Spinning cotton
In a recent post on MediaWatchWatch there are photographs of a protest group albeit in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek way (I hope!) protesting JS:TO on the pretense that clothes – worn, I presume, by the cast as costumes – are against the scripture of the bible.
In particular, they show two of the protestors holding a placard that proclaims 60% cotton, 40% polyester, 100% evil
and refer to Leviticus 19:19 as the source of their moral outrage:
Lev 19:19 (KJV)
Ye shall keep my statutes. Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed: neither shall a garment mingled of linen and woollen come upon thee.
(My emphasis, of course.)
What are the two materials mentioned therein? Linen and wool. What does it say one should do? neither let a…come upon thee
which I presume is an archaic expression in the translation of the time to mean “don’t wear it”. So, the whole clause basically translates as “don’t wear clothes made of linen and wool”. Fair enough…
While I consider this a bizarre ‘law’, at least it’s not telling you to kill babies and rape women.
Anyway, there’s no mention that clothes made of this mixture of materials are in fact evil – it just says “don’t wear it”. So, that part of their protest, that it’s 100% evil
, is out of the window.
They also make the claim that the offensive clothes in question are of a cotton/polyester mix. The bible verse they refer to mentions a linen/wool mix instead. How strange: they’re not the same thing.
Contrary to the obviously ignorant thought, linen (from flax) and wool (from sheep) have nothing to do with cotton (from cotton plants) and/or polyester (there are a couple of natural polyesters – the ones used in clothes are man-made). The other two parts of their objection therefore make no sense either.
There it is, in black and white, for anyone to check: any interpretation you decide to attribute to it isn’t worth a jot.
If you’re going to be a literalist and use your scripture as a method of intimidating people, your really should read your bible as it stands, don’t spin it. Then you should learn what the words mean. Then read it again with your new-found wisdom. Only then are you qualified to even contemplate shoving your scripture in other people’s faces.
Until that time, STFU.
This article was originally posted at In Defence of Reality.
Update:
It seems that I’ve been fallen for a bit of spoofing. The protestors are, in fact, taking the piss and not the genuine fundie article. Natch.
It just goes to show, though, how wingnuttery can manifest itself is so many forms that one really can’t tell when someone is genuinely bigotted, or simply faking it to make a point.
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