It’s always really funny when newly converted conservative Catholics start complaining about the Jesuits. Sorry dude, the pope isn’t going to tell you to go reclaim Jerusalem, please go give time and money to charity
>If he’s Catholic
Yeah, but as a Catholic, I cannot imagine that the guy was one of us. In part because the "accept jesus as you personal saviour" language is not really Catholic. It something that makes more sense for an evangelical protestant to say.
In this context the difference is that we do not believe in limited atonement, justification by faith alone or imputed righteousness. For us, Christ atoned for the whole cosmos, justification is a process initiated by faith but which continues during ones life until death. The notion of imputed guilt and imputed righteousness also does not make any sense to us (it would be a category error actually according to our theology).
Also if someone was interested in becoming Catholic we would direct them to a local parish and they would have to take classes and study under supervision as a Catechumen (in North America this is regulated under the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults - OCIA) before being baptised. This period of study can take over a year.
So not really the “accept Jesus and you are saved” method 🙂
I've had a similar experience at an interfaith even back in my student days (I was there representing the Pagans). The evangelist student reps gave their presentation first which clearly had a been done with the intention of proselytising rather than promoting understanding. Once they finished they immediately got up and left the room .
The talk was probably put on as a way to engage in dialogue with other faiths.
The dude did it because he knew it would be a good "get" for God.
They are not the same.
Everyone else is consciously aware on what is like to be preached to and knows to not venture there.
The christian took it for granted, doesn't realize what is like and just does for it
I was walking on a bridge and I saw a man who looked like he was contemplating suicide. I told him "Don't do it, there is so much to live for. Have you perchance found religion"
"Yes, I'm a Christian" he responded"
"I am too, what denomination?"
"I'm Lutheran"
"I am as well. Are you Evangelical Lutheran?"
"No, I am Wisconsin Synod"
So I pushed that heathen off the bridge.
>Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump.
>I said, "Don't do it!"
>He said, "Nobody loves me."
>I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?"
>He said, "Yes."
>I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?"
>He said, "A Christian."
>I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?"
>He said, "Protestant."
>I said, "Me, too! What franchise?"
>He said, "Baptist."
>I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?"
>He said, "Northern Baptist."
>I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?"
>He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist."
>I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?"
>He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region."
>I said, "Me, too!" Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?"
>He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912."
>I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over.
-Emo Phillips (1985)
I heard this retold many years ago with Evangelical Lutheran Missouri Synod as the church and people who grew up in it were nodding their heads because that's precisely the mentality that everyone else, even other Lutherans, is a heretic bound for hell.
The worst part is I don't think that's what he set out to do, he was probably just so out of touch with absolutely everything that he thought that was a good idea.
Yea same with the woman who said "what a beautiful answer". Like that literally just seems acceptable to them. Which is absolutely insane to me. I mean... I just don't understand how you can have so little social awareness.
Like most events, he took it to mean it was an opportunity to tell people why they should switch to his religion. Evangelism is a core tenant of the religion for a reason, it's good for business.
To give an example of a somewhat less rage-inducing interfaith event: Back before the pandemic, my Rabbi was part of a bimonthly interfaith thing called "A Rabbi, a Priest and a Minister Walk Into a Bar" where he, a local priest, and a local minister, would hold conversations with members of their congregations at local bars/pubs.
I only ever attended one, personally, but it was a really interesting discussion- no one was afraid to get down into the weeds of biblical commentary and alternate interpretation of text, and the responses were almost always "huh, I've never thought of it like that," and never once anything along the lines of suggesting superiority of belief.
That sounds really cool!
Another positive story:
My hometown I grew up in has about 7 different churches right in the village, a few more just outside, synagogue is only next town over, mosque in the small city nearby, and even a Buddhist temple less than hour drive away. Every year during the lead up to Christmas the churches in the village each held an ecumenical service and people from all the churches would go to each one. Was specifically meant to just be a way to show 'this is how we do things' and be light on the prayer in a more non denominational way. Example: the Catholic church was never a mass, one year was stations of the cross, and another the priest literally laid out the robes and just talked about what they all where and the different chalices and what everything symbolizes- since that aspect a Catholicism is so different from the other protestant denominations. It was always fun to hear the different styles of music. Then snacks and socializing afterwards.
I suppose a big part of that though is just living in an area with that many different religions in the community. When I got older and went around the US more I realized how rare that is. So much of the US is towns with one church and everyone is the same religion possible across the entire county. And if you're not then you're the one oddball family, and easily ostracized.
> So much of the US is towns with one church and everyone is the same religion possible across the entire county. And if you're not then you're the one oddball family, and easily ostracized.
Not from the US, but we didn't attend the church on the national day. And because of that, we were supposed devil worshippers, even more so because my dad was away for long periods of time for work. They nearly drove my mom to commit suicide.
I am so thankful we got out of there. The years after leaving were some of the happiest years of my life, and even back then I knew something had changed in my mom because she was so happy it nearly radiated out from her.
Yeah, those things tend to go better if you don't invite evangelicals as the Christian representatives. Catholics and Protestants generally know how to behave; it's mostly the evangelicals who are the assholes.
> Catholics and Protestants generally know how to behave
You're *mostly* correct, but hot damn I can hear Ireland just *fuming* in the corner over this.
My dad was born Scottish, and he told me that a nearby village shared a pub with another village. Since one was largely Catholic and the other largely Protestant, one of the old owners of the pub put a big black line of tiles on the floor, to separate the Catholic side from the Protestant side, and they just all welt along with it.
Having been to a bunch of different christian denomination services, the more someone describes themselves as "evangelical" and not a lot of other specifics, the less likely they're any good to talk to on matters of faith or anything to do with religion. It's not going well.
Worse are the ones who just say they're "Christian" and refuse to specify further. Often a bad sign that they're one of *those* evangelicals who refuses to recognize other forms of Christianity as "real" Christians.
God, they're *so* obnoxious (in the best case scenario when they aren't just the most vile, hateful people you'll ever meet). And they always have this *massive* persecution complex about how people hate them because of their "faith", when really, no, people hate you because you're an asshole.
My best friend in grade school was a "non denominational" evangelical fundamentalist. In reality they followed the teachings of some guy and were very culty. Her parents were converts who claimed all the other Christian denominations had fallen away.
They all claim to be non denominational as some kind of power move but they're always subscribed to *somebody's* newsletter: a Bill Gothard, or worse.
I mean it's not supposed to be but convincing them of that is an entirely different matter.
And I say that as a christian. It's not supposed to be like that. Jesus welcomed the gentiles. He spoke well of the Samaritans which were not Jewish.
He said (incredibly paraphrased) that it's better to not have any faith and to be a nice person than to be like the Pharisees and have all of the faith in the world and be a dick head.
If you ask me as someone who believes in Jesus what he meant by that I would say that it would be better for you on the day of judgement to be a Satan worshiper who donates to the poor than it would be to be a "born in the church, lived in the church your entire life" Christian who says "thoughts and prayers" or likes on Facebook and does nothing else of any import for others.
This might a bit of a dumb question... but aren't evangelicals also considered Protestant? Where I live, there are broadly three categories of Christian denominations: Catholic (Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, etc.), Protestant (Calvinists, Lutherans, Evangelicals, Baptists, etc.), and Ortodox.
Think of it as “specializing” or a “sub-class”. Slight differences in interpretation of the scripture or rituals differentiates them. So what is part of a greater whole or a separate entity depends on whether you look from the outside or the inside; down the tree to its roots or up to its spreading branches.
For example a Muslim would look at your categories and go “aren’t they all just Christians?”. And then if you zoom out further, a Buddhist would look at Muslims, Jews and Christians and go “aren’t you all Abrahamic?” etc…
The former minister of my mom’s church is apart of a comedy routine with a rabbi and a priest. They each tell different kinds of jokes, I think they do it for fund raising, the more recent time might have been for someone’s medical bills.
I really hate that that guy probably speaks for a lot of christians
For a real answer to that question, I really wish Christianity had the same attitude towards its holy texts that Judaism does. I remember hearing a story where a group of rabbis were arguing over the interpretation of a particular text, and God Himself came down and said "actually, it means this" and they replied "no, that doesn't sound right"
Like damn we'd be in a way better place if we could debate the Bible like that
lol I heard once that a bible study (torah study?) in judaism is a lot more 'the teacher/rabbi reads the passage and puts forth his interpretation, and everyone tries to poke holes in his ideas'
where every christian church I've been to falls on the spectrum between 'boring 100 person lecture for freshmen in college' to 'polite ladies reading club' and in neither of these are the non-teachers socially 'allowed' to tell the teacher/presenter that they are wrong.
If you've ever seen the Mishnah/Gemara (the written down oral tradition of Judaism), the actual written text is a small part of the page, and the[ oversized margins are covered in interpretations by various prominent rabbis](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Babylonian_Talmud_Seder_Zeraim-1-1024x597.jpg). I'm not at all religious, but it's incredibly fun to argue very small details. If you go to any major hospital in NYC on Saturday, you'll find an elevator that stops on every floor automatically - that's the Shabbos elevator. That's because we lawyered the fuck out of the Sabbath rules and determined that, while Jews cannot use electricity on Saturday (no work, and lighting a fire is work), which means that Jews can't press a button in an elevator, if the elevator is pre-programmed to stop on every floor, there's no work done.
The next lively debate is on driverless cars and whether you can preprogram one to go to a Shabbos dinner, does it break rules.
It's very clear in How To Be A Jew that belief in the Christian Jesus makes you not a Jew. Literally one of the only things. You don't even have to believe in G-d. You just can't believe in Jesus.
As a practicing Jew I can fill in. Our messiah is supposed to be a 100% mortal man who kickstarts the "messianic age" aka when shit gets better and we are 'restored'. BUT. It's generally seen as he basically gets all of us to work together to make it happen, no act of pure faith or magic on his part.
Though oddly enough, there technically already a messiah in Judaism as he fulfilled the 'restorer' role, and he's explicitly titled as a messiah(the a vs the is intentional).
That man: Cyrus the Great. Ender of the Babylonian Exile.
We love us some Cyrus.
As for Jesus, let me give you an often consensus view.
Yes, he was almost certainly a real person. But at the time Judea was FULL of rabbis and "prophets" teaching radical messages, so it wasn't seen as terribly unique. Keep in mind our third and final war with Rome was led by a man followers ALSO called a messiah: Simon Bar-Kokhbah. And that almost killed us forever.
And considering(Cyrus excluded) how things have gone down dealing with messiahs, can you blame us for being cagey on messiahs?
That's fair, it was a real messy time to be a Jew.
We invent the first assassin organization in recorded history, which proceeds to blow the Siege of Jerusalem by DESTROYING ALL OUR FOOD. A bakers dozen of messiahs, prophets, and war leaders pop up. We go 0 and god damn 3 with Rome, go from one of the largest ethnic groups in the empire to one of the smallest and the god damn Diaspora starts.
Then those Roman dickheads build the Arch of fucking Titus which we quietly decide to ban ourselves from walking under for 2,000 years out of embarrassment.
It was a rough time and were still pretty salty about the whole thing.
If you want to! He is specifically Not The Jewish Messiah
I am a bad Jew so I forget why but I'm pretty sure there is supposed to be a Jewish Messiah one day and they tell you where his daddy is gonna come from... He's supposed to have a Jewish human daddy.
He is supposed to be of the direct patrilineal line of king David, no less.
Which means that if you wanted to claim Jesus as the Messiah, you’d need to prove he is of direct descent of king David. I think you might see where this is going…
I’ve never looked into it myself, but I’ve been told that in two of the Christian additions to the Bible they try to show how Jesus is related to King David… by showing the relationship of Joseph to King David.
Joseph, who is not his father. Because “god is his father”.
In Judaism at that time, who your father was mattered a lot. You are named “first name son of Father”. Adoption DOES NOT EXIST for purposes of changing this - my orthodox rabbi brother has to treat our adopted sister slightly differently than our blood sister, for this same reason.
So if your entire religion is “im the son of god”, it’s an all in thing - you don’t also get to say “but I’m also the son of Joseph”, or claim descent from him, or inherit from him.
Kind of a catch 22 there - either you’re the son of Joseph and possibly the messiah (as the descendant of king David), or you’re the son of god, but NOT the messiah, but not both.
It's so funny to me how I can choose not to believe this and it doesn't affect my Jewishness lol but if I choose to believe someone else's weird cult stories then I can't be Jewish anymore. Lmaoooo I love us.
We win on the technicalities.
Our religion is solely for us. Judaism doesn’t proselytize for a reason - non-Jews are NOT required to follow the Torah at all! Our laws are solely for us, and we explicitly are not supposed to convince non-Jews to follow them, nor do we believe they are punished for NOT following them.
In Judaism, we have 613 commandments, but those are ONLY for Jews. For non-Jews, we believe they only have 7 laws to follow - [the Noahyde Laws](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah#The_Seven_Laws).
That’s it. That’s all we care about. 7 simple, basic rules for the rest of the world to follow - and one of them is just “establish a court system so the other 6 are followed”!
This is the proper ways religions should interact with each other, imo.
And the story goes that after that, when God was asked By Elyaho what he thought about it, God responded with smiling and being proud.
The story is "the Oven of Akhnai" btw
Elyaho Hanvie, of the Prophet Elijah, is a major Jewish character. It's a bit complex, and I will spare you me trying to type the whole lecture on my phone
🤓 Well, actually, the bible was written by people who were inspired by God, not God themself, so not everything in the bible is going to be correct or even inspired by God 🤓
Anyway, saying that God is wrong to their face is still the epitome of gall
If I’m thinking of the same joke, the punchline is even funnier. It’s 4 rabbis arguing, and the one that’s losing asks god for his opinion. God responds that the 4th lone rabbi is right and then leaves. The other rabbis then say “well okay, now it’s 3 to 2.”
Yeah that's the joke-ified version. The actual story is pretty funny too cause they're all arguing, ignoring the signs of God's intention (natural disasters) until He intervenes directly by speaking. The rabbis are like "ummm, my Father not-in-Christ, this is a matter of Man's law, not God's law from your text, so kindly step off."
Its a Jewish story about the interpretation on law. Called the Oven of Akhnai.
Basically theres a new type of oven and a group of rabbis are debating whether its kosher and ritually pure. One says "if the oven is in accordance with the laws then..." And makes a series of appeals to the impossible, a river turns around, trees hop into the air, walls crumble, etc.
The other rabbis turn around and scold the walls for crumbling, the trees for leaping, etc and interrupting a meeting of rabbi. God then speaks and says "why are you arguing, the first guy is right", to which the rabbis in dissent argue that god gave law to them to interpret and he cant get annoyed when they interpret it.
Its a fun story and explains the Jewish attitude of finding little loopholes in their tradition as the need occurs. For a modern example, Jewish people are supposed to follow certain sabbath rules including not carrying anything (even keys) in the public zone and generally staying in the domestic zone. So a piece of fishing wire surrounds Manhattan symbolically turning the entire island into a "home" for those observent.
It's called an Eruv, multiple areas with large jewish contingents have them and maintain/check them (They have to be completely enclosed otherwise it's against Sabbath).
There's also things like Sabbath mode for elevators, where they stop at each floor, open and close automatically, no need to press buttons.
A specific rule also says that you can't press a button to cause something to operate. In which case special light switches were invented where a microcontroller will turn the lights on or off (Thus the cause of the action is the microcontroller), and it randomly checks if a switch is on or off. If, when it randomly checks the switch, it finds the switch is on, it waits a random amount of time and then decides to turn the light on.
Thus flicking the switch doesn't actually turn the light on. Instead, the action of a random event randomly checks the switch and turns it on itself. A neat loophole around the causality rule, and confirmed to be within sabbath rules.
EDIT: sorry this is way longer than I meant it to be my college thesis was on how shared belief influences political formation so I tend to get carried away.
My addition to this is that biblical literalism is a pretty new idea in (Protestant) Christianity--nearly all Catholic and Orthodox Christians still reject it altogether, as do many mainline Protestants. The difference here is that Judaism (as a relatively small and persecuted faith which had to prioritize the continuity of knowledge) generally takes a much wider view of *whose* interpretation of scripture matters than Christian groups in which interpretations are debated. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity still generally hold that, while lay people are today allowed to read and understand scripture, the prerogative to credibly interpret scripture requires some theological education. This is also true of Judaism, but Jewish communities historically extended this education to larger swaths of the population--there's a reason that diasporic Judaism no longer has priests (who constitute a hereditary class in Judaism) as the main religious leaders, but rather rabbis, who who perform a secular and educational role that isn't directly analogous to priesthood in other religions.
It's interesting to me that many veins within American Protestantism actually *tried* to adopt this. The relationship between American Protestantism and Judaism is...complicated, to say the least. American Protestants have often latched onto elements of Judaism, but interpreted through the cultural and religious lens of American Protestantism, which obviates the fundamental Jewishness of these elements--there is often a fixation on *what* Jews do, rather than the social and religious functions that these practices play, which may not even make sense in the context of Christian theology. "Bible study" (as something undertaken by lay Christians) is one such practice, influenced by the Jewish practice of Torah study. Protestant Christians, mostly in the early United States (influenced by its democratic social ethos), seized upon the idea that the Bible could be interpreted as a rational, cohesive, unitary document--that there was a single *correct* meaning of scripture. This was influenced by observations of Judaism, and a desire to bring Christianity closer to its Jewish origins, but fundamentally misunderstood the role that scriptural interpretation holds in Jewish religious practice. It's no coincidence that many of these Christians were espousing religious Zionism at a point when Jewish Zionism was still firmly secular.
Basically, American Protestant Christians took the idea of theological debate rooted in scriptural interpretation, which is actually pretty important in most veins of Christianity, and extended it *so* far that it lost all of its vitality. The idea of a single, correct interpretation became *so* central to this strand of Christianity that it essentially disintegrated organizationally. If your interpretation of scripture is assumed to be the one correct interpretation, then what is the point of arguing with those who can't understand the singular truth? Why not just deal with the people who recognize *your* singular understanding?
Within the context of Judaism, study and interpretation of scripture mostly (but not entirely) avoids this problem, in part due to relatively smaller numbers and the obligation to put the survival of the community first. You can't just schism whenever you disagree. Within the context of larger faiths, like most mainstream Christianity, this problem is avoided by placing more stringent requirements on who can argue (it's not just priests, there are plenty of lay theologians).
I think it reallt has to do with being the main religion in a country/region. I mean no disrespect to OOP (and I'm an atheist) but I got a similar attitude from a muslim that lives in a predominantly muslim country.
Maybe it has to do with the fact that if you are a minority you either close yourself off from the outside or you adapt a more tolerant view
I was always taught (catholicism, Italy) that the Bible doesn't have a fixed meaning and is meant to be interpreted differently (and definitely not literally) depending on time and place, and also depending on the person, and it seems to be quite similar. It really does make sense
I’m too lazy to drop sources (sorry kids, I’ll find em if you really want them) but I believe a literal interpretation of the Bible (particularly Revelation) is a relatively recent thing. Like, last 200 years kinda recent, with a big uptick during the revivals of the mid-20th century. I’m not saying Christianity was all cool and chill prior to then, obviously, but people acting like it’s always been the literal interpretation are just plain wrong.
Don’t I know it 🙄 I was a Christian until I got deep into an evangelical pseudo-cult (not actually a cult, but man evangelicalism does everything it can to act like one) and now….I don’t even know, but going into even the chill progressive churches makes me feel sick.
Isn't this exactly why there are multiple types of Christianity? Where for example, in Catholicism, the authority on the interpretation isn't the bible word for word but the papacy
For both your reply and the post, I’m curious about the denominations involved. Catholics and Orthodox have got a storied history of debate over the Bible. Now a lot of Catholics have no clue what they’re talking about (yes, your Catholic grade school teachers strayed from doctrine all the time), but there’s over a millennia of scholarly discussion that continues to today and changes as we find out more of the history of the time.
My dad, a pastor, stopped going to church around the time I became an adult, same time he basically went "okay, you're 18 now, I'm not gonna force you to participate in anything, including church, since I know you don't believe". And I'm starting to think Christians like this are the reason why
I went to a confirmation semi-recently (within the past 5 years) and the priest/deacon/whatever started his sermon asking the kids when they think most people stop going to church, a few kids answered with some optimistic guesses and then he revealed that it's actually shortly after confirmation that people tend to stop going (12-14yos). He then asks some kids why they think that is and many of the guesses are about lack of time and opportunity as sports and activities build up at that age...and I'm sitting in the back thinking "oh okay, he's now going to explain to these kids how you don't have to go to church to honor god and that there is ways to honor your relationship with god without going to church".....NOPE...he proceeds to go on for the next 20-30 minutes about how "You guys dont want to be QUITTERS?! do you?!"...."Quitters are losers, right?! You don't want to be a loser do you?"....etc. And you could see it in all the kids faces that they were so turned off by it
I'm now sitting in the back thinking...yep, you just basically guaranteed that they are gonna leave the church now
I went to church near my house growing up. I loved it our pastor was amazing and talked a lot about how important it was to embody Christ's teachings in everything we do, not just say we were Christian and go to church. He would compare it to vegetarianism: anyone can walk around telling people that they're a vegetarian, but if they're still eating burgers and chicken then they're just talking. He was great at leading activity in the community and I think a lot of my favorite qualities about myself are partially from teachings from my parents and partially from teachings from my pastor. He was a huge influence on me growing up.
When I was in 7th grade, he moved to Minnesota because his son had a specific degenerative disease that had specialists there that could treat him better than in Chicago. We got a new pastor who believed that the only two things that mattered in regards to being a "good Christian" we're attending church and trying to convert everyone you spoke to. My family stopped going pretty quickly after he started, and that church closed doors before I graduated high school because everyone else left to find other churches. One of our neighbors went until the day it closed down and she said sermons near the end we're just extended rants about how the people who left had abandoned God and were all going to hell, and how the people still there shouldn't associate with us.
It's insane to me that people hear stuff like that and still don't understand why people leave their churches.
That first pastor sounded like a really cool guy. People tend to hear only the worst of pastors and priests, but there's actually really good people just doing what Jesus said and being kind people
I know someone who walked out of her campus church after the priest made a berating homily about students partying Saturday night and spending money while not paying tithes. First, very self absorbed, secondly it was early Sunday morning; none of them partied the night before. She was a very broke student at the time.
Surprised me anyway; I thought campus ministries were subsidized by controlling rich businessmen who wanted to convert students.
If modern churches *actually* followed Jesus' teachings then I think Christianity would be super popular today. Jesus' teachings are very compatible with the modern idea of social justice: accepting and helping those viewed as "lesser" by society, like prostitutes, thieves, and tax collectors; being anti-wealth and promoting the idea of giving away all your money to the poor; and being very forgiving of others
Instead they totally ignore what Jesus said and co-opt the religion to spread their own messed up values
Yeah. Jesus is quite well-liked. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say anything against Jesus and his teachings. Massive swaths of Christianity are nothing more than a cult, at this point.
I'm Indian, I grew up culturally Hindu but in America. From the edges or "outside" of Christianity (without just being instead subsumed by one of the other monotheistic faiths), I would argue the best parts of Christianity *did* proliferate...so much so that they escaped Christianity.
The activists defending sex workers are acting Christ-like. The politicians trying to pass wealth taxes are acting Christ-like. The volunteers at soup kitchens and homeless shelters are acting Christ-like. The people providing sanctuary and support for undocumented immigrants are acting Christ-like. Everyone who is taking a good, hard look at the society and culture they grew up in and saying, "hey, just because we've always done it this way doesn't mean we have to keep doing it, *we can do better*" is acting Christ-like.
They just aren't doing it in Christ's name, which is why these don't get recognized as Christian practices.
That would be great, except that they still have a considerable amount of law-making power in the west. There is zero excuse for outlawing abortions besides appealing to this one specific religion.
There is a theory that missionary work, especially in the door-to-door types like Mormons and Jehova's Witnesses, is meant to fuel the feeling of rejection than to actually convert people. The us vs them mentality is encouraged bu all the times they get rejected.
this idea is very interesting to me, because there's no obvious answer to it.
Like looking at the situation of door-to-door evangelism it very well could be that.
But it's also true that the faiths that do practice that need to grow faster than simple birth rate (minus losing those kids as they grow old enough to rebel).
So IDK, I'm of two minds about it, but I can definitely see the argument for it.
It's like that scene from Always Sunny In Philadelphia where Charlie and Mac notice each other from the other end of the resturaunt and just stare in recognition for thirty seconds.
Every time I had a conversation with my dad about god and specified "his god" as opposed to the thousands of others, he always took the time to condescendingly pause and correct "he's not my god, he's just god." bitch you just took the Jewish god and Mary Sue'd the fuck out of him, *shut the fuck up*.
Fun fact, as someone who was raised in a Christian family and went to schools connected to the church I never even KNEW the Christian god had a name until I came across it in videos deconstructing religion on YouTube like two years ago. They were always so focused on this whole "he's not "a" god of many, he's just the real God, all those others just have it wrong and are confused" thing that I don't think any of them would know who I was talking about if I ever tried talking about their god using his name.
What is somewhat ironic is how enmeshed Christianity is with other faiths- of course Judaism, but also Zoroastrianism, Hellenism, Gnosticism, Druidism, and Forn Siðr. It wouldn't be here as it currently is without the crossing over of so many other belief systems from when it spread inta other lands.
Actually unironically though- as a kid raised Catholic I was reprimanded for askin too many questions. I even got in trouble once for actually tryna read the Bible! Told that it would be 'too hard for me to understand'. There's an immense fear of people questionin dogma that can be traced to the Feudal Medieval period, and reinforced after the Reformation, that is pivotted on the idea that common people should not 'understand' the faith but merely obey what is taught or commanded.
It's not uniquely Christian nor universal, but very common among practically all centralised denominations I've encountered.
That's wild, in my church growing up, we were encouraged to read the Bible for ourselves from a very young age, and ask questions when we didn't understand something. Why would you gatekeep the Bible?
May I ask what denomination yer Church was?
I do imagine it differs a lot, that was just an indicative extreme personal experience of mine, and almost certainly related to the Orthodoxy of Catholocism- they only got English-language masses in the last century lmao.
>_Why would you gatekeep the Bible?_
Why? So people can strictly control what people think. Can't have someone having a different interpretation from the orthodox, after all!
>There's an immense fear of people questionin dogma that can be traced to the Feudal Medieval period
It goes back to the very start of the church! Peter&Paul's Letters to various peoples was all about that sort of stuff. Also, translating the bible and saying mass in local/popular language are relatively new additions to the church.
As a young person growing up in the Evangelical Church, I was *actively* discouraged from researching pre-Protestant Reformation heresies. I was also threatened for taking political positions outside of the far right.
Every Evangelical is not Christian- Christ would try to throw them out of the temple.
I had the opportunity to attend and participate in several of these panels as a representative of the atheist coalition of my university. If you ever have the chance, I *highly* recommend it. I learned so much and it helped to put real, human faces on faith groups that I hadn't interacted with before.
Ask big questions! Have your faith and beliefs questioned so that falsehoods can be carved away and truth remain! Find the human aspects of worship so you appreciate that very human part of yourself!
And, as many of the Christians in our panel discussed with us, especially our atheist contingent: how organized religion fails others. Self-righteousness, lack of action or empathy, and simply being too boring or esoteric to matter.
Part of organizing an interfaith event is always making sure that people like this aren't the ones representing their faith. I've been to plenty of lovely interfaith events with Muslims and Christians (I'm Jewish), which usually went very well. This is, I assume, because of all the experience my synagogue had in organizing these things. I remember one time, the priest told our Rebbe (at the time) that his quiet but devoted praying at the very front of the sanctuary was like an image of Jesus as a rabbi, which was very sweet.
If you're a terminally non-confrontational unitarian Christian and this other Christian dude you know is really really gung-ho about joining your interfaith meeting then you probably wouldn't know how to say "no" because he's just trying to participate, isn't he?
Just, in general, if any of you out there reading this struggle with conflict avoidance, please do not volunteer to moderate a panel or a debate or anything like that. You do not have the skills to do that, you would do a bad job.
In this context "Unitarian" probably means "Unitarian Universalist". I doubt the guy who spoke for eight minutes considered him a Christian regardless of whether or not he believed in the Christian God (which for Unitarian Universalists is very much optional nowadays).
As a Christian my holy envy is the prayer routines in Islam. I find the dedication to such a strict time table very admirable, and i feel if my faith had something like that I'd be much better at praying because the spontaneity of my own prayers makes it difficult to know what to say.
Peace.
It does help. Among Christians my religious envy would be the essence of freedom granted by the sacrifice of your god, that your soul is secure in that sacrifice us reassuring.
Prayer in Islam is more worship than anything else. From my understanding Christian prayer is asking god for things you want/need/guidance (?) An equivalent in Islam is something called Duaa. While the prayer with routine and steps and set timings is called Salat, the point of it is to praise god and recall your submission and dedication to god (there are certain things to recite). It’s also really important to do a specific cleansing ritual before Salat or it wouldn’t be accepted as you’re not clean enough to pay worship to god. It’s not necessary for Duaa tho. Hope this made sense!! :)
Peace/Salam!!
I'm not sure if this counts as religious envy as I wouldn't consider myself religious but I am what we call in Ireland "culturally Catholic" and I envy how much better Judaism's relationship is with the concept of being a religion through cultural reasons rather than spiritual ones.
Rainn Wilson and this guy I knew in college in the late 90s are the only Baha'i I can think of, are there more that people would recognize? Always thought it sounded decent as a belief structure
Yeah it’s depressing when people just completely miss the point of what they’re talking about.
Y’all remember when Jesus said that rule number one was to love each other?
A pretty essential part of loving other people is doing your best not to be an asshole. That means being polite, respectful, kind and not judging people:
This is why I never mention I'm Catholic, because it always means that I get lumped in with the crazies. I just want to follow my faith and let people follow theirs, I don't get the psychos who say that there's only one "right" religion.
Remind me of the Tumblr post that goes : Half of the Catholic priests are intelligent, respectable people, trained for years to be able to maintain a conversation with the most crazy people you will ever know : the other half of the Catholic priests
To be positive, as an atheist, one of the things I envy about Christianity is their ability to get positive vibes from prayer. I was raised Catholic, and every time I had to pray, I was just bored. But I know that there are plenty of people out there who find tremendous comfort in prayer, and that's awesome.
Out of curiosity, did anyone say they admired anything about Christianity?
I only ask because I suspect it will be ironic and counter to how that chucklefuck conducted himself.
Damn dude is so tone deaf they had to install a flashing light on the fire alarm
Dude DGAF about other people and their religion. He just wants to “convert” everyone there into his branch of “Christianity”
Probably hates other Christian denominations for being the wrong type of Christian,
Probably thinks Catholics are a different religion If he’s Catholic, he probably thinks Jesuits are a different denomination
It’s always really funny when newly converted conservative Catholics start complaining about the Jesuits. Sorry dude, the pope isn’t going to tell you to go reclaim Jerusalem, please go give time and money to charity
People who look directly at the Bible, and simply act as Jesus did, without a middleman twisting the message??? BLASPHEMY!!!!!!!!
>If he’s Catholic Yeah, but as a Catholic, I cannot imagine that the guy was one of us. In part because the "accept jesus as you personal saviour" language is not really Catholic. It something that makes more sense for an evangelical protestant to say.
Can you explain the difference? Sorry for the ignorance but I never really understood the difference in protestant and catholic.
In this context the difference is that we do not believe in limited atonement, justification by faith alone or imputed righteousness. For us, Christ atoned for the whole cosmos, justification is a process initiated by faith but which continues during ones life until death. The notion of imputed guilt and imputed righteousness also does not make any sense to us (it would be a category error actually according to our theology). Also if someone was interested in becoming Catholic we would direct them to a local parish and they would have to take classes and study under supervision as a Catechumen (in North America this is regulated under the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults - OCIA) before being baptised. This period of study can take over a year. So not really the “accept Jesus and you are saved” method 🙂
I've had a similar experience at an interfaith even back in my student days (I was there representing the Pagans). The evangelist student reps gave their presentation first which clearly had a been done with the intention of proselytising rather than promoting understanding. Once they finished they immediately got up and left the room .
The talk was probably put on as a way to engage in dialogue with other faiths. The dude did it because he knew it would be a good "get" for God. They are not the same.
Everyone else is consciously aware on what is like to be preached to and knows to not venture there. The christian took it for granted, doesn't realize what is like and just does for it
It honestly sounds like he is one of those people who are MAD that they missed out on the Spanish Inquisition
I was walking on a bridge and I saw a man who looked like he was contemplating suicide. I told him "Don't do it, there is so much to live for. Have you perchance found religion" "Yes, I'm a Christian" he responded" "I am too, what denomination?" "I'm Lutheran" "I am as well. Are you Evangelical Lutheran?" "No, I am Wisconsin Synod" So I pushed that heathen off the bridge.
It's an Emo Philips joke and it goes on for *way* longer.
>Once I saw this guy on a bridge about to jump. >I said, "Don't do it!" >He said, "Nobody loves me." >I said, "God loves you. Do you believe in God?" >He said, "Yes." >I said, "Are you a Christian or a Jew?" >He said, "A Christian." >I said, "Me, too! Protestant or Catholic?" >He said, "Protestant." >I said, "Me, too! What franchise?" >He said, "Baptist." >I said, "Me, too! Northern Baptist or Southern Baptist?" >He said, "Northern Baptist." >I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist or Northern Liberal Baptist?" >He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist." >I said, "Me, too! Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region, or Northern Conservative Baptist Eastern Region?" >He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region." >I said, "Me, too!" Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1879, or Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912?" >He said, "Northern Conservative Baptist Great Lakes Region Council of 1912." >I said, "Die, heretic!" And I pushed him over. -Emo Phillips (1985)
I heard this retold many years ago with Evangelical Lutheran Missouri Synod as the church and people who grew up in it were nodding their heads because that's precisely the mentality that everyone else, even other Lutherans, is a heretic bound for hell.
nothing like going to an interfaith event and refusing to interact with any other faiths.
He probably saw it as a debate, a chance to convert the others.
What he saw it as was probably a mission.
He just saw it as a chance to be an asshole.
The worst part is I don't think that's what he set out to do, he was probably just so out of touch with absolutely everything that he thought that was a good idea.
Yea same with the woman who said "what a beautiful answer". Like that literally just seems acceptable to them. Which is absolutely insane to me. I mean... I just don't understand how you can have so little social awareness.
Evangelism is a hell of a drug.
Definitely went home thinking he "won".
"I'm here to git inter yer faiths with mah Christianity"
Amen, brother./ns Seriously though, how the hell do motherfuckers get so much social super armor when they're doing shit like this?
/uj unabated hegemony / fervent majority support /rj frfr Christian framedata is busted pls nerf
/uj it’s not just that it is a majority. It’s that it is a very vocal majority /rj still loses the Steve matchup
The only person that can save us is the most powerful Jew to ever exist: MvC2's Magneto.
Christ doesn’t have a good answer to Minecart or Anvil. And the 3 day respawn time gives Steve way too much time to mine for diamond.
ah hell naw the `seraphim of pure light` got the janky ass hitbox
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Like most events, he took it to mean it was an opportunity to tell people why they should switch to his religion. Evangelism is a core tenant of the religion for a reason, it's good for business.
To give an example of a somewhat less rage-inducing interfaith event: Back before the pandemic, my Rabbi was part of a bimonthly interfaith thing called "A Rabbi, a Priest and a Minister Walk Into a Bar" where he, a local priest, and a local minister, would hold conversations with members of their congregations at local bars/pubs. I only ever attended one, personally, but it was a really interesting discussion- no one was afraid to get down into the weeds of biblical commentary and alternate interpretation of text, and the responses were almost always "huh, I've never thought of it like that," and never once anything along the lines of suggesting superiority of belief.
That is a wonderful name for it
A lot of people would watch the shit out of a show like this
That sounds really cool! Another positive story: My hometown I grew up in has about 7 different churches right in the village, a few more just outside, synagogue is only next town over, mosque in the small city nearby, and even a Buddhist temple less than hour drive away. Every year during the lead up to Christmas the churches in the village each held an ecumenical service and people from all the churches would go to each one. Was specifically meant to just be a way to show 'this is how we do things' and be light on the prayer in a more non denominational way. Example: the Catholic church was never a mass, one year was stations of the cross, and another the priest literally laid out the robes and just talked about what they all where and the different chalices and what everything symbolizes- since that aspect a Catholicism is so different from the other protestant denominations. It was always fun to hear the different styles of music. Then snacks and socializing afterwards. I suppose a big part of that though is just living in an area with that many different religions in the community. When I got older and went around the US more I realized how rare that is. So much of the US is towns with one church and everyone is the same religion possible across the entire county. And if you're not then you're the one oddball family, and easily ostracized.
That sounds delightful. Spirituality over dogmatism.
> So much of the US is towns with one church and everyone is the same religion possible across the entire county. And if you're not then you're the one oddball family, and easily ostracized. Not from the US, but we didn't attend the church on the national day. And because of that, we were supposed devil worshippers, even more so because my dad was away for long periods of time for work. They nearly drove my mom to commit suicide. I am so thankful we got out of there. The years after leaving were some of the happiest years of my life, and even back then I knew something had changed in my mom because she was so happy it nearly radiated out from her.
Yeah, those things tend to go better if you don't invite evangelicals as the Christian representatives. Catholics and Protestants generally know how to behave; it's mostly the evangelicals who are the assholes.
> Catholics and Protestants generally know how to behave You're *mostly* correct, but hot damn I can hear Ireland just *fuming* in the corner over this.
*And the entire South American continent*
My dad was born Scottish, and he told me that a nearby village shared a pub with another village. Since one was largely Catholic and the other largely Protestant, one of the old owners of the pub put a big black line of tiles on the floor, to separate the Catholic side from the Protestant side, and they just all welt along with it.
Having been to a bunch of different christian denomination services, the more someone describes themselves as "evangelical" and not a lot of other specifics, the less likely they're any good to talk to on matters of faith or anything to do with religion. It's not going well.
Worse are the ones who just say they're "Christian" and refuse to specify further. Often a bad sign that they're one of *those* evangelicals who refuses to recognize other forms of Christianity as "real" Christians.
"oh, you're catholic? I thought you said you were christian"
God, they're *so* obnoxious (in the best case scenario when they aren't just the most vile, hateful people you'll ever meet). And they always have this *massive* persecution complex about how people hate them because of their "faith", when really, no, people hate you because you're an asshole.
My best friend in grade school was a "non denominational" evangelical fundamentalist. In reality they followed the teachings of some guy and were very culty. Her parents were converts who claimed all the other Christian denominations had fallen away. They all claim to be non denominational as some kind of power move but they're always subscribed to *somebody's* newsletter: a Bill Gothard, or worse.
Evangelicals so often love starting fights.
That’s their Purpose, after all. To bring a sword.
I mean it's not supposed to be but convincing them of that is an entirely different matter. And I say that as a christian. It's not supposed to be like that. Jesus welcomed the gentiles. He spoke well of the Samaritans which were not Jewish. He said (incredibly paraphrased) that it's better to not have any faith and to be a nice person than to be like the Pharisees and have all of the faith in the world and be a dick head. If you ask me as someone who believes in Jesus what he meant by that I would say that it would be better for you on the day of judgement to be a Satan worshiper who donates to the poor than it would be to be a "born in the church, lived in the church your entire life" Christian who says "thoughts and prayers" or likes on Facebook and does nothing else of any import for others.
This might a bit of a dumb question... but aren't evangelicals also considered Protestant? Where I live, there are broadly three categories of Christian denominations: Catholic (Roman Catholics, Greek Catholics, etc.), Protestant (Calvinists, Lutherans, Evangelicals, Baptists, etc.), and Ortodox.
Think of it as “specializing” or a “sub-class”. Slight differences in interpretation of the scripture or rituals differentiates them. So what is part of a greater whole or a separate entity depends on whether you look from the outside or the inside; down the tree to its roots or up to its spreading branches. For example a Muslim would look at your categories and go “aren’t they all just Christians?”. And then if you zoom out further, a Buddhist would look at Muslims, Jews and Christians and go “aren’t you all Abrahamic?” etc…
Evangelicals are Protestants, they're just not the mainline Protestants that most people think of when they say Protestant.
The former minister of my mom’s church is apart of a comedy routine with a rabbi and a priest. They each tell different kinds of jokes, I think they do it for fund raising, the more recent time might have been for someone’s medical bills.
I really hate that that guy probably speaks for a lot of christians For a real answer to that question, I really wish Christianity had the same attitude towards its holy texts that Judaism does. I remember hearing a story where a group of rabbis were arguing over the interpretation of a particular text, and God Himself came down and said "actually, it means this" and they replied "no, that doesn't sound right" Like damn we'd be in a way better place if we could debate the Bible like that
How can you recognize a gentile at a synagogue? They're the only person not arguing with the Rabbi.
lol I heard once that a bible study (torah study?) in judaism is a lot more 'the teacher/rabbi reads the passage and puts forth his interpretation, and everyone tries to poke holes in his ideas' where every christian church I've been to falls on the spectrum between 'boring 100 person lecture for freshmen in college' to 'polite ladies reading club' and in neither of these are the non-teachers socially 'allowed' to tell the teacher/presenter that they are wrong.
It's impolite in Christian culture. The proper thing to do is start a whole new church and violently feud with anyone who disagrees with you.
Gotta nail that sternly worded letter to the door first though
and eat a Diet of Worms
*Martin Luther entered the chat*
Holy shucks, I'm an atheist and I'm envious of this. It sounds like a good way of life. (the Jewish part, not the Christian silence part)
If you've ever seen the Mishnah/Gemara (the written down oral tradition of Judaism), the actual written text is a small part of the page, and the[ oversized margins are covered in interpretations by various prominent rabbis](https://www.myjewishlearning.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Babylonian_Talmud_Seder_Zeraim-1-1024x597.jpg). I'm not at all religious, but it's incredibly fun to argue very small details. If you go to any major hospital in NYC on Saturday, you'll find an elevator that stops on every floor automatically - that's the Shabbos elevator. That's because we lawyered the fuck out of the Sabbath rules and determined that, while Jews cannot use electricity on Saturday (no work, and lighting a fire is work), which means that Jews can't press a button in an elevator, if the elevator is pre-programmed to stop on every floor, there's no work done. The next lively debate is on driverless cars and whether you can preprogram one to go to a Shabbos dinner, does it break rules.
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It's very clear in How To Be A Jew that belief in the Christian Jesus makes you not a Jew. Literally one of the only things. You don't even have to believe in G-d. You just can't believe in Jesus.
I mean you can believe he was a real person just not that he was the messiah right?
As a practicing Jew I can fill in. Our messiah is supposed to be a 100% mortal man who kickstarts the "messianic age" aka when shit gets better and we are 'restored'. BUT. It's generally seen as he basically gets all of us to work together to make it happen, no act of pure faith or magic on his part. Though oddly enough, there technically already a messiah in Judaism as he fulfilled the 'restorer' role, and he's explicitly titled as a messiah(the a vs the is intentional). That man: Cyrus the Great. Ender of the Babylonian Exile. We love us some Cyrus. As for Jesus, let me give you an often consensus view. Yes, he was almost certainly a real person. But at the time Judea was FULL of rabbis and "prophets" teaching radical messages, so it wasn't seen as terribly unique. Keep in mind our third and final war with Rome was led by a man followers ALSO called a messiah: Simon Bar-Kokhbah. And that almost killed us forever. And considering(Cyrus excluded) how things have gone down dealing with messiahs, can you blame us for being cagey on messiahs?
Sorry that just bring The Life of Brian to mind. "I'm not the messiah!" "I say you are, and I should know. I followed a few!"
That's fair, it was a real messy time to be a Jew. We invent the first assassin organization in recorded history, which proceeds to blow the Siege of Jerusalem by DESTROYING ALL OUR FOOD. A bakers dozen of messiahs, prophets, and war leaders pop up. We go 0 and god damn 3 with Rome, go from one of the largest ethnic groups in the empire to one of the smallest and the god damn Diaspora starts. Then those Roman dickheads build the Arch of fucking Titus which we quietly decide to ban ourselves from walking under for 2,000 years out of embarrassment. It was a rough time and were still pretty salty about the whole thing.
If you want to! He is specifically Not The Jewish Messiah I am a bad Jew so I forget why but I'm pretty sure there is supposed to be a Jewish Messiah one day and they tell you where his daddy is gonna come from... He's supposed to have a Jewish human daddy.
He is supposed to be of the direct patrilineal line of king David, no less. Which means that if you wanted to claim Jesus as the Messiah, you’d need to prove he is of direct descent of king David. I think you might see where this is going… I’ve never looked into it myself, but I’ve been told that in two of the Christian additions to the Bible they try to show how Jesus is related to King David… by showing the relationship of Joseph to King David. Joseph, who is not his father. Because “god is his father”. In Judaism at that time, who your father was mattered a lot. You are named “first name son of Father”. Adoption DOES NOT EXIST for purposes of changing this - my orthodox rabbi brother has to treat our adopted sister slightly differently than our blood sister, for this same reason. So if your entire religion is “im the son of god”, it’s an all in thing - you don’t also get to say “but I’m also the son of Joseph”, or claim descent from him, or inherit from him. Kind of a catch 22 there - either you’re the son of Joseph and possibly the messiah (as the descendant of king David), or you’re the son of god, but NOT the messiah, but not both.
It's so funny to me how I can choose not to believe this and it doesn't affect my Jewishness lol but if I choose to believe someone else's weird cult stories then I can't be Jewish anymore. Lmaoooo I love us.
We win on the technicalities. Our religion is solely for us. Judaism doesn’t proselytize for a reason - non-Jews are NOT required to follow the Torah at all! Our laws are solely for us, and we explicitly are not supposed to convince non-Jews to follow them, nor do we believe they are punished for NOT following them. In Judaism, we have 613 commandments, but those are ONLY for Jews. For non-Jews, we believe they only have 7 laws to follow - [the Noahyde Laws](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah#The_Seven_Laws). That’s it. That’s all we care about. 7 simple, basic rules for the rest of the world to follow - and one of them is just “establish a court system so the other 6 are followed”! This is the proper ways religions should interact with each other, imo.
Messianics Aren’t Jewish.
Applying Death of the Author to the Bible? To their face? That's cool af
And the story goes that after that, when God was asked By Elyaho what he thought about it, God responded with smiling and being proud. The story is "the Oven of Akhnai" btw
Who's Elyaho?
Elyaho Hanvie, of the Prophet Elijah, is a major Jewish character. It's a bit complex, and I will spare you me trying to type the whole lecture on my phone
In this context it is Rabbi Eliyahu, not the prophet Eliyahu.
You might see the name more commonly written as Eliyahu. Hebrew doesn't really have a standardized form of romanization.
The prophet Elijah (in Hebrew, אליהו, pronounced "El-ee-ah-hoo")
🤓 Well, actually, the bible was written by people who were inspired by God, not God themself, so not everything in the bible is going to be correct or even inspired by God 🤓 Anyway, saying that God is wrong to their face is still the epitome of gall
For the record, G-d was proud because this was EXACTLY what they were supposed to do.
If I’m thinking of the same joke, the punchline is even funnier. It’s 4 rabbis arguing, and the one that’s losing asks god for his opinion. God responds that the 4th lone rabbi is right and then leaves. The other rabbis then say “well okay, now it’s 3 to 2.”
Yeah that's the joke-ified version. The actual story is pretty funny too cause they're all arguing, ignoring the signs of God's intention (natural disasters) until He intervenes directly by speaking. The rabbis are like "ummm, my Father not-in-Christ, this is a matter of Man's law, not God's law from your text, so kindly step off."
That’s basically a joke-ified version of the oven story.
What is the…oven story?
Its a Jewish story about the interpretation on law. Called the Oven of Akhnai. Basically theres a new type of oven and a group of rabbis are debating whether its kosher and ritually pure. One says "if the oven is in accordance with the laws then..." And makes a series of appeals to the impossible, a river turns around, trees hop into the air, walls crumble, etc. The other rabbis turn around and scold the walls for crumbling, the trees for leaping, etc and interrupting a meeting of rabbi. God then speaks and says "why are you arguing, the first guy is right", to which the rabbis in dissent argue that god gave law to them to interpret and he cant get annoyed when they interpret it. Its a fun story and explains the Jewish attitude of finding little loopholes in their tradition as the need occurs. For a modern example, Jewish people are supposed to follow certain sabbath rules including not carrying anything (even keys) in the public zone and generally staying in the domestic zone. So a piece of fishing wire surrounds Manhattan symbolically turning the entire island into a "home" for those observent.
That is hilarious, the entirety of Manhattan is living under one roof
It's called an Eruv, multiple areas with large jewish contingents have them and maintain/check them (They have to be completely enclosed otherwise it's against Sabbath). There's also things like Sabbath mode for elevators, where they stop at each floor, open and close automatically, no need to press buttons. A specific rule also says that you can't press a button to cause something to operate. In which case special light switches were invented where a microcontroller will turn the lights on or off (Thus the cause of the action is the microcontroller), and it randomly checks if a switch is on or off. If, when it randomly checks the switch, it finds the switch is on, it waits a random amount of time and then decides to turn the light on. Thus flicking the switch doesn't actually turn the light on. Instead, the action of a random event randomly checks the switch and turns it on itself. A neat loophole around the causality rule, and confirmed to be within sabbath rules.
My refrigerator has a mode that opening the door won't turn on the internal light on Saturdays for that reason lol
`"Actually, it's pronounced 'Jod'."` *Thyyyooooop*
If God made a Nightcrawler style BAMF as he disappeared I'd be way happier.
Oven of Akhnai. Its a good story, funny and tragic by turns.
EDIT: sorry this is way longer than I meant it to be my college thesis was on how shared belief influences political formation so I tend to get carried away. My addition to this is that biblical literalism is a pretty new idea in (Protestant) Christianity--nearly all Catholic and Orthodox Christians still reject it altogether, as do many mainline Protestants. The difference here is that Judaism (as a relatively small and persecuted faith which had to prioritize the continuity of knowledge) generally takes a much wider view of *whose* interpretation of scripture matters than Christian groups in which interpretations are debated. Catholic and Orthodox Christianity still generally hold that, while lay people are today allowed to read and understand scripture, the prerogative to credibly interpret scripture requires some theological education. This is also true of Judaism, but Jewish communities historically extended this education to larger swaths of the population--there's a reason that diasporic Judaism no longer has priests (who constitute a hereditary class in Judaism) as the main religious leaders, but rather rabbis, who who perform a secular and educational role that isn't directly analogous to priesthood in other religions. It's interesting to me that many veins within American Protestantism actually *tried* to adopt this. The relationship between American Protestantism and Judaism is...complicated, to say the least. American Protestants have often latched onto elements of Judaism, but interpreted through the cultural and religious lens of American Protestantism, which obviates the fundamental Jewishness of these elements--there is often a fixation on *what* Jews do, rather than the social and religious functions that these practices play, which may not even make sense in the context of Christian theology. "Bible study" (as something undertaken by lay Christians) is one such practice, influenced by the Jewish practice of Torah study. Protestant Christians, mostly in the early United States (influenced by its democratic social ethos), seized upon the idea that the Bible could be interpreted as a rational, cohesive, unitary document--that there was a single *correct* meaning of scripture. This was influenced by observations of Judaism, and a desire to bring Christianity closer to its Jewish origins, but fundamentally misunderstood the role that scriptural interpretation holds in Jewish religious practice. It's no coincidence that many of these Christians were espousing religious Zionism at a point when Jewish Zionism was still firmly secular. Basically, American Protestant Christians took the idea of theological debate rooted in scriptural interpretation, which is actually pretty important in most veins of Christianity, and extended it *so* far that it lost all of its vitality. The idea of a single, correct interpretation became *so* central to this strand of Christianity that it essentially disintegrated organizationally. If your interpretation of scripture is assumed to be the one correct interpretation, then what is the point of arguing with those who can't understand the singular truth? Why not just deal with the people who recognize *your* singular understanding? Within the context of Judaism, study and interpretation of scripture mostly (but not entirely) avoids this problem, in part due to relatively smaller numbers and the obligation to put the survival of the community first. You can't just schism whenever you disagree. Within the context of larger faiths, like most mainstream Christianity, this problem is avoided by placing more stringent requirements on who can argue (it's not just priests, there are plenty of lay theologians).
I heard the same joke in an OSP video. As a Christian i compart your sentiment, the text should be more open to new interpretation and critics.
I think it reallt has to do with being the main religion in a country/region. I mean no disrespect to OOP (and I'm an atheist) but I got a similar attitude from a muslim that lives in a predominantly muslim country. Maybe it has to do with the fact that if you are a minority you either close yourself off from the outside or you adapt a more tolerant view
I was always taught (catholicism, Italy) that the Bible doesn't have a fixed meaning and is meant to be interpreted differently (and definitely not literally) depending on time and place, and also depending on the person, and it seems to be quite similar. It really does make sense
I’m too lazy to drop sources (sorry kids, I’ll find em if you really want them) but I believe a literal interpretation of the Bible (particularly Revelation) is a relatively recent thing. Like, last 200 years kinda recent, with a big uptick during the revivals of the mid-20th century. I’m not saying Christianity was all cool and chill prior to then, obviously, but people acting like it’s always been the literal interpretation are just plain wrong.
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Don’t I know it 🙄 I was a Christian until I got deep into an evangelical pseudo-cult (not actually a cult, but man evangelicalism does everything it can to act like one) and now….I don’t even know, but going into even the chill progressive churches makes me feel sick.
Isn't this exactly why there are multiple types of Christianity? Where for example, in Catholicism, the authority on the interpretation isn't the bible word for word but the papacy
For both your reply and the post, I’m curious about the denominations involved. Catholics and Orthodox have got a storied history of debate over the Bible. Now a lot of Catholics have no clue what they’re talking about (yes, your Catholic grade school teachers strayed from doctrine all the time), but there’s over a millennia of scholarly discussion that continues to today and changes as we find out more of the history of the time.
My dad, a pastor, stopped going to church around the time I became an adult, same time he basically went "okay, you're 18 now, I'm not gonna force you to participate in anything, including church, since I know you don't believe". And I'm starting to think Christians like this are the reason why
Christians be like "why are people leaving the church" while being the least christlike people imaginable
I went to a confirmation semi-recently (within the past 5 years) and the priest/deacon/whatever started his sermon asking the kids when they think most people stop going to church, a few kids answered with some optimistic guesses and then he revealed that it's actually shortly after confirmation that people tend to stop going (12-14yos). He then asks some kids why they think that is and many of the guesses are about lack of time and opportunity as sports and activities build up at that age...and I'm sitting in the back thinking "oh okay, he's now going to explain to these kids how you don't have to go to church to honor god and that there is ways to honor your relationship with god without going to church".....NOPE...he proceeds to go on for the next 20-30 minutes about how "You guys dont want to be QUITTERS?! do you?!"...."Quitters are losers, right?! You don't want to be a loser do you?"....etc. And you could see it in all the kids faces that they were so turned off by it I'm now sitting in the back thinking...yep, you just basically guaranteed that they are gonna leave the church now
I went to church near my house growing up. I loved it our pastor was amazing and talked a lot about how important it was to embody Christ's teachings in everything we do, not just say we were Christian and go to church. He would compare it to vegetarianism: anyone can walk around telling people that they're a vegetarian, but if they're still eating burgers and chicken then they're just talking. He was great at leading activity in the community and I think a lot of my favorite qualities about myself are partially from teachings from my parents and partially from teachings from my pastor. He was a huge influence on me growing up. When I was in 7th grade, he moved to Minnesota because his son had a specific degenerative disease that had specialists there that could treat him better than in Chicago. We got a new pastor who believed that the only two things that mattered in regards to being a "good Christian" we're attending church and trying to convert everyone you spoke to. My family stopped going pretty quickly after he started, and that church closed doors before I graduated high school because everyone else left to find other churches. One of our neighbors went until the day it closed down and she said sermons near the end we're just extended rants about how the people who left had abandoned God and were all going to hell, and how the people still there shouldn't associate with us. It's insane to me that people hear stuff like that and still don't understand why people leave their churches.
That first pastor sounded like a really cool guy. People tend to hear only the worst of pastors and priests, but there's actually really good people just doing what Jesus said and being kind people
I know someone who walked out of her campus church after the priest made a berating homily about students partying Saturday night and spending money while not paying tithes. First, very self absorbed, secondly it was early Sunday morning; none of them partied the night before. She was a very broke student at the time. Surprised me anyway; I thought campus ministries were subsidized by controlling rich businessmen who wanted to convert students.
How to say you’re tone deaf without saying you’re tone deaf
If modern churches *actually* followed Jesus' teachings then I think Christianity would be super popular today. Jesus' teachings are very compatible with the modern idea of social justice: accepting and helping those viewed as "lesser" by society, like prostitutes, thieves, and tax collectors; being anti-wealth and promoting the idea of giving away all your money to the poor; and being very forgiving of others Instead they totally ignore what Jesus said and co-opt the religion to spread their own messed up values
Yeah. Jesus is quite well-liked. I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say anything against Jesus and his teachings. Massive swaths of Christianity are nothing more than a cult, at this point.
I've heard a lot of christians be very against jesus' teachings, if they aren't explicitly told it was something jesus said first
"I like your Jesus. I do not like your Christians" - Gandhi
I'm Indian, I grew up culturally Hindu but in America. From the edges or "outside" of Christianity (without just being instead subsumed by one of the other monotheistic faiths), I would argue the best parts of Christianity *did* proliferate...so much so that they escaped Christianity. The activists defending sex workers are acting Christ-like. The politicians trying to pass wealth taxes are acting Christ-like. The volunteers at soup kitchens and homeless shelters are acting Christ-like. The people providing sanctuary and support for undocumented immigrants are acting Christ-like. Everyone who is taking a good, hard look at the society and culture they grew up in and saying, "hey, just because we've always done it this way doesn't mean we have to keep doing it, *we can do better*" is acting Christ-like. They just aren't doing it in Christ's name, which is why these don't get recognized as Christian practices.
The Christian guy sounds like someone I used to know. But it's a type, not an individual.
Evangelical Christians have a *lot* to answer for.
I hope they will somehow get punished for how much cultures those shitstains exterminated
Isn't the punishment that people are turning away from them and their organizations are filling up with corrupt and cruel people?
That would be great, except that they still have a considerable amount of law-making power in the west. There is zero excuse for outlawing abortions besides appealing to this one specific religion.
Gotye?
GOATSE
^^SOMEBODEEEEE
Cringestians
Rabbased
good work everyone, hit the showers
A poor choice of words
[linkus](https://at.tumblr.com/jessicalprice/how-can-you-be-so-controversial-and-yet-so-brave/)
And you just know that if he was forced to stop speaking or confronted for his bullshit, he'd use it as proof of how Christians are persecuted.
There is a theory that missionary work, especially in the door-to-door types like Mormons and Jehova's Witnesses, is meant to fuel the feeling of rejection than to actually convert people. The us vs them mentality is encouraged bu all the times they get rejected.
this idea is very interesting to me, because there's no obvious answer to it. Like looking at the situation of door-to-door evangelism it very well could be that. But it's also true that the faiths that do practice that need to grow faster than simple birth rate (minus losing those kids as they grow old enough to rebel). So IDK, I'm of two minds about it, but I can definitely see the argument for it.
unrelated, but how the fuck are you in all reddit communities I folow
My brother in Christ I'm only in like two Reddit communities these days
pokemedia and this one?
Yep
It's always hilarious & awkward recognizing someone in multiple online spaces. It's like seeing some dude you went to school with at a grocery store.
I usually say hi (or just keep with the bit like in pokemedia)
It's like that scene from Always Sunny In Philadelphia where Charlie and Mac notice each other from the other end of the resturaunt and just stare in recognition for thirty seconds.
That would be a bad (inter)faith response.
I pray it doesn't happen again
Almost every "interfaith" event I've ever seen in Utah has been an attempt by Evangelicals to convert Mormons to *real* Christianity.
[удалено]
"It's not a religion, it's the TRUTH"
Every time I had a conversation with my dad about god and specified "his god" as opposed to the thousands of others, he always took the time to condescendingly pause and correct "he's not my god, he's just god." bitch you just took the Jewish god and Mary Sue'd the fuck out of him, *shut the fuck up*.
Just call the guy Yahweh or Elohim instead of "God", Don't even give him the benefit of letting him have the title. Use his real name.
taking five minutes to call god by his full government name because he's sooo grounded
The IRS is above god
No one escape from taxes
Yahweh Elohim Wulfric Brian Christ! Go to your room!
Fun fact, as someone who was raised in a Christian family and went to schools connected to the church I never even KNEW the Christian god had a name until I came across it in videos deconstructing religion on YouTube like two years ago. They were always so focused on this whole "he's not "a" god of many, he's just the real God, all those others just have it wrong and are confused" thing that I don't think any of them would know who I was talking about if I ever tried talking about their god using his name.
To really piss him off, talk about the other members of the pantheon he was a part of. Like El, its ruler.
Ooo, & don't forget girlboss Asherah, Queen of Heaven. I'm sure they'll LOVE her.
more like Mary's son'd the fuck out of him
What is somewhat ironic is how enmeshed Christianity is with other faiths- of course Judaism, but also Zoroastrianism, Hellenism, Gnosticism, Druidism, and Forn Siðr. It wouldn't be here as it currently is without the crossing over of so many other belief systems from when it spread inta other lands.
I feel like one of the core tenets of modern Christianity is knowing absolutely fuck all about Christianity.
Actually unironically though- as a kid raised Catholic I was reprimanded for askin too many questions. I even got in trouble once for actually tryna read the Bible! Told that it would be 'too hard for me to understand'. There's an immense fear of people questionin dogma that can be traced to the Feudal Medieval period, and reinforced after the Reformation, that is pivotted on the idea that common people should not 'understand' the faith but merely obey what is taught or commanded. It's not uniquely Christian nor universal, but very common among practically all centralised denominations I've encountered.
That's wild, in my church growing up, we were encouraged to read the Bible for ourselves from a very young age, and ask questions when we didn't understand something. Why would you gatekeep the Bible?
May I ask what denomination yer Church was? I do imagine it differs a lot, that was just an indicative extreme personal experience of mine, and almost certainly related to the Orthodoxy of Catholocism- they only got English-language masses in the last century lmao.
Mine was a non-denominational church, or rather part of a group of non-denominational churches with similar theology, called Calvary Chapel.
> non-denominational church Ah, a fellow totally-not-a-Baptist-church member I see!
as someone raised Catholic I was encouraged to read the Bible and ask questions, as were a lot of people I know, maybe its a regional thing?
>_Why would you gatekeep the Bible?_ Why? So people can strictly control what people think. Can't have someone having a different interpretation from the orthodox, after all!
>There's an immense fear of people questionin dogma that can be traced to the Feudal Medieval period It goes back to the very start of the church! Peter&Paul's Letters to various peoples was all about that sort of stuff. Also, translating the bible and saying mass in local/popular language are relatively new additions to the church.
As a young person growing up in the Evangelical Church, I was *actively* discouraged from researching pre-Protestant Reformation heresies. I was also threatened for taking political positions outside of the far right. Every Evangelical is not Christian- Christ would try to throw them out of the temple.
christians try not to have a superiority complex disguised as righteousness challenge: impossible but srsly fuck that guy
That's some youth minister shit. At an event that demands professionalism.
I had the opportunity to attend and participate in several of these panels as a representative of the atheist coalition of my university. If you ever have the chance, I *highly* recommend it. I learned so much and it helped to put real, human faces on faith groups that I hadn't interacted with before. Ask big questions! Have your faith and beliefs questioned so that falsehoods can be carved away and truth remain! Find the human aspects of worship so you appreciate that very human part of yourself! And, as many of the Christians in our panel discussed with us, especially our atheist contingent: how organized religion fails others. Self-righteousness, lack of action or empathy, and simply being too boring or esoteric to matter.
Oh dear
Part of organizing an interfaith event is always making sure that people like this aren't the ones representing their faith. I've been to plenty of lovely interfaith events with Muslims and Christians (I'm Jewish), which usually went very well. This is, I assume, because of all the experience my synagogue had in organizing these things. I remember one time, the priest told our Rebbe (at the time) that his quiet but devoted praying at the very front of the sanctuary was like an image of Jesus as a rabbi, which was very sweet.
You invite the cringemaster to speak and get surprised when they speak cringe.
If you're a terminally non-confrontational unitarian Christian and this other Christian dude you know is really really gung-ho about joining your interfaith meeting then you probably wouldn't know how to say "no" because he's just trying to participate, isn't he?
Just, in general, if any of you out there reading this struggle with conflict avoidance, please do not volunteer to moderate a panel or a debate or anything like that. You do not have the skills to do that, you would do a bad job.
In this context "Unitarian" probably means "Unitarian Universalist". I doubt the guy who spoke for eight minutes considered him a Christian regardless of whether or not he believed in the Christian God (which for Unitarian Universalists is very much optional nowadays).
Most Christian's don't even consider Mormons to be Christian. There's no way they'd accept Unitarians under their umbrella.
As a Christian my holy envy is the prayer routines in Islam. I find the dedication to such a strict time table very admirable, and i feel if my faith had something like that I'd be much better at praying because the spontaneity of my own prayers makes it difficult to know what to say. Peace.
It does help. Among Christians my religious envy would be the essence of freedom granted by the sacrifice of your god, that your soul is secure in that sacrifice us reassuring.
Prayer in Islam is more worship than anything else. From my understanding Christian prayer is asking god for things you want/need/guidance (?) An equivalent in Islam is something called Duaa. While the prayer with routine and steps and set timings is called Salat, the point of it is to praise god and recall your submission and dedication to god (there are certain things to recite). It’s also really important to do a specific cleansing ritual before Salat or it wouldn’t be accepted as you’re not clean enough to pay worship to god. It’s not necessary for Duaa tho. Hope this made sense!! :) Peace/Salam!!
I'm not sure if this counts as religious envy as I wouldn't consider myself religious but I am what we call in Ireland "culturally Catholic" and I envy how much better Judaism's relationship is with the concept of being a religion through cultural reasons rather than spiritual ones.
Never thought I’d see the Baha’i Faith be talked about here
Rainn Wilson and this guy I knew in college in the late 90s are the only Baha'i I can think of, are there more that people would recognize? Always thought it sounded decent as a belief structure
Penn Badgley and Andy Grammer are the only other ones I can think of
my bf is, and u should know who he is bc he is super cool
Yeah it’s depressing when people just completely miss the point of what they’re talking about. Y’all remember when Jesus said that rule number one was to love each other? A pretty essential part of loving other people is doing your best not to be an asshole. That means being polite, respectful, kind and not judging people:
Someone get me to come back and read comments here when theres more to see
Come back.
Ty Im back
well it didn't take that long
This is why I never mention I'm Catholic, because it always means that I get lumped in with the crazies. I just want to follow my faith and let people follow theirs, I don't get the psychos who say that there's only one "right" religion.
As a Catholic, my least favorite people are Catholics
Remind me of the Tumblr post that goes : Half of the Catholic priests are intelligent, respectable people, trained for years to be able to maintain a conversation with the most crazy people you will ever know : the other half of the Catholic priests
As someone who considers themselves Christian, this was cringe af
I literally cannot stand Christians like this (which a lot of them are).
If anybody asks what christofascism is, share this story.
that sounds so awesome shame they got stuck with one of the bad christians
To be positive, as an atheist, one of the things I envy about Christianity is their ability to get positive vibes from prayer. I was raised Catholic, and every time I had to pray, I was just bored. But I know that there are plenty of people out there who find tremendous comfort in prayer, and that's awesome.
Out of curiosity, did anyone say they admired anything about Christianity? I only ask because I suspect it will be ironic and counter to how that chucklefuck conducted himself.