What's fascinating to me is that Christians don't even like the tenets of Christianity.
"Well the rich are virtuous and the poor are evil, but this book says I need to pretend like the opposite is true to get enough good boy points to get into heaven."
I gotta say I’m getting real tired of this hippie commie Jesus shit.
Are we talking about the Jesus who said "Whatever you do to the least of your brothers and sisters, so you do unto me" [Matthew 25:41-45], or the one who said "To those who have much, much will be given, and from those who have little, even what little they have will be taken" [Matthew 25:29]?
Are we talking about the Jesus who said "Sell all you have and give the money to the poor" [Matthew 19:21], or about the Jesus who said "You will always have poor people, so don't waste money on them that could be used to glorify me instead" [Matthew 26:8-11]?
Did he say "Love your neighbour as yourself" [Matthew 22:39], or did he say "I have come to set father against son and mother against daughter! Anyone who does not hate his family is not worthy of me!" [Matthew 10:34-37]?
I have never understood the desire to run defense for Christianity. You can talk about liberation theology day and night but I’m not just gonna forget that the book wants people like me dead while supposed allies go “that wasn’t real Christianity”
I know you have to work with Christians but I’m not just gonna ignore the basic tenets and go “I can fix him” but with organized religion
Jesus' message, 99% of the time, is just, "the only thing that really matters is your devotion to me, messiah, and through this, your eternal life after the apocalypse".
The Bible has him say this in 200 different ways through parables and examplea of how you can do this, but people keep getting hung up on the context rather than the message. I think part of the issue is that most people, Christians included, never just sit down and read the Bible cover to cover, or even just the Gospels.
Matthew 25 is a parable about stewardship, and how one should try to improve with what they're given - the last line there is directed to a man who was entrusted with a bag of gold, and instead of doing anything with it simply buried it. It is still some prosperity gospel bullshit though, as it's presented with the framing of a slaveowner expecting investment returns from his slaves - it Ain't Good, that's for sure.
Matthew 10 is in the context of an argument between family, not Jesus coming to rend families forcefully apart. The full passage is about how what the disciples are going out to preach will cause divisions, because they're preaching something new that goes against what was at the time the ruling class, which sounds a bit familiar to me.
I don't disagree that the Bible has some fucked up shit, and that it has been used to justify some of if not all the world's most heinous events, but I'd like to think we're all better than atheists grabbing single lines from larger passages.
I absolutely love being called a stormfront atheist for being too harsh on fucking Christianity. I’m sorry, next time I’ll write you a fucking thesis dissecting the entire religion.
I spent years and years of my childhood being terrorized by these people only to come here and get scolded for being a big meanie. I got near daily death threats and attacks so ex-fucking-cuse me if I’m a little upset. Not real Christianity. Not real Christianity. Not real Christianity. Always the same fucking line.
I have absolutely zero patience for someone whose first instinct is to leap to Christianity’s defense. I was nearly driven to suicide by Christians but I guess I should’ve given them a second chance.
I want the soviets back. At least they didn’t pearl clutch about how we need to respect Christianity.
I apologize, that all came out harsher than intended. I do agree, as a religion Christianity has pretty much been the dominant for the worst shit the world's dealt with. My home country had Christian-backed genocides well into the 90s, and that shit is inexcusable.
It came from me finding liberation theology an interesting concept, but not if it comes at the cost of harming comrades - that's equally inexcusable. I'm sorry, comrade.
I’m sorry as well for the way I reacted. I’m extremely sensitive when it comes to discussions of Christianity because of what I went through as a kid. I know not all Christians are irredeemably evil people but the base religion is to me what I imagine the devil must be to an orthodox believer.
I simply can't take religious people seriously, especially people who seem to know about historical/dialectical materialism. On one hand, I can see how the "epic reddit atheist debater" attitude is fucking annoying, but on the other hand, they're not exactly wrong.
We have the tool required to analyze modern contradictions and resolve them. What are you gleaning from ancient texts that are filled with back-to-back pages of instructions how to create the exact opposite society we want? It would be bad to cherry pick and quote mine from Mein Kampf to form your ideology. It's also bad to do that with the Bible.
I think it's still useful as a way to check whether someone is a Christ believer for the sake of Christ or a Christ believer for the sake of backing up bigotry.
If you give them all the jesus was a leftist quotes, some will become more sympathetic toward socialist ideas. Others will shut their brains off and go lalallalala jesus hates gays because I can't read.
The Bible (and all holy texts) are full of contradictions, arguments about translations, and other issues. A wise person has two basic choices with them.
Reject them entirely
Just openly choose to reject the bad stuff and embrace the good stuff and not be embarrassed by it.
Liberation theologians basically choose to do the later if they're smart about it (some of them claim they aren't, and say what they believe is "True christianity" and I agree that that is dumb.)
I was raised in a religion (Christian Science) where I think the best part of it was that they openly said they don't take the Bible literally but instead take the "inspired word of the Bible". So I have always found Biblical literalists to be a joke. Conversely though, I have also found athiets who insist that Christians MUST take responsibility for every word thats in the Bible (or Muslims with the Quran) to be silly as well. We should want religious people to take a progressive interpretation of their religion, not try to guilt them for aspects of the text they don't actually believe in. It may strike athiets as hypocritical, but for me as someone who's experience with religion was that you're SUPPOSED to do that, its simply how you should approach religious texts. They're inherently up to interpreation.
So while I am not longer religious and only barely spiritual, I do encourage progressive interpretations of Christianity and support progressive Christians and dont think they have to answer for passages that are bad if they dont support the message those passages are sending.
Disclosure: Because my experience with religion being mostly positive despite the fact that I am no longer religious, combined with my autism, I tend to find it difficult to relate to people who have experienced religious trauma. I've been trying to adjust to this for awhile, but its been difficult.
Biblical literalists really are a fucking joke, and I don't think they're at all consistent. I just saw someone bring up a passage from the bible that I've heard before but didn't think about in this context:
"“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."
Like lol, I'm sure every one of those dumbasses is like oh, he means it metaphori- OH NO NOT THAT
Just openly choose to reject the bad stuff and embrace the good stuff and not be embarrassed by it.
What's the basis of the moral framework you use to distinguish "good stuff" from "bad stuff"? Why is it not problematic for a document that claims to be the [inspired] word of God full of bad stuff?
What's the basis of the moral framework you use to distinguish "good stuff" from "bad stuff"?
The stuff that fits the moral framework I already have is good, the stuff that supports things I find evil are bad. I have a moral lense already, I dont rely on the text to make it for me.
Why is it not problematic for a document that claims to be the [inspired] word of God full of bad stuff?
The bible is a book written by multiple flawed human beings, not God. Some Christians call in the Word of God, but this is counter to reality. I dont support that view. My Sunday School teacher in Christian Science ACTIVLY taught us the flawed human history of the bible. For CSists "inspired word" means your OWN divine inspiration interpreting the text.
Again, I'm personally no longer religious, but I support people who take the bible and say "I know this is written by humans, so I can take what fits the moral framework I think is correct and reject the things that don't" and as long as I agree with that moral framework I will support that.
As much as I agree this is a realist perspective on what most Christians actually do, I find both the underlying perspective and the fact that you'd support it really confusing here. If your book with instructions for living a moral life consists of a mixture of good and bad advice and you have to rely on a sense of moral intuition to avoid taking the bad advice, the book seems useless at best and actively harmful if you think it's possible for moral intuition to be wrong, since you aren't provided the tools for telling when you're off track and some of the advice being provided is pretty terrible and might not occur to someone who hasn't read the book. In practice it seems like a lot of people use that moral intuition to justify an underlying or instinctive bigotry. In an environment that encourages self-interrogation and growth they might challenge and dismantle those beliefs, but instead they are prevented from doing so because they're already being told that whatever they believe is automatically correct. It seems like a disservice to those people when you offer support for the latter.
If you're looking for something to fill the spiritual void, you might be interested in Gnosticism. The concept of the demiurge is that the Christian God is real, but he is the devil and there is a greater "true" god.
Christians are gleefully evil in the real world, and almost seem to be aware of their amoral decadence, and fucking love it. Look at 4chan, from the get-go the whole concept is "we are like minions, let us be as horrible and evil as humanely possible." and surprise surprise, the WASP American Republican is one of the few people on earth they do not despise. I do not think ALL Christians are evil, however since religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature and all that fun stuff.
What's fascinating to me is that Christians don't even like the tenets of Christianity.
"Well the rich are virtuous and the poor are evil, but this book says I need to pretend like the opposite is true to get enough good boy points to get into heaven."
I gotta say I’m getting real tired of this hippie commie Jesus shit.
Are we talking about the Jesus who said "Whatever you do to the least of your brothers and sisters, so you do unto me" [Matthew 25:41-45], or the one who said "To those who have much, much will be given, and from those who have little, even what little they have will be taken" [Matthew 25:29]?
Are we talking about the Jesus who said "Sell all you have and give the money to the poor" [Matthew 19:21], or about the Jesus who said "You will always have poor people, so don't waste money on them that could be used to glorify me instead" [Matthew 26:8-11]?
Did he say "Love your neighbour as yourself" [Matthew 22:39], or did he say "I have come to set father against son and mother against daughter! Anyone who does not hate his family is not worthy of me!" [Matthew 10:34-37]?
I have never understood the desire to run defense for Christianity. You can talk about liberation theology day and night but I’m not just gonna forget that the book wants people like me dead while supposed allies go “that wasn’t real Christianity”
I know you have to work with Christians but I’m not just gonna ignore the basic tenets and go “I can fix him” but with organized religion
Jesus' message, 99% of the time, is just, "the only thing that really matters is your devotion to me, messiah, and through this, your eternal life after the apocalypse".
The Bible has him say this in 200 different ways through parables and examplea of how you can do this, but people keep getting hung up on the context rather than the message. I think part of the issue is that most people, Christians included, never just sit down and read the Bible cover to cover, or even just the Gospels.
Matthew 25 is a parable about stewardship, and how one should try to improve with what they're given - the last line there is directed to a man who was entrusted with a bag of gold, and instead of doing anything with it simply buried it. It is still some prosperity gospel bullshit though, as it's presented with the framing of a slaveowner expecting investment returns from his slaves - it Ain't Good, that's for sure.
Matthew 10 is in the context of an argument between family, not Jesus coming to rend families forcefully apart. The full passage is about how what the disciples are going out to preach will cause divisions, because they're preaching something new that goes against what was at the time the ruling class, which sounds a bit familiar to me.
I don't disagree that the Bible has some fucked up shit, and that it has been used to justify some of if not all the world's most heinous events, but I'd like to think we're all better than
atheists grabbing single lines from larger passages.
I absolutely love being called a stormfront atheist for being too harsh on fucking Christianity. I’m sorry, next time I’ll write you a fucking thesis dissecting the entire religion.
I spent years and years of my childhood being terrorized by these people only to come here and get scolded for being a big meanie. I got near daily death threats and attacks so ex-fucking-cuse me if I’m a little upset. Not real Christianity. Not real Christianity. Not real Christianity. Always the same fucking line.
I have absolutely zero patience for someone whose first instinct is to leap to Christianity’s defense. I was nearly driven to suicide by Christians but I guess I should’ve given them a second chance.
I want the soviets back. At least they didn’t pearl clutch about how we need to respect Christianity.
I apologize, that all came out harsher than intended. I do agree, as a religion Christianity has pretty much been the dominant for the worst shit the world's dealt with. My home country had Christian-backed genocides well into the 90s, and that shit is inexcusable.
It came from me finding liberation theology an interesting concept, but not if it comes at the cost of harming comrades - that's equally inexcusable. I'm sorry, comrade.
I’m sorry as well for the way I reacted. I’m extremely sensitive when it comes to discussions of Christianity because of what I went through as a kid. I know not all Christians are irredeemably evil people but the base religion is to me what I imagine the devil must be to an orthodox believer.
I simply can't take religious people seriously, especially people who seem to know about historical/dialectical materialism. On one hand, I can see how the "epic reddit atheist debater" attitude is fucking annoying, but on the other hand, they're not exactly wrong.
We have the tool required to analyze modern contradictions and resolve them. What are you gleaning from ancient texts that are filled with back-to-back pages of instructions how to create the exact opposite society we want? It would be bad to cherry pick and quote mine from Mein Kampf to form your ideology. It's also bad to do that with the Bible.
Go off king
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I think it's still useful as a way to check whether someone is a Christ believer for the sake of Christ or a Christ believer for the sake of backing up bigotry.
If you give them all the jesus was a leftist quotes, some will become more sympathetic toward socialist ideas. Others will shut their brains off and go lalallalala jesus hates gays because I can't read.
The Bible (and all holy texts) are full of contradictions, arguments about translations, and other issues. A wise person has two basic choices with them.
Liberation theologians basically choose to do the later if they're smart about it (some of them claim they aren't, and say what they believe is "True christianity" and I agree that that is dumb.)
I was raised in a religion (Christian Science) where I think the best part of it was that they openly said they don't take the Bible literally but instead take the "inspired word of the Bible". So I have always found Biblical literalists to be a joke. Conversely though, I have also found athiets who insist that Christians MUST take responsibility for every word thats in the Bible (or Muslims with the Quran) to be silly as well. We should want religious people to take a progressive interpretation of their religion, not try to guilt them for aspects of the text they don't actually believe in. It may strike athiets as hypocritical, but for me as someone who's experience with religion was that you're SUPPOSED to do that, its simply how you should approach religious texts. They're inherently up to interpreation.
So while I am not longer religious and only barely spiritual, I do encourage progressive interpretations of Christianity and support progressive Christians and dont think they have to answer for passages that are bad if they dont support the message those passages are sending.
Disclosure: Because my experience with religion being mostly positive despite the fact that I am no longer religious, combined with my autism, I tend to find it difficult to relate to people who have experienced religious trauma. I've been trying to adjust to this for awhile, but its been difficult.
Biblical literalists really are a fucking joke, and I don't think they're at all consistent. I just saw someone bring up a passage from the bible that I've heard before but didn't think about in this context:
"“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple."
Like lol, I'm sure every one of those dumbasses is like oh, he means it metaphori- OH NO NOT THAT
if you take the bible literally, then you shouldn't wear mixed fabrics lmao
What's the basis of the moral framework you use to distinguish "good stuff" from "bad stuff"? Why is it not problematic for a document that claims to be the [inspired] word of God full of bad stuff?
The stuff that fits the moral framework I already have is good, the stuff that supports things I find evil are bad. I have a moral lense already, I dont rely on the text to make it for me.
The bible is a book written by multiple flawed human beings, not God. Some Christians call in the Word of God, but this is counter to reality. I dont support that view. My Sunday School teacher in Christian Science ACTIVLY taught us the flawed human history of the bible. For CSists "inspired word" means your OWN divine inspiration interpreting the text.
Again, I'm personally no longer religious, but I support people who take the bible and say "I know this is written by humans, so I can take what fits the moral framework I think is correct and reject the things that don't" and as long as I agree with that moral framework I will support that.
As much as I agree this is a realist perspective on what most Christians actually do, I find both the underlying perspective and the fact that you'd support it really confusing here. If your book with instructions for living a moral life consists of a mixture of good and bad advice and you have to rely on a sense of moral intuition to avoid taking the bad advice, the book seems useless at best and actively harmful if you think it's possible for moral intuition to be wrong, since you aren't provided the tools for telling when you're off track and some of the advice being provided is pretty terrible and might not occur to someone who hasn't read the book. In practice it seems like a lot of people use that moral intuition to justify an underlying or instinctive bigotry. In an environment that encourages self-interrogation and growth they might challenge and dismantle those beliefs, but instead they are prevented from doing so because they're already being told that whatever they believe is automatically correct. It seems like a disservice to those people when you offer support for the latter.
I offer my support when it leads them to the right conclusions and dont when it doesnt. Its really not that complicated for me.
Well said!
If you're looking for something to fill the spiritual void, you might be interested in Gnosticism. The concept of the demiurge is that the Christian God is real, but he is the devil and there is a greater "true" god.
Christians are gleefully evil in the real world, and almost seem to be aware of their amoral decadence, and fucking love it. Look at 4chan, from the get-go the whole concept is "we are like minions, let us be as horrible and evil as humanely possible." and surprise surprise, the WASP American Republican is one of the few people on earth they do not despise. I do not think ALL Christians are evil, however since religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature and all that fun stuff.
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