What the Bible says about clothing and fashions

What does the "manual for life" say about clothing and fashions?

Source: http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/says_about/clothing.html
Skeptics Annotated Bible makes fascinating reading, and also covers Islam and the Book of Mormon (such an easy target...)

Women may not wear men's clothing or vice versa -- it's an "abomination unto the Lord."

"The woman shall not wear that which pertaineth unto a man, neither shall a man put on a woman's garment: for all that do so are abomination unto the LORD thy God." -- Deuteronomy 22:5

Women may not braid their hair, wear gold, pearls, or expensive clothing.

"Women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." -- 1 Timothy 2:9

"Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, or of putting on of apparel." -- 1 Peter 3:3

Don't wear garments with wool and linen blended together.

"Thou shalt not wear a garment of divers sorts, as of woollen and linen together." -- Deuteronomy 22:11

A man's hair should be short, and a woman's long.

"Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering." -- 1 Corinthians 11:14-15

God will punish those who wear strange clothes.

"I will punish ... all such as are clothed with strange apparel." -- Zephaniah 1:8

Priests must wear linen, not wool, and may not wear any garment that makes them sweat.

"But the priests ... shall be clothed with linen garments; and no wool shall come upon them. They shall have linen bonnets upon their heads, and shall have linen breeches upon their loins; they shall not gird themselves with any thing that causeth sweat." -- Ezekiel 44:15-18

Other quotes

"If you could argue with religious people, there would be no religious people."
Dr. Gregory House

"The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge."
Albert Einstein

"Scriptures (n.): The sacred books of our holy religion, as distinguished from the false and profane writings on which all other faiths are based."
Ambrose Bierce

"The Christian view that all intercourse outside marriage is immoral was, as we see in the above passages from St. Paul, based upon the view that all sexual intercourse, even within marriage, is regrettable. A view of this sort, which goes against biological facts, can only be regarded by sane people as a morbid aberration. The fact that it is embedded in Christian ethics has made Christianity throughout its whole history a force tending towards mental disorders and unwholesome views of life."
Bertrand Russell

"When the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said "Let us pray." We closed our eyes. When we opened them, we had the Bible and they had the land."
(Archbishop!) Desmond Tutu

Epicurus proposed the following questions to test the existence of God:
"Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil? Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?"
Epicurus

George Bernard Shaw:

• "All great truths begin as blasphemies."
• "No public man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: he is always convinced that it says what he means"
• "No sooner had Jesus knocked over the dragon of superstition than Paul boldly set it on its legs again in the name of Jesus"

"Faith is not wanting to know what is true."
Friedrich Nietzsche

"There is a rumour going around that I have found God. I think this is unlikely because I have enough difficulty finding my keys, and there is empirical evidence that they exist."
Terry Pratchett

"Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise, it'd stop. But just because science doesn't know everything doesn't mean you can fill in the gaps with whatever fairy tale most appeals to you."
Dara O' Briain

"We are allowed to question people about their politics or ethics and expect them to defend their beliefs, or at least hold their own in any other important matter by recourse to evidence, yet somehow on the massive subject of God and how he might have us behave, all rational discussion must stop the moment we hear 'I believe'."
Derren Brown

Sam Harris:

• "The difference between science and religion is the difference between a willingness to dispassionately consider new evidence and new arguments, and a passionate unwillingness to do so.!
• "The problem with faith, is that it really is a conversation stopper. Faith is a declaration of immunity to the powers of conversation. It is a reason, why you do not have to give reasons, for what you believe."
• "No culture in human history ever suffered because its people became too reasonable."
• "If religion were the only durable foundation for morality you would suspect atheists to be really badly behaved. You would go to a group like the National Academy of Sciences. These are the most elite scientists, 93 percent of whom reject the idea of God. You would expect these guys to be raping and killing and stealing with abandon."
• "Let’s just grant the possibility that there is a Creator God, who’s omniscient, who occasionally authors books. And he’s gonna give us a book – the most useful book. He’s a loving God, he’s a compassionate God, and he’s gonna give us a guide to life. He’s got a scribe, the scribe’s gonna write it down. What’s gonna be in that book? I mean just think of how good a book would be if it were authored by an omniscient deity. I mean, there is not a single line in the Bible or the Koran that could not have been authored by a first century person. There is not one reference to anything – there are pages and pages about how to sacrifice animals, and keep slaves, and who to kill and why. There’s nothing about electricity, there’s nothing about DNA, there’s nothing about infectious disease, the principles of infectious disease. There’s nothing particularly useful, and there’s a lot of iron age barbarism in there, and superstition. This is not a candidate book."
• "If premarital sex is a sin, who is the victim?"

Says it all ...

Quotes from H. L. Mencken

To read about him go to the Wikipedia: H. L. Mencken

On religion

• Faith may be defined briefly as an illogical belief in the occurrence of the improbable.
• Religion, after all, is nothing but an hypothesis framed to account for what is evidentially unaccounted for.
• A man full of faith is simply one who has lost (or never had) the capacity for clear and realistic thought.
• It is the natural tendency of the ignorant to believe what is not true.
• The final test of truth is ridicule. Very few dogmas have ever faced it and survived

On politics

• The fact is that the average man's love of liberty is nine-tenths imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth.
• No one in this world has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. Nor has anyone ever lost public office thereby.
• A professional politician is a professionally dishonorable man. In order to get anywhere near high office he has to make so many compromises and submit to so many humiliations that he becomes indistinguishable from a streetwalker.
• The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.
• The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos.

On life in general

• Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn't they'd be married, too.
• It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.
• I do not object to being denounced, but I can't abide being schoolmastered, especially by men I regard as imbeciles.
• Conscience is the inner voice that warns us somebody may be looking.
• A man may be a fool and not know it — but not if he is married.
• A newspaper is a device for making the ignorant more ignorant and the crazy crazier.

I am not a Campaigning Atheist

To see what I mean by "Campaigning Atheist" have a look at the website for the American Atheists.

America, it seems, has issues.  Some see it as a Christian country (which, I can only assume, means that Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, etc. are less welcome?)  Other want it to be a secular society, with freedom to worship (or not worship) whoever and whatever you choose but no compulsion to do so.  The arguments are complex, I'm sure, but I don't want to get involved (not the least because I'm not an American).

True, the Constitution of St. Helena says we are a "Christian Country".  Maybe that explains why there are so few of any other faith here?  Apart from a few beleaguered Baha'is everyone else is (officially, at least) Christian - except me and probable a few others who don't believe a word of any of it.  But it doesn't bother me if they want to declare St. Helena a "Christian Country" if it makes them feel better - at least as long as it doesn't interfere with my right to ignore it.

If anyone starts telling me what I must believe, or criticising me (or discriminating against me) because I'm not one of the flock(*) THEN I'll start speaking up.  Who knows, I might even form St. Helena Atheists(**).



(*) why do people want to make themselves like sheep?  Sheep are stupid creatures and exceedingly dull!  If they want to separate the sheep from the goats, put me with the goats any time!

(**) How about St. Helena Atheists Group (SHAG) for a title ...

Church Rules

The local church (Anglican, of course) has a fascinating way of increasing membership!

People like to have their babies Christened in church (don't ask me why, but they do).  To have a baby christened you need Godparents.  And the church here insists that all godparents must be Confirmed (which is a ceremony that makes you officially an Anglican).  Not only that, living-together parents AND Godparents are put under pressure to get married, as well!

Now to my mind the Church has the status of a private club, and if you want to join the club you have to abide by it's rules, however onerous they may be.  So I have no objection to this rather extreme ruling.  But having got these people to formalise themselves as Anglicans, does anyone really believe it will make them Christians?  I seriously doubt it.  All it does is swell the paper numbers and provide numerical evidence that the priests are doing a good job by converting people, which I suppose is the underlying purpose of the ruling.

Fortunately I have no plans to be anybody's Godparent.

Religious people have sometimes asked me "what do you do with your life?"

Stupid question!

I do all the thing normal* people do.  I work  (at Burgh House and at the Moonbeams Shop), I have a family (see the Turner Family website), I read books, watch TV (at least, I watch DVDs because the broadcast TV on St. Helena is expensive rubbish), eat, sleep, campaign (e.g. for Freedom of Information), etc. (don't ask about the 'etc.' - this is not an Adult blog).

But if I understand their question, it's because God is such a large part of their lives (and takes up such a lot of their time) that they can't imagine what they would do with all the extra hours they would save.  I think that's rather sad - for them.

*by 'normal' I mean most people, i.e. the 90% of Britons (80% of Americans) who don't bother with church and who would put themselves down on a form as "C of E" but wouldn't dream of setting foot in a church except perhaps to get married and buried.