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Bible Forbids Use Of Bathroom

drjbrennan

drjbrennan

Ephemeral Spectre
Joined
Aug 14, 2001
Messages
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From "The Simpsons; A complete guide to our favourite family"

Episode 1F20, Secrets of a successful marriage.

Lovejoy's Advice.

Lovejoy: Get a divorce.
Marge: But, isn't that a sin?
Lovejoy: Marge, just about everything is a sin. (Holds up the Bible) Y'ever sat down and read this thing? Technically, we're not allowed to go to the bathroom.


Is this joke based on an actual Biblical passage?
If so what is it?
And if true, who might obey it?
 
Don't know if it's true, dj, but it poses all sorts of problems for fundamentalists if it is. If J Witnesses aren't allowed blood transfusions because of a verse in the Bible, imagine the frenzied leg-crossing some other strict sect might have to endure.

Carole
 
It's not true, it was just a joke about how many things were regarded as sinful practices by the jewish nations at the time some of the books of the law were writain. in leviticus you are told in order to keep ritually clean you must wash after all discharges incured in the art of lovemaking but apart from laws concerning funny coloured disharges thats all that gets said about bathroom habits and theyre realy things that can be done anywhere.
As a christian, reverand Lovejoy would also be aware that far from there being lots of sinful things a christan could do all you should keep to as a gentile are the 10 comandments and as far as all the jewish rules of clenliness and koshah (or however it's spelt) are don't eat food thats been offered to idols, eat no blood eat no animal that's been strangled and keap yourself from sexual immorarity (acts 15:22-29). All simple and easy to keap to bar the last one which depending on how liberaly minded you are could mean anything...

If you think thats dificult though read leviticus and bear in mind that around the time of jesus the pharacies were about and they had a quite strict translation of law, no work on the saboth meaning you can't save a person from drowning on that day or shave aparently.
 
Lord_Flashheart said:
no work on the saboth meaning you can't save a person from drowning on that day or shave aparently.
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You wouldn't be able to shave (but that would be true all days of the week), but you most certainly would be obliged to save a drowning person, even on the Sabbath - unless you knew for sure that they weren't Jewish. Then you must let that person DROWN.

Charming.
 
There is a passage in the bible about toilet practices. I can't remember exactly where but its in the bit when the Children Or Israel are being led through the desert by Moses. As there are no bathrooms in the desert Moses makes the eminently sensible law that after you must bury your waste.
 
Yeah, the Scripture in question is Deuteronomy 23:12-13, which reads "You shall set off a place outside the camp, and when you go out to use it, you must carry a spade among your gear and dig a hole, have easement, and turn to cover the excrement".
Excellent idea, and not only for those days. If only people would do it today! By burying solid waste, it breaks down with bacterial action in the soil, enriching and fertilizing the ground. Unfortunately a lot of people in poor countries tend to leave their solid wastes on the surface, where it attracts flies and disease organisms.
Do I do it myself? Well, I live in a block of flats, & have no land, so it's not possible for me to practise what I preach. However, if I had a plot of land on which I had to grow my own food, then of course I would.

Bill Robinson
 
I remember reading something relatedin the humorous book Ken's Guide to the Bible, which looks at all the weird stuff in the Bible, particularly the old testament. According to Ken, people were defiled by looking at another's genitals, so the Bible forbid the use of stairs, less someone see up your toga and see your flopily-dopolies.
 
Who would have thought it?

I really didn't think that there would actually be a biblical injunction that would specify the disposal method for human waste, I thought that the Simpsons reference would be a witty re-arrangement of some bible verse or a commonly held misconception of some sort.

A message board that can sort out these sort of questions is quite amazing. Thank you all.
 
Mr. R.I.N.G. said:
I remember reading something relatedin the humorous book Ken's Guide to the Bible, which looks at all the weird stuff in the Bible, particularly the old testament. According to Ken, people were defiled by looking at another's genitals, so the Bible forbid the use of stairs, less someone see up your toga and see your flopily-dopolies.
Click to expand...

Now then Mr RING, your dopolies might be flopily, but that doesn't mean everybodye else's dopolies are . . .:p

Carole
 
carole said:
Now then Mr RING, your dopolies might be flopily, but that doesn't mean everybodye else's dopolies are . . .:p

Carole
Click to expand...

Y'see, it was Mr. Blackadder's doing, the flopily dopoly bit.:)

I just have a bread crumb.:(


:D
 
This seems the perfect time to tell this tale...

I was in Chile with a male friend who was, let us say, suffering a little from the local diet... he wandered off into the desert and dutifully dug a hole prior to getting around to business, only to dig up somebody else's deposit.

I shouldn't have laughed.

Jane.
 
Two interesting links for this thread:
https://toilet-guru.com/biblical_old.php
Toilets of the Hebrew Bible
Click to expand...

And among the many interesting quotes there, I liked this one:
Belphegor is traditionally pictured sitting on a toilet, as shown here from the Dictionnaire Infernal. Talmudic traditions associate Belphegor with excretion and exposure, and say that the area in front of its idol was used as a latrine. The connection to excretion led to them calling him the Lord of the Gap or Lord of the Opening.
Click to expand...

And from the Open Bible:
https://www.openbible.info/topics/how_to_go_to_the_toilet
Deuteronomy 23:12-14

“You shall have a place outside the camp, and you shall go out to it. And you shall have a trowel with your tools, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig a hole with it and turn back and cover up your excrement. Because the Lord your God walks in the midst of your camp, to deliver you and to give up your enemies before you, therefore your camp must be holy, so that he may not see anything indecent among you and turn away from you.
Click to expand...
So it sounds like using the toliet might not be biblical, but pooping in a hole in the ground is AOK if you cover it!
 
All Christians ought to be vegetarian/vegan too:

Genesis 1: "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."
 
1 Samuel 24:3 "He came to the sheepfolds on the way, where there was a cave; and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were sitting in the inner recesses of the cave."
(And we all know how un-blessed Saul was for not taking his trowel)

2 Kings 10:27 "They also broke down the sacred pillar of Baal and broke down the house of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day."
(So it is perfectly legitimate to use someone else's holy place as a temple in the Judeo-Christian tradition)

Ezekiel 4:12 "You shall eat it as a barley cake, having baked it in their sight over human dung.”
(Ramsay Kitchen Nightmares edition of the Bible)

Philippians 3:8 "More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but poopie-doo-doos so that I may gain Christ"

Jewish Toilet Prayer:
בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם אֲשֶׁר יָצַר אֶת
.הָאָדָם בְּחָכְמָה וּבָרָא בוֹ נְקָבִים נְקָבִים חֲלוּלִים חֲלוּלִים
גָּלוּי וְיָדוּעַ לִפְנֵי כִסֵּא כְבוֹדֶךָ שֶׁאִם יִפָּתֵחַ אֶחָד מֵהֶם
אוֹ יִסָּתֵם אֶחָד מֵהֶם אִי אֶפְשַׁר לְהִתְקַיֵּם וְלַעֲמוֹד לְפָנֶיךָ
.אֲפִילוּ שָׁעָה אֶחָת
.בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה יְהֹוָה רוֹפֵא כָל בָּשָׂר וּמַפְלִיא לַעֲשֹוֹת​

“Blessed is God who has formed the human body in wisdom and created many orifices and cavities. It is obvious and known before You that if one of them were to be opened or closed incorrectly, it would be impossible to survive and stand before You at all. Blessed is God, who heals all flesh and does wonders.”
(Because heaven forfend that you somehow poop incorrectly in the eye of YHVH)
 
Thanks a lot, AlchoPwn, for putting the name of G_d on this page. Now I can never close the browser without breaking the commandment to never destroy His name.
 
ChasFink said:
Thanks a lot, AlchoPwn, for putting the name of G_d on this page. Now I can never close the browser without breaking the commandment to never destroy His name.
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*Snort* That's awesome. Your god is an awesome god. I am sure he only puts this stuff in scripture to make your life difficult. I really appreciate his awesome sense of humor.
 
I'm still figuring out why, if god made humanity in his image, really religious people don't feel compelled to walk round in the nude.
 
I'll look for the references, but in the specific case of a woman having her monthlies, she is considered ritually unclean and must "dwell outside the camp". So for seven days in every month, a woman cannot use the family bathroom and must perform ablutions elsewhere. Strictly speaking, that is.
 
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AgProv said:
I'll look for the references, but in the specific case of a woman having her monthlies, she is considered ritually unclean and must "dwell outside the camp". So for seven days in every month, a woman cannot use the family bathroom and must perform ablutions elsewhere. Strictly speaking, that is.
Click to expand...
Urgh. It makes me so angry that this sort of thing is still such a part of culture today in some places.

Sure maybe there was a degree of logic about it during the bronze age- the materials available to use to keep herself from leaking everywhere were limited, and dry menstrual blood smells. There would have been a hygiene issue.
But several thousand years later there are many many clean options that could and should be available even to the poorest girls and women, but instead they are banished to dangerous shacks or at best forced to stay home meaning they miss out on schooling and working- two things which improve their lives and make them more able to afford sanitary protection.
Fkn religions!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-46823289
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/banished_for_bleeding
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42652314
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
All Christians ought to be vegetarian/vegan too:

Genesis 1: "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."
Click to expand...

Which of course includes multiple species with fruit that are toxic to humans to varying degrees. If I weren't such a nice person I'd be tempted to test certain other Christians' faith.
 
Ladyloafer said:
Urgh. It makes me so angry that this sort of thing is still such a part of culture today in some places.

Sure maybe there was a degree of logic about it during the bronze age- the materials available to use to keep herself from leaking everywhere were limited, and dry menstrual blood smells. There would have been a hygiene issue.
But several thousand years later there are many many clean options that could and should be available even to the poorest girls and women, but instead they are banished to dangerous shacks or at best forced to stay home meaning they miss out on schooling and working- two things which improve their lives and make them more able to afford sanitary protection.
Fkn religions!
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-asia-46823289
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/banished_for_bleeding
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-42652314
Click to expand...
These cultural practices have nothing to do with cleanliness or hygiene. They arise out of the cultural fear of the power of women - they bear children, and once a month they inexplicably bleed but don't die, obviously they are related to the moon, the phases of which were incomprehensible but powerful, so that particular blood is dangerous.. It does appear that in the Euro-Asian stone age and right through say 2000 BC the mother was the most powerful deity - consider the Venus of Willendorf, the Cretan snake goddess and others. But gradually the "father" in some manner superseded the mother, who was relegated to a secondary position, where she remains in most religions, including for example Mary. However women kept on having babies and bleeding, exhibiting the power, So in many cultures, best to get them out of the way for one or both of these events since they exhibit a threat to established power hierarchy. I didn't make this up - when I studied it many years ago, this was the long-held theory, and it does appear reasonable to me. I haven't read on the subject in many years and perhaps someone reading this can catch me up on new developments. But the way to deal with the resulting destructive discrimination is to deal with the social fears, not the theory of "uncleanness."
 
blessmycottonsocks said:
All Christians ought to be vegetarian/vegan too:

Genesis 1: "See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."
Click to expand...

Genesis 4: Cain (farmer) offered a sacrifice of the fruit of the soil to the Lord, but the Lord did not regard Cain and his offering.
Abel (shepherd) offered the choice firstling of his flock to the Lord and the smell of the offering did pleaseth him.
Hence the moral of this story from Freaky Fables in Punch : " Veggies are an abomination unto the Lord"

(not that Christians are bound to the Old Testament, they had a new Covenant)
 
ChasFink said:
One does not look directly at the deity and live! Avert your eyes!
Click to expand...
I'm actually thinking of starting my own religion now my job has gone down the Covid toilet.

I do believe in Christ, as some of you know. But I don't believe in the Holy Trinity (Ockham's razor) and I share with the Muslims that we cannot depict God as He is beyond human understanding. (and thus any attempt to depict him is blasphemous).

Having said which, I love Blake's painting of God creating the firmament. But what would a religion be if it didn't provide potential for debate among its adherents? They'd be forced to talk about the number of angels that fit on the head of a ... oh, sorry.
 
Lb8535 said:
But gradually the "father" in some manner superseded the mother, who was relegated to a secondary position, where she remains in most religions, including for example Mary. However women kept on having babies and bleeding, exhibiting the power, So in many cultures, best to get them out of the way for one or both of these events since they exhibit a threat to established power hierarchy. I didn't make this up - when I studied it many years ago, this was the long-held theory, and it does appear reasonable to me. I haven't read on the subject in many years and perhaps someone reading this can catch me up on new developments.
Click to expand...

Not exactly new but Robert Graves, in the introduction to his versions of Greek myths and legends, goes into great detail about this.

His hypothesis is that the myths and legends explain how early societies went from being matriarchal to patriarchal. They're still in print, I recommend the unabridged version.
 
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