with strange customs and a language that I could not decipher for my life (if you have ever read the Canterbury Tales, you will understand where I am coming from). Although the English language is, relatively, a new language, it has undergone a great deal of change.

Therefore, how do we know what is written in the Bible is actually “truth.” Coming from my background in Japanese, I know that important thoughts can get lost in translation. Languages are like people, they are diverse, deep, and constantly changing. There are some concepts that will never directly translate to other languages. They are deeply rooted in the cultures that speak them, and for this reason they are truly unique. For instance in the Japanese language, there exists the concept of 和 (Wa). The best translation of this word would be harmony. But this one kanji represents more than just one word. On a much deeper, cultural level it represents what it means to be Japanese. Wa is the concept of group harmony. In the Japanese culture, one is taught from a very young age that the group is put first before anything else. There is a Japanese proverb that summarizes this thought full: 出る杭は打たれる (deru kui ha utareru). And even this does not directly translate, but the English equivalent would be “the nail that sticks out, gets hammered back in.” In Japanese culture, you are not supposed to try to stick out in any way, shape, or form. You are simply supposed to do what is good for the group, and not think about yourself. I could literally write a novel about this one concept alone, but I suspect that would get quite boring. If you would like learn more about wa, visit http://www.pbs.org/pov/kokoyakyu/special_wa.php But the whole point of explaining Wa is that not everything translates directly from one language to the next.

Now if we once again transpose this thought process back to the Bible, you would begin to understand where I am coming from on this subject. What if there were words that were written in the Bible that did in fact not originally translate from the original language or any of the thousands of languages that it has since been translated to.  What if “no” meant “yes?” would this shatter our entire existence as we know it? All and all, I am only saying that we should not let one scripture govern how we are to live and what we are to believe in. I am logical and need vast amounts of proof to believe in something. Can we really, without a doubt, say that the Bible is true and that its true meaning was upheld throughout thousands of translations? Can we really say that society hasn't changed societal norms for over 3500 years? My personal answer to all of this is no. I do not believe that marriage means one man and one woman, nor do I believe that the true meaning of the Bible is in effect today. I should not be denied my right to marry someone who I love, someone who I have vowed to spend my entire life with, and someone who I believe to be my true soul mate, even if that person is another man.

And herein rests my problem with society today. Society has become accustomed to monotony. Society is too quick to jump aboard the bandwagon express, where they serve monotony Kool-Aid, and ride it all the way to one-sided city. Society would rather have someone think for them, than use what makes us one the most unique species on the Earth: our brains. We are capable of some the most beautiful and wondrous thought; yet, we waste these capabilities by jumping the bandwagon. We have some the greatest capabilities on the earth, but we still can’t rationalize same sex marriage?

Although the opposition has been great, I have been pleasantly surprised with how many of my Facebook friends shared my thoughts. As I was scrolling through my feed, I was amazed by how passionately my friends had supported gay marriage. I somehow am filled with the sense that maybe one day change will happen. I think a lot of the opposition is coming from older generations that are stuck in their ways, as the saying goes. I am, for now, content with knowing that when I do come out, I will have an ocean of support to do so!