A quote from the Hadith: ""When a man mounts another man, the throne of God shakes... Kill the one that is doing it and also kill the one that it is being done to."

I guess moderate Muslims must interpret that as "love homosexuals"....that or they ignore it. Or keep quiet about their opinions.

The Hadith lack the authority of the Qur'an, so moderate Muslims can probably get away with ignoring it in the same way as moderate Christians get away with ignoring Leviticus. Theoretically more easily.

There are passages from Paul that are interpreted as such, but, much like many aphorisms and truisms begun by the KJV committee, there's not a lot of linguistic support for it. The most commonly cited section is principally about temple prostitutes and the word translated commonly as "homosexual" is none of the words in Koine known to mean that, and appears nowhere else in all of ancient literature.

Religious leaders are nuts. At least the fundamentalists are. When man starts interpreting 'God's Word' for his own needs, get ready for trouble. Christian, Muslim, Jew or whatever. Once you've made the conscious decision to stop thinking for yourself, you're basically a tool in the hands of your various godly representatives here on earth. Organized Religion - Just Say No!

That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.

Thats nice. So if everyone personally interprets any religious text how they want to, then they are ultimately responsible for their own set of moral leanings.

So... why do you need religion again? Good people are good, bad people are bad. Without the "good book" good people are still good, and bad people don't have a shouting voice from thousands of years ago telling them its ok to be a total asshole and kill people.

Don't respect religion. Respect is earned, not ingrained.

Haven't you heard, without religion there would be no moral basis at all. As we all know, humans without religion are completely insane, and will kill, steal and fuck as many animals as possible in a lifetime.

Well, one certainly does try. But it's hard to get as much killing and raping and stealing in as I'd like with the welfare department always being so fascist about making me keep up with the paperwork in order to get my checks. Shit, I'd almost have more time if I worked for a living. But then Jebus might love me.

That's why I look forward to the Royal Society of Chemistry Lectures at Christmas. The blood, gore and sheer sexual depravity is a sight to see.

Because religion can be a good back drop to teach morals (although it can also be used to justify evil). Do what you want with your religion. I personally like mine (Judaism) and the reason I still follow it is because of Pascal's Wager. What is really nice about Judaism is it doesn't require faith just action.

Dudes ... they know ...

One problem I have with Pascal's Wager is the possibility that you might choose the wrong god. Suppose I decide to believe in Jehovah and when I die it turns out that, say, the Hindus were right all along.
But most of all is that it just seems dishonest, you don't actually believe in god you're just paying lip-service in case your real belief in god isn't correct, and you didn't even say "one of the reasons..." you said reason.

Its a problem but not one I care that much about mainly because I have more interest in preserving my ancestors heritage then trying to select the absolute true deity.

That might be the case for Christianity but in Judaism it is your actions that count not your blind faith. So me having doubt in the existence of G-d doesn't matter the least if G-d turns out to exist so long as I have lived my life following the Torah to the best of my ability. And I do believe that the morals I have been taught through Judaism are both good and valid.

Ultimately I am coming at this from a different angle then most posters here. Maybe even different from some Jews. I just feel that since my people have paid such a high price to preserve our religion I am obligated to continue telling the stories even if I have doubts about their total authenticity.

Nope, it's pretty clear, god really does hate fags... The good news is god(s) aren't real.

People behave in a civilized manner inspite of our holy books, not because of them.

Pfffeew!

Those seems like excellent reasons right there, much more intelligent then the reasoning behind Pascals, also considering Pascal's Wager was created with christianity in mind it seems to apply even less to judaism.