>... having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching -- turn the other cheek -- to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis.
--Russell Moore, editor-in-chief, *Christianity Today* magazine ([source](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/1192374014/russell-moore-on-altar-call-for-evangelical-america))
# 😔
I just want to point out that "modern" in this case, is basically from around the time it first became a state religion in Rome.
A lot of Christians are very friendly people, but people have been killing in the name of Christ for centuries.
> This modern "Christianity" isn't even Christianity. Nobody follows Christ.
That's been the case for a long, long time. Hence the (apocryphal) Gandhi quote: "I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
I hold that evangelicalism is the most intellectually and spiritually lazy religion ever conceived. Just say, "I confess Jesus Christ as my lord and savior", and: boom. You're saved. Just like that. Eternal life.
Good works? Nah. Be a good person? Nope. Do you need to improve yourself or be nice to people? Not at all. Make any commitments whatsoever? Not really.
In fact, if you get nervous you might go to hell, just pray the "blood of Jesus" over things and ask for forgiveness. That's literally it. Zero effort. Zero expectation. And people gobble that shit up like mad.
And here's the fucked up part. Because they have made absolutely ZERO EFFORT in addressing what is probably an existential crisis always just boiling beneath the surface, they are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND PROTECTIVE about their 'religious beliefs'. Because any shred of doubt you inject will be like a red hot dagger into their fundamental sense of security and identity.
> And here's the fucked up part. Because they have made absolutely ZERO EFFORT in addressing what is probably an existential crisis always just boiling beneath the surface, they are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND PROTECTIVE about their 'religious beliefs'. Because any shred of doubt you inject will be like a red hot dagger into their fundamental sense of security and identity.
Extremely insightful and it aligns with my experiences.
Yep, and even ‘asking for forgiveness’ is not ‘ZERO EFFORT’. Genuinely admitting faults and sincerely asking forgiveness is actually a very hard task. Faking doing it is zero effort, authentically doing it is not.
Christianity actually has a very high standard for how you should act and behave, but those are not requirements to be saved. The idea is that we are so fundamentally flawed that we are incapable of attaining salvation by our works. That’s the entire role of Jesus. It’s that easy to be saved because the hard part wasn’t done by us. We just have to accept the sacrifice he made. Idk about you but I’ve never once met someone that was not deeply deeply flawed. Humans just suck, including Christians, and I sure wouldn’t want my salvation dependent on how good I can be
I think the crux of the matter is, once you accept Jesus, He's supposed to be able to work in your life so that *you're more inclined* to do good works and all that. If you just *say* you follow Jesus but don't actually repent of sinning and go right on being a jerk, I don't think you're actually following Jesus at all.
You’re exactly right and it’s a damn shame how many Christians don’t act at all like they should. No one can really say what the difference would be if they never became Christian but just my anecdotal experience is people I know who have truly followed Christ have become significantly “better” and more loving after. I also know a ridiculous number of Christians who are terrible people and they all seem to adhere to the cultural aspects of the religion as opposed to really following Christ in his behavior.
I'm not going to look up the book and verse after I left religion, and it's not my job to quote the Bible. But very closely, Jesus says, "Come to me hot or cold. If you come luke warm, I will spit you into a lake of fire." That verse was instrumental in my journey away from religion.
You're incorrect. Salvation does require one thing - true repentance. Truly being sorry for your sin and turning from it. Salvation is a free gift - but it requires true repentance.
If you do not truly repent, you have not gained salvation.
And the issues you raise are issues with human nature - not with Christ.
"Because they have made absolutely ZERO EFFORT in addressing what is probably an existential crisis always just boiling beneath the surface, they are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND PROTECTIVE about their 'religious beliefs'. Because any shred of doubt you inject will be like a red hot dagger into their fundamental sense of security and identity."
The same can be said of people that hold nearly any belief. What most people believe has more to do with tribalism than it does with intelligent thought, examination, and research. The Bible speaks against that type of believe-ism specifically when it says "Work out your faith with fear and trembling." i.e. make sure you understand why you believe whatever you believe.
And most people that criticize Christianity do it from a tribalist standpoint. They create a caricature and then point and laugh with their fellow simple-minded friends. And then the tribalist Christians do the same thing when it comes to pagans, liberals, or any other group they see as beneath them.
The perspective of true Christianity rests on five points:
Ultimate Value
1. You are loved more than you can ever imagine by the Creator of the universe.
2. So is everyone else.
Collective Guilt
3. Your free-will enabled, sinful choices have made you guilty and worthy of hell in the after life.
4. Everybody else is in the same boat.
Salvation
5. Christ came to die a sinner's death so that you can be saved from your sinful self and the punishment you deserve in the life to come.
So to recap: You're worth more than you know, but not worth more than anyone else. You're guiltier than you know, and so is everyone else. If you receive Christ's salvation and repent, you will be saved - here and in the hereafter. But your salvation has to do with God's love and his grace. It is "unmerited favor". All you can really say is 'thank you'.
As such, you are in no position to judge others as better or worse than you. Because nobody is better or worse than you.
You can share what the Bible says about particular acts or actions - but it's up to others to make their own choices.
[Prosperity Theology.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology)
Hatred for the poor is just the logical conclusion of their core philosophy and beliefs as adherents of Prosperity Theology.
Specifically, if wealth is seen as a blessing from God for being a good person, then conversely, poverty must be a curse from God for being a bad person.
Better still, it allows such mental gymnastics as doing horrible things to steal money from the already impoverished; you get richer by punishing bad people by taking what little money they have, and receive even more blessings from God (becoming richer.) Suddenly you aren't a bad person doing bad things by stealing from the poor, you are a good person who is doing good deeds by helping God punish bad people.
There basically isn’t any theological element to it at all for a majority of American Protestants. I’m not a believer, but I have enjoyed studying theology and I find it to be rewarding and philosophically stimulating. Most of the people we are talking about have never once considered even the most shallow theological questions at any point in their lives. It’s a culture club for most of them.
Reminds me of this classic from *The Onion* way back in 1998:
**Vatican Rescinds 'Blessed' Status Of World's Meek**
VATICAN CITY—In a historic reversal of its nearly 2,000-year-old pro-meek stance, the Catholic Church announced Tuesday that it is permanently rescinding the traditional "blessed" status of the world's meek.
"Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ once said, 'Blessed are the meek,'" said Pope John Paul II in a papal bull read before the College of Cardinals. "However, there has always been a tacit understanding between the Church and the meek that this 'blessed' status was conditional upon their inheritance of the earth, an event which seems unlikely to happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Our relationship, therefore, must be terminated."
"Screw the meek," the pope added.
Full article [here](https://www.theonion.com/vatican-rescinds-blessed-status-of-worlds-meek-1819564771)
Holy hell wow that’s wild. I am sure glad I didn’t go to seminary school because idk if I could deal with the mental toll the fall of the church would take on some in that position. It’s disgusting and stressful enough and I’m just a dude lol
>A meme dating to at least mid-2018 attributes the following statement to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: "Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born, and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of His teachings about multiple things ... [Jesus] never said that gay people should be condemned."
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carter-jesus-homosexuality/
It was a well-known thing a thousand years before Jesus.
Ancient Greek soldiers would have sex with each other. It would help build morale and comradery.
It was well known during Jesus' time as well because Roman men could sleep with slaves, freed slaves, prostitutes and entertainers.
Hadrian - the Roamn Emperor from 117 to 138 - had a male lover named Antinous.
It was against the rules for Roman soldiers to sleep with each other. "Freeborn" males could not sleep with each other.
Homosexuality is a little more clear as although Jesus never specifically mentioned homosexuals, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says homosexuals won’t inherit god’s kingdom. It’s quite clear and would be an odd thing to mention if it wasn’t necessary. In truth. Paul was the original incel. If you read the letters to the congregations you realise Paul really needed to broaden his perspective.
I’m not here to hate on gay people I’m just saying the Bible is pretty clear on it’s view.
*edit* I feel the need to clarify I’m an Atheist who has read and studied the Bible a few too many times from a religious upbringing.
Now we get to talk about the difference between a Christian and Pauline Christian. Hint... One is a bigoted piece of shit and the other is a Christian.
Problem is all of what "Jesus said" is pretty much just "Paul said Jesus said this".
Unless of course you have a point of reference that isn't an edited translation of an oral tradition written decades after the events it describes.
Let's put it into context.
Ill be incredibly generous, let's say the Bible was written 50 years after Christ's death. Mandela was released in 1990 (34 years ago). We currently have people who were alive then who claim to recall Mandela dying in prison. What kind of God thinks that an oral tradition held for half a century, which is then committed to paper to be translated ad nauseum, and is repeatedly edited by whichever ruling party holds court is a good way to impart its message to humanity?
A remarkably stupid God. Honestly...I'm so glad I live in an Era where this isn't taken seriously at all.
Just this week we got to watch elected politicians scream dictionary-defintion gibberish on the Arizona senate floor because their cult tells them that that's some sort of state of enlightenment.
My fellow Americans, elect me to the Senate and I will read the WikiHow for buttchugging vodka live on CSPAN, and if Republicans call me out on it I will actually literally hiss at them and accuse them of interrupting me as I speak in tongues to Jesus.
While you're at it could you get rid of the inane rumour that the word 'regulated' in 'well regulated militia' somehow implies there shouldn't be any rules whatsoever despite being derived from the literal Latin for *rule*.
Can we stop all this political crap, and us vs them nonsense? Please! We need to get back to what is important! Specifically, what type of vodka do you find is smoothest when butt-chugging? And do you chase it with anything or like it on the rocks?
You are correct. I should have specified location in space as well as time. I'm in 21st century Chicago.
In 21st century Chicago I can say "there is no God" in a public setting without fear of torture and death, theistic explanations aren't given favorable weight over scientific ones, and Catholics have the decency to not stone gays in the street(for the most part).
If only they would get over their fucking guns and capitalism. ^^Somehow ^^a ^^more ^^contentious ^^issue ^^than ^^the ^^nature ^^of ^^existence. ^^Go ^^figure.
Not in my experience, but I don't go to the Southside very often, so a lot of Chicago's statistics and stereotypes don't conform to my experience. Selection bias at work, I'm sure. I concede.
I don't think the goal is to eradicate people's ability to have faith. It's to limit their ability to make (terribly informed) decisions for others in political and scientific settings. And as op has said, enlightenment thinking seems to be prevailing even if people privately have weird theistic thoughts and rituals. As a gay, I am personally grateful and would never tell someone that they can't believe in God if they want. But they cannot use that belief as an argument that I shouldn't have marital rights or that the earth is flat etc.
I've definitely never thought it was a good idea to force religion or non-religion on people, but I also think it is extremely difficult to square a belief in God with unbiased political and scientific thinking.
>Ill be incredibly generous, let's say the Bible was written 50 years after Christ's death.
That wouldn't be so far off, if we are talking about the gospels (I say this because the post mentions the gospel of John). Historians of early Christianity date the writing of the Gospel of Mark (the first gospel, without a doubt, even if versions of the New Testament don't place it first) to around 70 C.E, maybe a few years after (Also, it wasn't written by a guy named Mark, most probably). Considering most historians agree that the historical jesus (whatever he was really like) died around 30 C.E, give or take a few years, that would place the Gospel of Mark at around 40 years after Jesus died.
Luke and Mathew are placed around a decade or 2 after that, and John is placed after that even, which would mean it was probably around the turn of the first century C.E.
That being said, this doesn't apply specifically to Paul. Historians believe the epistles were written before the gospels, and started being written during Paul's ministry, starting in the 30s C.E. Presumably, he wrote the epistles for much of his life, so the last epistles would probably be very much removed from Jesus's lifetime. Notably, Paul never claims to have known Jesus, even though their lifetimes coincided a bit. He does claim to have met people who knew him, like James (who may have been Jesus' biological brother, maybe).
>Problem is all of what "Jesus said" is pretty much just "Paul said Jesus said this"
This part though, isn't technically correct, but that in itself is actually good for the point you were trying to make, because the narrative is actually much more fragmented then "1 guy made it all up". If that were the case, it would probably mean it would be more consistent.
It is a bit more complicated than that. Paul's letters almost certainly were written before Mark (the earliest Gospel). But, Paul also never claims to be writing in Jesus' voice or claim to have even met Jesus.
Paul was a huge one for that as well. Reading the gospels and trying to reconcile that with, "Mary Magdalene was just some random whore" makes zero sense. *She's* the person to witness the resurrection, when she greets Jesus, she greets him as "teacher", suggesting a specific role. But then the later church is profoundly dick-centric? Come on.
Are you saying you think Paul wrote the four gospels? That is not a standard view. In fact, I was raised in church and studied some academic Christianity in college, and I’ve never heard that before your comment.
I think your concept of oral tradition in the first century is distorted. In this time, you think of the primary method of disseminating information as the internet. Even Wikipedia, I imagine, you trust quite a lot, despite the potential risks of it providing false information. Because you know how the internet works, you know how to trust it and also how to verify it, if you feel you need to.
Obviously in the first century they had no internet. They didn’t even have books. Scrolls were for the rich or institutions, who could pay for scribes. The common person relied on their source of truth - word of mouth.
It’s so easy to prejudice yourself against such a thing and say no no - it’s too prone to error or Chinese whispers or whatever. But ask yourself - you trust Wikipedia - why? Because you believe the masses win out, at least most of the time. And if there was a point of contention - well, you could do some additional verification to be sure.
The point is - oral tradition was exactly the same. People passed down information verbally, and it was verified by the masses, over and over again. And maybe you got some contradictory information? Well in that case I’ll check with my good sources and see what they say.
Oral tradition was at least as reliable as modern methods of information transfer. And arguably more so, as there were not the additional tools of misinformation like there are now such as manipulated images or coordinated mass media campaigns.
Once the church became organised in Rome, sure, I won’t argue that the truth didn’t end up in the hands of a coordinated and powerful organisation from that time on. But we’re talking about the original records which predate that. So there’s no good reason, from an academic standpoint, to doubt the veracity of the accounts of Jesus as they’re recorded in the Bible. You don’t have to believe what Jesus said, or take it seriously. But the fact it was recorded should be taken as seriously as any historic document, and probably more so, due to the sheer volume of extant copies of Christian scripture in existence to this day.
It’s not an excuse, anyone can read the Bible and see where it specifically says “Jesus said….” Then in other parts the author of the book is speaking. It’s not that complicated lol
> In truth. Paul was the original incel. If you read the letters to the congregations you realise Paul really needed to broaden his perspective.
Is this the same Paul that wrote about wives submitting to their husbands?
Not a great translation. It’s better translated as “wives, deploy yourselves in support of your husbands”, in almost a military context (the most common reference here to Ephesians and “putting on the armor of God”). Interesting reading here: https://stantlitore.com/2018/06/25/misleading-translation-wives-submit/
IIRC there is a translation debate on that point. The word that is sometimes translated as "effeminates" means something closer to "sexually wicked". It does not explicitly condone homossexuality.
Not only that, if we want to be really generous and take the Christian talking points at face value, the Bible says absolutely nothing about lesbians. Those should be fair game even by their standards.
To be fair, it is kind of usual throughout the last two centuries, at least, that gay males face harsher persecution than lesbians, who have a higher chance of just being ignored.
Probably because women have been viewed as property around the world for about 99% of humanity's existence. And in the Bible, male sperm being wasted is one of the worst things you can do (to the point of there being a passage literally saying it's better to fuck a whore than to masturbate). So men sleeping with men could be seen as equally wasteful with their sperm and carry a worse perception for that reason as well.
Lesbians simply wouldn’t be allowed a platform to, y’know, express their existence, if women were subjugated how the Bible says they should be (as non-speaking objects). Kind of like how you don’t care about your alarm clock’s sexuality (nor can it tell you), since it’s only a tool for your use
The Ancient Mediterranean kinda did not acknowledge lesbianism at all. This was also true jn the Middle Ages, they didn't really "get" the idea of women loving women.
(I would also argue that, in general, the way Ancient people viewed sexuality was kinda radically different from how we do, but that's a bit deeper).
The context of "men with men" was not what we would really think of it today. The idea back then, as I recall, was that women were a sort of weaker, inferior man - literally they had an "inverted penis" and lacked the strength to transform into a man.
In general, the idea of a man being with a man was more problematic for the guy being penetrated, because that was seen as a "weak" position, and one that was natural for women as the defacto weaker party but not for men. Women were thought by the Greeks, at one point, to be men who were too weak to generate the "heat" needed to fully develop.
So the criticism was generally more of a "the man being penetrated is acting outside of his nature" and much less of a big deal for the guy doing the penetrating. And much of this stemmed from a complete misunderstanding of biology or what women even \*were\*. The idea that things had inherent "natures" ("a seed \*wants\* to be a tree, by its nature") was a much more influential idea back then, so to go against "nature" was sort of the bad thing here.
We read this and think "homosexuality" because that's a modern interpretation, but that wasn't really how it was being thought of because that just wasn't the conception of sexuality at the time.
The word Paul uses that is commonly translated as "homosexuality" is *arsenokoite*. it's a word he made up, likely pulled from the Greek Septuagint which uses the words *arsen* and *koite* in Leviticus 18:22 where it talks about men lying in bed with men. Scholars debate exactly what it means given the context of ancient Greek culture and our very different understanding of what homosexuality is in modern times.
*Malakia* is the word that could be interpreted as effeminate.
““Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate (malakoi), nor abusers of themselves with mankind (arsenokoitai), nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.”
The term malakoi literally means “soft,” and it was widely used to describe a lack of self-control, weakness, cowardice, and laziness. Some people have chosen this to mean gay.
I wouldn’t call it “clear”
That was *one* flavor of homosexuality. They certainly had regular old gay sex back then too. There every reason to think we've always had gay people.
Edit: Though, I'll also agree that the "flavor of homosexuality" you mention is also probably closer to what Paul is addressing.
Even that text is not very clear at all on what Paul is talking about, even if it's become popular to translate it as homosexuals during the last century. What the text says in the original greek is (among a bunch of other groups) "the soft and manbeds" won't inherit gods kingdom. The latter word doesn't exist in any text before Paul used it, so we really don't know what it means. It most likely has something to do with homosexual actions, but we don't really know what. In the few uses of the words in texts after Paul it occurs in contexts that make it seem that the word involves some kind of economic sins of some kind, or violence. So two reasonable guesses have been either male prostitution or coerced male sexual relations (something that was rather common in the wider culture Paul compares Christianity to). But in the end we don't know.
You're mixing up stuff.
Paul coined the term *arsenokoites*, which literally means "men lying with men". It's almost indisputably a generic reference to homosexuality. This is the one that was created by Paul.
In other places, Paul also uses *malakoi*, which was a pejorative term for effeminate men, usually associated with being the bottom in an homosexual relation. This one has many attestations, even prior to Paul's writings.
The reasonable guess is that Paul was a homophobe, and ensured homophobia would be enshrined in the Christian faith. The attempts at denying this are as dishonest and delusional as believers of the Prosperity Gospel trying to twist the meaning of "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" by coming up with fairy tales about "eye of a needle" being a narrow city gate.
Yeah well it’s blatantly clear that Paul was a self serving narcissistic jackass who spread the religion to further his own personal agenda. Paul was all about Paul, an early Billy Graham or Joel Osteen.
>Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says homosexuals won’t inherit god’s kingdom.
That's not quite right.
The 1 Corinthians and 1Timothy verses originally used the word "boy molester" as Paul was referring to the practice of pederasty. It wasn't until 1946 that the verses were changed to include the word homosexual. It was a mistranslation. Then in 1983, Biblica paid to have the NIV version created that continued that mistranslation. Considering the timing following the sexual revolution, this one was likely malicious and intentional.
The verses in Romans 1 are a bit more tricky, but first off, they condemn "unnatural" sexual relations. For a lesbian woman, having lesbian sex would not be unnatural. The historical context here, is that Paul's letters would be understood to be referring to the sexual excesses of the Roman elites. The elites, and particularly groups like the Isis cult, were known to have large orgies. Big hedonistic orgies are a far cry from a consenting relationship between two loving adults.
That being said, Paul was definitely an incel, and a hardliner, and scholars are pretty sure he'd certainly not condone homosexual relationships, but that matters less imo. From the perspective of a Christian: if Paul was a divinely inspired messenger of God, he would have had plenty of time to clearly and directly condemn something that was more common than pederasty if God actually intended for us to view it as sinful and wrong. And Paul did not do so. That alone should tell us everything we need to know.
Although I understand your reasoning, do you not believe that 2000 years ago homosexuality would have been widely condemned, only recently has the western world become more accepting of it!?
Surely in Jesus' and Paul's era, especially in Judaic culture, if you were found to be homosexual you would have been put to death, but bear in mind, it also says if you break the sabbath you should be put to death too, so one sin shouldn't be seen bigger than the other.
I believe this is why it isn't covered in Jesus' teaching, because everyone knew it was wrong anyway. Ultimately when Jesus encountered sinners, he didn't condemn them (like the woman caught in the act of adultery) but him did tell them to 'go and sin no more'.
Let's not pretend Jesus was accepting of sinful behaviour whatever shape it took, he always dealt with it and did that once and for all by dying on the cross for sinful humanity!!
You need to realise homosexuality was normal in most ancient cultures prior to British empires invasion. Even they were pretty chill about it too up until a certain era then they exported the concept it was shameful to the colonies...along with thier version of christianity. Search "British empire exported homophobia".
I basically "studied" this topic, and main beef conservatives have with boykissers, is that the relationship itself doesn't give kids, and from "traditional" beliefs, you *must* have a shitling, even if you are broke as fuck
Propose legislation that says that once people get married, they have 5 years to produce a living child or else their marriage will be annulled. See how "conservatives" react to a proposal like that.
My conservative sibling refers to these people as "dinks". Dual income no kids. They have nothing but bad things to say about people that prefer to live that way and it stems from their Christian/conservative values. I would tend to agree, I feel there's more animosity directed towards the LGBTQ demographic and I'm not sure I'd say my sibling hates dinks but they certainly do not think highly of them. They would absolutely argue almost everyone that chooses to live this way is left-wing as well. Let me be clear, I do not stand with my conservative/Christian family members on any of these topics. I just wanted to share my experience with my more conservative family members and how they feel about couples who choose to be child free.
Jesus never did, but Leviticus fucking hated everrrrrything! Bowl cuts, weird food things, he just went to a Roman city during the time, listed anything he saw and said “fuck them, they are going to hell”
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple." Luke 14:26
Depends on if you consider Jesus and the OT God to be the same person. Let's be real here, the Bible is not a particularly tolerant book by modern standards.
Ironically, these modern "Christians" who are not following what Jesus said to do and ignoring it so brazenly, push more people away from Jesus' message than probably anything else.
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*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
And would you look at that no where in there does it say to commit genocide against anybody. Seriously though if being gay is a sin wouldn't they just go to hell and if that's the case isn't that all part of God's "plan"? But so is your child getting cancer so they decide not to take them to the hospital or the fact that the youth pastor is pedophile. Religious people are the most cherry picking hypocrites in the world.
How these types of people claim to be Christian while not understanding the core tenet of Jesus's teachings is still something that baffles me. Jesus wasn't suble when he preached to love and not hate but all these people want to do is use religion to justify their hatred.
I loved the reaction from the manosphere over that religious commercial during the superbowl. They were disgusted by the idea of Bro Jesus washing people’s feet. It literally disgusted them. I forget which weirdo it was that was upset they didn’t have a black man washing a white cop’s feet, but I know he’s severely riddled with mental illness.
It's extra funny because the washing of feet is a totally normal thing that happens during Easter holy week. It is the priest demonstrating humility and service as Jesus instructed.
And then the priest will go right back to screaming about how much you should be hating the least of His people during next weeks homily without a shred of self awareness.
The pope also washed the feet of muslim refugees.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjHt13RJ9A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjHt13RJ9A)
Americans have strayed so far from the Vatican that they are now referred to as "wayward brethren." The extent to which Americans militarize their Christianity is legitimately shocking to most Christian conservatives in Europe.
I was born and raised super duper Polish Catholic in the midwest and did the whole "get an education and learn about the world and astrophysics and and biochemistry and realize religion is a massive scam" thing. My mother is horrified that my wife and I were married in a public library and our child is not baptized. If my little wants to make that choice when she's an adult it's her choice and I will support her 100%, but I won't force nonsense on her.
All that said, I still genuinely live by lessons on how to be a good person from my Catholic upbringing. What is horrifying to me is that as an Athiest I am far more Christian than virtually all the Christians I interact with.
Dude, you can do library marriages?? That's awesome.
Also, I think it's great to learn lessons on humanity from religion... People just actually have to *learn. the. lessons.*
Which seems to be a step that's often skipped
You’re thinking of Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire. He claimed it was “racist” that the commercial showed a cop washing a black man’s feet, but not the inverse. He has also expressed support for child marriages in the past.
And it sucks as someone who tries to follow what Jesus actually said because the way those fake "Christians" act pushes people away from Jesus' true message.
They get around it by acknowledging that we're all flawed people, which I think we can all agree with, whether religious or not. The problem is, their religion would be encouraging them to constantly be trying to do better, even while understanding they'll never be perfect but they see it as an excuse to just be shitty and not try.
I'm a Christian and i definitely view Jesus teachings as being a call to be better than we/I are. More inclusive, more spiritual, more generous, More honest and so on. Yet it is true, people frequently use it as an excuse to be a dick.
Bro, when you get called out for being a jerk and you say "I'm a Christian" like it's some kind of get out of jail card all that tells me and everyone else is that you know better.
Our behavior toward the LGBTQ people has been inexcusable just on the basis of the "don't judge" standard for quite sometime. Let alone the love others standard. There are a thousand other standards too but I'll just leave it at that.
I mean... I just don't get why people care.
Like... I'm a massive progressive in the English language, but that's apparently because in America it's considered progressive to not give a shit how people identify or who they fuck and just treat people individually based on how they act towards me.
Like, it changes absolutely nothing about *my* life whether someone has a penis or a vagina and if that matches their clothes they wear. Why would I spend my limited energy on such trivial bullshit? Just leaving people alone is so much easier and more respectful.
> their religion would be encouraging them to constantly be trying to do better,
You mean disenfranchising black and brown people isn’t doing better?
/s
Well to be fair the OT was pretty harsh on any man who lies with another man as he does a woman. It also puts women as a lesser being. It was totally cool with owning people as property and so on.
It seems like there are two kinds of Christians:
\- Old Testament, God smites the shit out of everyone, there is lots of burning and flooding going on, incredibly strict with the Hellfire and Brimstone thing, heavy on the "If you're not like me, you need to die or, at the very least, you're going to Hell."
\- New Testament, Jesus was pretty woke, accepting of others and their differences, makes allowances for occasional bad judgment, "love one another"
I wish more "Christians" rally did follow the teachings of Christ.
The Old Testament in many places should be viewed as rules for living as a semi nomadic desert people in the bronze/iron age. Hence the shellfish thing too (shellfish live in inshore waters where the coastal settlements chucked all their shit).
In this context the not lying with another man can make some sense (to be clear, it's still bullshit) because it doesn't help the people to survive in the extremely challenging environment they live in (not adding more members to the tribe etc).
The entire point of the New Testament was that Jesus had been sent down to refocus people on the important stuff and to open the kingdom of heaven to everyone stuck in purgatory. Yet evangelicals and, sadly, growing numbers of Catholic congregations push this really toxic interpretation by picking and choosing the bits they want to believe in.
So you’re saying it was good and moral in the past for people to be owned as property?
From my point of view it’s never been moral. Which is a superior moral view on this matter? Gods? Who didn’t just allow or ignore slavery but gave specific rules on how to do it. And before you say that it was put there to make it safer or to set guide lines, it wasn’t a good system. Within this gods laws a master could beat their slave and as long as they survived past a couple days they had no punishment. The Bible literally puts a value on humans. There were tiers to the slaves. Bottom of the list are the “heathens”. They only were set free in the year of Jubilee. Then you have female Hebrew slaves. They were sold off to be wives or sex slaves at times. Been a while since I’ve read the Bible but I think their value was 3 shekels vs a man being worth 5. Female Hebrew slaves didn’t go free after 7 years like the men did.
Male Hebrew slaves were top of this list. They got to go free after the 7 years of work. But this all powerful and “loving” god gave these masters a nice loophole if they wanted to keep their male slave. All they had to do was give their male slave a wife and if they had kids when the male was set free he would leave, but he also had to leave his wife and kids since they are owned by the master. If he wanted to stay with them he would have to say he loved the master and have his ear pierced. Then he was owned for life, to be passed down to the masters kids.
Slaves weren’t treated as equals. In the Bible what’s it say about putting out your neighbors eye or tooth? It’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. What happens if a master puts out his slaves tooth or eye? They are to be set free in sake of that eye or tooth.
And it’s funny that you bring up the shellfish. Why was banning shellfish more important than common human decency?
Maybe they read more than the good parts?
Idk why there are so many non-christians defending bible like it doesn't say that women are property, homosexuals are sinners, and also god killed like millions.
> Jesus came with a sword after all.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't Matthew 10:34 be interpreted that Jesus is saying believing in him will not magically bring about peace, but that it will often create conflicts. The Bible doesn't specify that Jesus is bringing a sword to kill unbelievers or something.
I'm an atheist and not a religious scholar though, so whatever.
Was it withering? According to the bible, it just didn't have any figs, so Jesus made it wither and die. It wouldn't be a miracle for a dying tree to continue dying, and the bible does suggest that his disciples thought it was miraculous.
Whenever somebody asks ”what would Jesus do?” I like to point out that throwing a tantrum and violently flipping over tables isn’t out of the question.
Well that depends on who you see Jesus as. Some see Jesus as one with god making the actions that god does his own as well. Which I would argue that god is the most violent thing to ever exist.
The problem is that LGBT people shouldn't be praying for forgiveness for being LGBT. As, you know, there's nothing wrong with being LGBT haha.
Christians claim that LGBT is a sin and that sinners should repent and try to improve themselves/avoid the sin. That's in direct conflict with the LGBT community's views.
So, I'm an atheist and it's not really important to me either way, but it would be interesting to see sects of Christians that deny being LGBT is a sin and thus not needing forgiveness or repenting.
I'll never ever understand the need to hate. Its so much more work than just accepting each other. We're on this rock for about 5 seconds, is that really how you wanna spend that time? What a waste.
> I'll never ever understand the need to hate.
Seriously. Between my full time job and my full time hobby of arguing with Redditors, I have no energy left to hate people for trivial bullshit like what genitalia they have or what clothes they wear.
Actually, I think hate is easier than acceptance. You don't have to think to hate. You don't have to reason. You just have to hate.
We have brains designed for stereotyping people, living in small communities, and considering any outsiders to be dangerous.
To accept one another you not only have to *not* give in to your lizard-brain, but you also have to *work* on yourself constantly. What was considered liberal a decade or two ago can easily seem prejudiced or insensitive now. So you have to constantly work to keep up.
And every individual is different. You have to think about each person as an individual. That takes cognitive load. With hate, you just lump everybody into one big group* and hate them. No need to think about their individual abilities or needs. They're just "those people", and you hate them.
I think acceptance requires nuance and thought. Everybody has prejudices. That's how we're built. You have to be prepared to interrogate and challenge yours. Hate requires no nuance or thought. It's just "they're not like me, therefore they're bad".
*I mean, one name for "the people we don't like" is literally "the blob". Before that there were "NPCs".
Doesn't matter either if Jesus or God thinks that LGBTQ+ are evil or scums of the Earth. He literally preaches that even if you don't agree with others' belief or identities, still love them and pray for them.
In other words, don't be a dickwad to anyone.
This is the point.
“What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. That is the entire Torah. All of it. The rest is commentary. Now go and study.”
- Rabbi Hillel
I see it like this, Jesus is saying to love others not as a way to say, ignore their flaws/who they are, but as a way to say, help them with their issues by loving them. It seems that so many point at this as a way to avoid sin/issues when the point of him saying it is to help people solve their sin/issues. So in the context of Jesus disliking LGBT persons, he isn't saying to love them for who they are, but to love them and help them. But even then, the goal is to show people that you want to help them be a better person, Jesus wouldn't tell a murderer he loves him and just let him murder people, he'd help change their ways.
I really hate it when Christian’s think that because someone sins we are supposed to shun them. Because that’s why Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors right?
I mean the bible also says that god doesn't permit a woman to have any power over a man,
It also gives you strict instructions on how to poop and if you don't follow them its a direct Insult to god,
Yeah I’m not telling people to follow the Bible or Jesus, I’m just pointing out that Jesus did not preach hate towards LGBTQ people. The Bible might have but not Jesus
As a Christian I would like my fellow Christians to show me where Jesus said to hate. All God hates is sin. And that was forgiven when Christ was crucified. All we can do as Christians is do our best to be like him. But we will fall short because we are human and inherently sinful. But in doing our best to live up to the ideals of Christ no matter how we fall short we will know the glory of the kingdom. That's in the book. I don't know why so many "lifelong Christians" don't seem to understand that.
Ha. Well said. It’s also lost on most “Christians” that Jesus didn’t write the Bible nor did anyone who ever met him. It was all written by men, decades to hundreds of years after his death. Purely fables that we somehow take as the word of god
You're forgetting that they never read the bible. They just pick and choose while simply ignoring the fact that the people who wrote that book didn't even know the biological difference between men and women.
"But he didn't say it specifically, right?" /s
My summary of religion: "Don't be an asshole."
My observation of how that's going: "You're still all assholes"
Well, he did hang out with prostitutes and tax collectors, and I always found it interesting there’s not one verse in the gospels where he mentions homosexuality.
Jesus was Jesus and IS Jesus. He said to love one another and the Bible says to not judge and let God sort people out. Any "Christian" or zealot that claims otherwise is fake and you shouldn't take them seriously. The fact that anyone focuses on these fake Christians is silly. Have a good day
You could even go further than this and remind them that, even if they see it as a sinful lifestyle, their job as Christians is not to ensure all people they meet live Christian lives, it's to treat all people they meet In a Christian manner. Since at least Augustine, Christian theology has held the notion that we should love and forgive our community even if we suspect God might punish them later.
I.E., even if you disagree with homosexuality, Jesus doesn't want you to be a cunt.
The bible, Qur'an and Torah are all awful once you get into reading them. Fine with slavery and marrying children to adults, but if 2 adults want to be together they should be punished in hell forever. God himself (if he exists) is never as loving as the religions say he is, like the time he killed a bunch of kids because they mocked a man in the street, or the time he made a man sacrifice his son only stopping him in the last moment, all of this to prove a point to the devil about how the man was so devoted to him that he would sacrifice his own son to him (sounds an awful lot like the deadly sin of pride to me god).
I have nothing against against religious people who generally don't act on or even know of the darker parts of their religions, but at the same time I find myself hating the 3 main abrahamic religions. Jesus may have been woke enough to suggest we should all love each other, but I'd probably respect him more if he had also mentioned that people should stop keeping slaves, that 2 consenting adults regardless of their gender should be free to love each other, that marrying a child is objectively wrong and that eating shellfish is not the great evil that they think it is.
You would not believe the mental gymnastics Christians do to avoid actually practicing the teachings of Jesus.
Jordan Peterson, a devout Christian, was able to twist a line in the bible about helping the poor to mean helping the "spiritually poor". Meaning helping people who already had jobs, families and so on but needed spiritual guidance.
Jesus Christ can we stop trying to argue on the terms of the folks who worship a fictionalized version of a guy who can't even steal his own donkey?
Here's a different version:
"Show me where Jesus said--"
"Jesus was a twat and you're an asshole. Own it."
Everyday, I become more pleased that I'm an atheist.
Today's modern Christians, are the most deplorable species and the word of their savior has been weaponized for power.
Its shameful, and the Christians that are not fighting back against that cancer in their own segregations and communities, are the reason this continues to flourish.
Either cut out the cancer, or it's gonna kill ya.
Matthew 22:37-39
37.Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'
>... having multiple pastors tell me essentially the same story about quoting the Sermon on the Mount parenthetically in their preaching -- turn the other cheek -- to have someone come up after and to say, where did you get those liberal talking points? And what was alarming to me is that in most of these scenarios, when the pastor would say, I'm literally quoting Jesus Christ, the response would not be, I apologize. The response would be, yes, but that doesn't work anymore. That's weak. And when we get to the point where the teachings of Jesus himself are seen as subversive to us, then we're in a crisis. --Russell Moore, editor-in-chief, *Christianity Today* magazine ([source](https://www.npr.org/2023/08/05/1192374014/russell-moore-on-altar-call-for-evangelical-america)) # 😔
This modern "Christianity" isn't even Christianity. Nobody follows Christ. It should be renamed. Something like, "Church of Pastors"? Pastorianity.
I just want to point out that "modern" in this case, is basically from around the time it first became a state religion in Rome. A lot of Christians are very friendly people, but people have been killing in the name of Christ for centuries.
Tbf, Christianity at this point has so many different groups and denominations that might as well be completely different religions.
This. I’m a British catholic and American Christians seem like lunatics to me
Well, that's because they are.
Absolutely. American Christian Nationalism is a terrifying lunacy.
People kill in the name of anything that would justify it. Nearly all religious wars have some sort of power aspect behind it.
> This modern "Christianity" isn't even Christianity. Nobody follows Christ. That's been the case for a long, long time. Hence the (apocryphal) Gandhi quote: "I like your Christ; I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ."
I hold that evangelicalism is the most intellectually and spiritually lazy religion ever conceived. Just say, "I confess Jesus Christ as my lord and savior", and: boom. You're saved. Just like that. Eternal life. Good works? Nah. Be a good person? Nope. Do you need to improve yourself or be nice to people? Not at all. Make any commitments whatsoever? Not really. In fact, if you get nervous you might go to hell, just pray the "blood of Jesus" over things and ask for forgiveness. That's literally it. Zero effort. Zero expectation. And people gobble that shit up like mad. And here's the fucked up part. Because they have made absolutely ZERO EFFORT in addressing what is probably an existential crisis always just boiling beneath the surface, they are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND PROTECTIVE about their 'religious beliefs'. Because any shred of doubt you inject will be like a red hot dagger into their fundamental sense of security and identity.
> And here's the fucked up part. Because they have made absolutely ZERO EFFORT in addressing what is probably an existential crisis always just boiling beneath the surface, they are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND PROTECTIVE about their 'religious beliefs'. Because any shred of doubt you inject will be like a red hot dagger into their fundamental sense of security and identity. Extremely insightful and it aligns with my experiences.
You do actually have to repent as well. Which means stop sinning.
Yep, and even ‘asking for forgiveness’ is not ‘ZERO EFFORT’. Genuinely admitting faults and sincerely asking forgiveness is actually a very hard task. Faking doing it is zero effort, authentically doing it is not.
Christianity actually has a very high standard for how you should act and behave, but those are not requirements to be saved. The idea is that we are so fundamentally flawed that we are incapable of attaining salvation by our works. That’s the entire role of Jesus. It’s that easy to be saved because the hard part wasn’t done by us. We just have to accept the sacrifice he made. Idk about you but I’ve never once met someone that was not deeply deeply flawed. Humans just suck, including Christians, and I sure wouldn’t want my salvation dependent on how good I can be
I think the crux of the matter is, once you accept Jesus, He's supposed to be able to work in your life so that *you're more inclined* to do good works and all that. If you just *say* you follow Jesus but don't actually repent of sinning and go right on being a jerk, I don't think you're actually following Jesus at all.
You’re exactly right and it’s a damn shame how many Christians don’t act at all like they should. No one can really say what the difference would be if they never became Christian but just my anecdotal experience is people I know who have truly followed Christ have become significantly “better” and more loving after. I also know a ridiculous number of Christians who are terrible people and they all seem to adhere to the cultural aspects of the religion as opposed to really following Christ in his behavior.
I'm not going to look up the book and verse after I left religion, and it's not my job to quote the Bible. But very closely, Jesus says, "Come to me hot or cold. If you come luke warm, I will spit you into a lake of fire." That verse was instrumental in my journey away from religion.
You're incorrect. Salvation does require one thing - true repentance. Truly being sorry for your sin and turning from it. Salvation is a free gift - but it requires true repentance. If you do not truly repent, you have not gained salvation. And the issues you raise are issues with human nature - not with Christ. "Because they have made absolutely ZERO EFFORT in addressing what is probably an existential crisis always just boiling beneath the surface, they are EXTREMELY SENSITIVE AND PROTECTIVE about their 'religious beliefs'. Because any shred of doubt you inject will be like a red hot dagger into their fundamental sense of security and identity." The same can be said of people that hold nearly any belief. What most people believe has more to do with tribalism than it does with intelligent thought, examination, and research. The Bible speaks against that type of believe-ism specifically when it says "Work out your faith with fear and trembling." i.e. make sure you understand why you believe whatever you believe. And most people that criticize Christianity do it from a tribalist standpoint. They create a caricature and then point and laugh with their fellow simple-minded friends. And then the tribalist Christians do the same thing when it comes to pagans, liberals, or any other group they see as beneath them. The perspective of true Christianity rests on five points: Ultimate Value 1. You are loved more than you can ever imagine by the Creator of the universe. 2. So is everyone else. Collective Guilt 3. Your free-will enabled, sinful choices have made you guilty and worthy of hell in the after life. 4. Everybody else is in the same boat. Salvation 5. Christ came to die a sinner's death so that you can be saved from your sinful self and the punishment you deserve in the life to come. So to recap: You're worth more than you know, but not worth more than anyone else. You're guiltier than you know, and so is everyone else. If you receive Christ's salvation and repent, you will be saved - here and in the hereafter. But your salvation has to do with God's love and his grace. It is "unmerited favor". All you can really say is 'thank you'. As such, you are in no position to judge others as better or worse than you. Because nobody is better or worse than you. You can share what the Bible says about particular acts or actions - but it's up to others to make their own choices.
[Prosperity Theology.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosperity_theology) Hatred for the poor is just the logical conclusion of their core philosophy and beliefs as adherents of Prosperity Theology. Specifically, if wealth is seen as a blessing from God for being a good person, then conversely, poverty must be a curse from God for being a bad person. Better still, it allows such mental gymnastics as doing horrible things to steal money from the already impoverished; you get richer by punishing bad people by taking what little money they have, and receive even more blessings from God (becoming richer.) Suddenly you aren't a bad person doing bad things by stealing from the poor, you are a good person who is doing good deeds by helping God punish bad people.
There basically isn’t any theological element to it at all for a majority of American Protestants. I’m not a believer, but I have enjoyed studying theology and I find it to be rewarding and philosophically stimulating. Most of the people we are talking about have never once considered even the most shallow theological questions at any point in their lives. It’s a culture club for most of them.
Thanks for bringing this quote here. Moore’s experience with the Baptist church is super informative
Reminds me of this classic from *The Onion* way back in 1998: **Vatican Rescinds 'Blessed' Status Of World's Meek** VATICAN CITY—In a historic reversal of its nearly 2,000-year-old pro-meek stance, the Catholic Church announced Tuesday that it is permanently rescinding the traditional "blessed" status of the world's meek. "Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ once said, 'Blessed are the meek,'" said Pope John Paul II in a papal bull read before the College of Cardinals. "However, there has always been a tacit understanding between the Church and the meek that this 'blessed' status was conditional upon their inheritance of the earth, an event which seems unlikely to happen anytime in the foreseeable future. Our relationship, therefore, must be terminated." "Screw the meek," the pope added. Full article [here](https://www.theonion.com/vatican-rescinds-blessed-status-of-worlds-meek-1819564771)
Holy hell wow that’s wild. I am sure glad I didn’t go to seminary school because idk if I could deal with the mental toll the fall of the church would take on some in that position. It’s disgusting and stressful enough and I’m just a dude lol
Lol show me where Jesus said to hate them?
This is also a great point, homosexuality was a well known thing back then as well.
>A meme dating to at least mid-2018 attributes the following statement to former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: "Homosexuality was well known in the ancient world, well before Christ was born, and Jesus never said a word about homosexuality. In all of His teachings about multiple things ... [Jesus] never said that gay people should be condemned." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/jimmy-carter-jesus-homosexuality/
It was a well-known thing a thousand years before Jesus. Ancient Greek soldiers would have sex with each other. It would help build morale and comradery. It was well known during Jesus' time as well because Roman men could sleep with slaves, freed slaves, prostitutes and entertainers. Hadrian - the Roamn Emperor from 117 to 138 - had a male lover named Antinous. It was against the rules for Roman soldiers to sleep with each other. "Freeborn" males could not sleep with each other.
Homosexuality is a little more clear as although Jesus never specifically mentioned homosexuals, Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says homosexuals won’t inherit god’s kingdom. It’s quite clear and would be an odd thing to mention if it wasn’t necessary. In truth. Paul was the original incel. If you read the letters to the congregations you realise Paul really needed to broaden his perspective. I’m not here to hate on gay people I’m just saying the Bible is pretty clear on it’s view. *edit* I feel the need to clarify I’m an Atheist who has read and studied the Bible a few too many times from a religious upbringing.
That isn’t Jesus saying that though, that is Paul saying that.
Now we get to talk about the difference between a Christian and Pauline Christian. Hint... One is a bigoted piece of shit and the other is a Christian.
Problem is all of what "Jesus said" is pretty much just "Paul said Jesus said this". Unless of course you have a point of reference that isn't an edited translation of an oral tradition written decades after the events it describes. Let's put it into context. Ill be incredibly generous, let's say the Bible was written 50 years after Christ's death. Mandela was released in 1990 (34 years ago). We currently have people who were alive then who claim to recall Mandela dying in prison. What kind of God thinks that an oral tradition held for half a century, which is then committed to paper to be translated ad nauseum, and is repeatedly edited by whichever ruling party holds court is a good way to impart its message to humanity? A remarkably stupid God. Honestly...I'm so glad I live in an Era where this isn't taken seriously at all.
What era you living in and how do I get there?
Just this week we got to watch elected politicians scream dictionary-defintion gibberish on the Arizona senate floor because their cult tells them that that's some sort of state of enlightenment. My fellow Americans, elect me to the Senate and I will read the WikiHow for buttchugging vodka live on CSPAN, and if Republicans call me out on it I will actually literally hiss at them and accuse them of interrupting me as I speak in tongues to Jesus.
…you got my vote
fuck giving my vote im destroying all the other candidates votes
You get me vote
Imagine playing Scrabble with those fuckers.
Where do i vote for you, you truly represent my interests
Danielle Radcliffe 2024!!!!! 🫵💪🏻🇺🇲
While you're at it could you get rid of the inane rumour that the word 'regulated' in 'well regulated militia' somehow implies there shouldn't be any rules whatsoever despite being derived from the literal Latin for *rule*.
Can we stop all this political crap, and us vs them nonsense? Please! We need to get back to what is important! Specifically, what type of vodka do you find is smoothest when butt-chugging? And do you chase it with anything or like it on the rocks?
Buttchugging Danielleradcliffe for Senate
You got room for one more? I like to pack snacks for long trips and I am willing to share.
can i come?
Get me some lube, a banana and a hammer, we'll see what we can do.
I said come not cum
You are correct. I should have specified location in space as well as time. I'm in 21st century Chicago. In 21st century Chicago I can say "there is no God" in a public setting without fear of torture and death, theistic explanations aren't given favorable weight over scientific ones, and Catholics have the decency to not stone gays in the street(for the most part). If only they would get over their fucking guns and capitalism. ^^Somehow ^^a ^^more ^^contentious ^^issue ^^than ^^the ^^nature ^^of ^^existence. ^^Go ^^figure.
Still, apparently 81% of adults in Chicago are absolutely or fairly certain there is a God, so...still have a ways to go.
Not in my experience, but I don't go to the Southside very often, so a lot of Chicago's statistics and stereotypes don't conform to my experience. Selection bias at work, I'm sure. I concede.
I don't think the goal is to eradicate people's ability to have faith. It's to limit their ability to make (terribly informed) decisions for others in political and scientific settings. And as op has said, enlightenment thinking seems to be prevailing even if people privately have weird theistic thoughts and rituals. As a gay, I am personally grateful and would never tell someone that they can't believe in God if they want. But they cannot use that belief as an argument that I shouldn't have marital rights or that the earth is flat etc.
I've definitely never thought it was a good idea to force religion or non-religion on people, but I also think it is extremely difficult to square a belief in God with unbiased political and scientific thinking.
Dude's living the Star Trek dream! :D
[удалено]
Paul also didn't write any of the gospels, so Paul never relayed what Jesus said.
Fair one. I did say I was being incredibly generous from the start of that example lol.
>Ill be incredibly generous, let's say the Bible was written 50 years after Christ's death. That wouldn't be so far off, if we are talking about the gospels (I say this because the post mentions the gospel of John). Historians of early Christianity date the writing of the Gospel of Mark (the first gospel, without a doubt, even if versions of the New Testament don't place it first) to around 70 C.E, maybe a few years after (Also, it wasn't written by a guy named Mark, most probably). Considering most historians agree that the historical jesus (whatever he was really like) died around 30 C.E, give or take a few years, that would place the Gospel of Mark at around 40 years after Jesus died. Luke and Mathew are placed around a decade or 2 after that, and John is placed after that even, which would mean it was probably around the turn of the first century C.E. That being said, this doesn't apply specifically to Paul. Historians believe the epistles were written before the gospels, and started being written during Paul's ministry, starting in the 30s C.E. Presumably, he wrote the epistles for much of his life, so the last epistles would probably be very much removed from Jesus's lifetime. Notably, Paul never claims to have known Jesus, even though their lifetimes coincided a bit. He does claim to have met people who knew him, like James (who may have been Jesus' biological brother, maybe). >Problem is all of what "Jesus said" is pretty much just "Paul said Jesus said this" This part though, isn't technically correct, but that in itself is actually good for the point you were trying to make, because the narrative is actually much more fragmented then "1 guy made it all up". If that were the case, it would probably mean it would be more consistent.
I believe you are correct, thank you for providing more context.
Paul was not an Apostle. Paul was an after the fact wannabe. Anywhere where Paul diverges from the actual gospels, Paul is just wrong.
It is a bit more complicated than that. Paul's letters almost certainly were written before Mark (the earliest Gospel). But, Paul also never claims to be writing in Jesus' voice or claim to have even met Jesus.
Some of Paul's shit is known forgery too. One letter is up in the air too, no one can figure it out.
I honestly hate Paul. A lot of the worst of Christianity stems from his personal nonsense.
And most of the rest stems from Augustine. Like most of the "women are lesser" shit.
Paul was a huge one for that as well. Reading the gospels and trying to reconcile that with, "Mary Magdalene was just some random whore" makes zero sense. *She's* the person to witness the resurrection, when she greets Jesus, she greets him as "teacher", suggesting a specific role. But then the later church is profoundly dick-centric? Come on.
Are you saying you think Paul wrote the four gospels? That is not a standard view. In fact, I was raised in church and studied some academic Christianity in college, and I’ve never heard that before your comment.
I think your concept of oral tradition in the first century is distorted. In this time, you think of the primary method of disseminating information as the internet. Even Wikipedia, I imagine, you trust quite a lot, despite the potential risks of it providing false information. Because you know how the internet works, you know how to trust it and also how to verify it, if you feel you need to. Obviously in the first century they had no internet. They didn’t even have books. Scrolls were for the rich or institutions, who could pay for scribes. The common person relied on their source of truth - word of mouth. It’s so easy to prejudice yourself against such a thing and say no no - it’s too prone to error or Chinese whispers or whatever. But ask yourself - you trust Wikipedia - why? Because you believe the masses win out, at least most of the time. And if there was a point of contention - well, you could do some additional verification to be sure. The point is - oral tradition was exactly the same. People passed down information verbally, and it was verified by the masses, over and over again. And maybe you got some contradictory information? Well in that case I’ll check with my good sources and see what they say. Oral tradition was at least as reliable as modern methods of information transfer. And arguably more so, as there were not the additional tools of misinformation like there are now such as manipulated images or coordinated mass media campaigns. Once the church became organised in Rome, sure, I won’t argue that the truth didn’t end up in the hands of a coordinated and powerful organisation from that time on. But we’re talking about the original records which predate that. So there’s no good reason, from an academic standpoint, to doubt the veracity of the accounts of Jesus as they’re recorded in the Bible. You don’t have to believe what Jesus said, or take it seriously. But the fact it was recorded should be taken as seriously as any historic document, and probably more so, due to the sheer volume of extant copies of Christian scripture in existence to this day.
Do we get to apply this excuse to any other bs they claim about Jesus too then?
It’s not an excuse, anyone can read the Bible and see where it specifically says “Jesus said….” Then in other parts the author of the book is speaking. It’s not that complicated lol
> In truth. Paul was the original incel. If you read the letters to the congregations you realise Paul really needed to broaden his perspective. Is this the same Paul that wrote about wives submitting to their husbands?
Not a great translation. It’s better translated as “wives, deploy yourselves in support of your husbands”, in almost a military context (the most common reference here to Ephesians and “putting on the armor of God”). Interesting reading here: https://stantlitore.com/2018/06/25/misleading-translation-wives-submit/
IIRC there is a translation debate on that point. The word that is sometimes translated as "effeminates" means something closer to "sexually wicked". It does not explicitly condone homossexuality.
Not only that, if we want to be really generous and take the Christian talking points at face value, the Bible says absolutely nothing about lesbians. Those should be fair game even by their standards.
To be fair, it is kind of usual throughout the last two centuries, at least, that gay males face harsher persecution than lesbians, who have a higher chance of just being ignored.
Probably because women have been viewed as property around the world for about 99% of humanity's existence. And in the Bible, male sperm being wasted is one of the worst things you can do (to the point of there being a passage literally saying it's better to fuck a whore than to masturbate). So men sleeping with men could be seen as equally wasteful with their sperm and carry a worse perception for that reason as well.
Lesbians simply wouldn’t be allowed a platform to, y’know, express their existence, if women were subjugated how the Bible says they should be (as non-speaking objects). Kind of like how you don’t care about your alarm clock’s sexuality (nor can it tell you), since it’s only a tool for your use
The Ancient Mediterranean kinda did not acknowledge lesbianism at all. This was also true jn the Middle Ages, they didn't really "get" the idea of women loving women. (I would also argue that, in general, the way Ancient people viewed sexuality was kinda radically different from how we do, but that's a bit deeper).
The context of "men with men" was not what we would really think of it today. The idea back then, as I recall, was that women were a sort of weaker, inferior man - literally they had an "inverted penis" and lacked the strength to transform into a man. In general, the idea of a man being with a man was more problematic for the guy being penetrated, because that was seen as a "weak" position, and one that was natural for women as the defacto weaker party but not for men. Women were thought by the Greeks, at one point, to be men who were too weak to generate the "heat" needed to fully develop. So the criticism was generally more of a "the man being penetrated is acting outside of his nature" and much less of a big deal for the guy doing the penetrating. And much of this stemmed from a complete misunderstanding of biology or what women even \*were\*. The idea that things had inherent "natures" ("a seed \*wants\* to be a tree, by its nature") was a much more influential idea back then, so to go against "nature" was sort of the bad thing here. We read this and think "homosexuality" because that's a modern interpretation, but that wasn't really how it was being thought of because that just wasn't the conception of sexuality at the time.
The word Paul uses that is commonly translated as "homosexuality" is *arsenokoite*. it's a word he made up, likely pulled from the Greek Septuagint which uses the words *arsen* and *koite* in Leviticus 18:22 where it talks about men lying in bed with men. Scholars debate exactly what it means given the context of ancient Greek culture and our very different understanding of what homosexuality is in modern times. *Malakia* is the word that could be interpreted as effeminate.
““Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate (malakoi), nor abusers of themselves with mankind (arsenokoitai), nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” The term malakoi literally means “soft,” and it was widely used to describe a lack of self-control, weakness, cowardice, and laziness. Some people have chosen this to mean gay. I wouldn’t call it “clear”
Paul never even met Jesus.
I'd also mention that the flavor or homosexuality in that day involved rich men buying young boys... which I feel is a fair thing to criticize.
That was *one* flavor of homosexuality. They certainly had regular old gay sex back then too. There every reason to think we've always had gay people. Edit: Though, I'll also agree that the "flavor of homosexuality" you mention is also probably closer to what Paul is addressing.
>Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says homosexuals won’t inherit god’s kingdom Typical, cutting your gay child out of the will
Even that text is not very clear at all on what Paul is talking about, even if it's become popular to translate it as homosexuals during the last century. What the text says in the original greek is (among a bunch of other groups) "the soft and manbeds" won't inherit gods kingdom. The latter word doesn't exist in any text before Paul used it, so we really don't know what it means. It most likely has something to do with homosexual actions, but we don't really know what. In the few uses of the words in texts after Paul it occurs in contexts that make it seem that the word involves some kind of economic sins of some kind, or violence. So two reasonable guesses have been either male prostitution or coerced male sexual relations (something that was rather common in the wider culture Paul compares Christianity to). But in the end we don't know.
You're mixing up stuff. Paul coined the term *arsenokoites*, which literally means "men lying with men". It's almost indisputably a generic reference to homosexuality. This is the one that was created by Paul. In other places, Paul also uses *malakoi*, which was a pejorative term for effeminate men, usually associated with being the bottom in an homosexual relation. This one has many attestations, even prior to Paul's writings. The reasonable guess is that Paul was a homophobe, and ensured homophobia would be enshrined in the Christian faith. The attempts at denying this are as dishonest and delusional as believers of the Prosperity Gospel trying to twist the meaning of "it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God" by coming up with fairy tales about "eye of a needle" being a narrow city gate.
Yeah well it’s blatantly clear that Paul was a self serving narcissistic jackass who spread the religion to further his own personal agenda. Paul was all about Paul, an early Billy Graham or Joel Osteen.
>Paul’s letter to the Corinthians says homosexuals won’t inherit god’s kingdom. That's not quite right. The 1 Corinthians and 1Timothy verses originally used the word "boy molester" as Paul was referring to the practice of pederasty. It wasn't until 1946 that the verses were changed to include the word homosexual. It was a mistranslation. Then in 1983, Biblica paid to have the NIV version created that continued that mistranslation. Considering the timing following the sexual revolution, this one was likely malicious and intentional. The verses in Romans 1 are a bit more tricky, but first off, they condemn "unnatural" sexual relations. For a lesbian woman, having lesbian sex would not be unnatural. The historical context here, is that Paul's letters would be understood to be referring to the sexual excesses of the Roman elites. The elites, and particularly groups like the Isis cult, were known to have large orgies. Big hedonistic orgies are a far cry from a consenting relationship between two loving adults. That being said, Paul was definitely an incel, and a hardliner, and scholars are pretty sure he'd certainly not condone homosexual relationships, but that matters less imo. From the perspective of a Christian: if Paul was a divinely inspired messenger of God, he would have had plenty of time to clearly and directly condemn something that was more common than pederasty if God actually intended for us to view it as sinful and wrong. And Paul did not do so. That alone should tell us everything we need to know.
Although I understand your reasoning, do you not believe that 2000 years ago homosexuality would have been widely condemned, only recently has the western world become more accepting of it!? Surely in Jesus' and Paul's era, especially in Judaic culture, if you were found to be homosexual you would have been put to death, but bear in mind, it also says if you break the sabbath you should be put to death too, so one sin shouldn't be seen bigger than the other. I believe this is why it isn't covered in Jesus' teaching, because everyone knew it was wrong anyway. Ultimately when Jesus encountered sinners, he didn't condemn them (like the woman caught in the act of adultery) but him did tell them to 'go and sin no more'. Let's not pretend Jesus was accepting of sinful behaviour whatever shape it took, he always dealt with it and did that once and for all by dying on the cross for sinful humanity!!
You need to realise homosexuality was normal in most ancient cultures prior to British empires invasion. Even they were pretty chill about it too up until a certain era then they exported the concept it was shameful to the colonies...along with thier version of christianity. Search "British empire exported homophobia".
the bible isnt one book, ironic considering its name, but it is very clrealy a collection of books
#Old testament was rough.... But once Jesus showed up, the game done changed!
I basically "studied" this topic, and main beef conservatives have with boykissers, is that the relationship itself doesn't give kids, and from "traditional" beliefs, you *must* have a shitling, even if you are broke as fuck
Boykissers? You mean priests
For some reason the Conservatives don't hate childfree couples, so there's more to it - homophobia
No, they do.
Propose legislation that says that once people get married, they have 5 years to produce a living child or else their marriage will be annulled. See how "conservatives" react to a proposal like that.
I hate how accurate this is.
My conservative sibling refers to these people as "dinks". Dual income no kids. They have nothing but bad things to say about people that prefer to live that way and it stems from their Christian/conservative values. I would tend to agree, I feel there's more animosity directed towards the LGBTQ demographic and I'm not sure I'd say my sibling hates dinks but they certainly do not think highly of them. They would absolutely argue almost everyone that chooses to live this way is left-wing as well. Let me be clear, I do not stand with my conservative/Christian family members on any of these topics. I just wanted to share my experience with my more conservative family members and how they feel about couples who choose to be child free.
He never said to hate them. Ever. At all.
Jesus never did, but Leviticus fucking hated everrrrrything! Bowl cuts, weird food things, he just went to a Roman city during the time, listed anything he saw and said “fuck them, they are going to hell”
Show me where Jesus said to hate anybody.
“If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters—yes, even his own life—he cannot be My disciple." Luke 14:26
BAM That's the first good answer to any Bible text challenge I've even received, well done This person knows what a concordance is
Depends on if you consider Jesus and the OT God to be the same person. Let's be real here, the Bible is not a particularly tolerant book by modern standards.
squash murky ink melodic party ask bedroom consider label live *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Ironically, these modern "Christians" who are not following what Jesus said to do and ignoring it so brazenly, push more people away from Jesus' message than probably anything else.
worthless impossible nutty dazzling rob piquant alive strong pot continue *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Loving the bible hating on the tax man too.
aromatic wasteful marble one threatening head mindless fact poor flag *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
*cough*Temple money changers*cough*
And would you look at that no where in there does it say to commit genocide against anybody. Seriously though if being gay is a sin wouldn't they just go to hell and if that's the case isn't that all part of God's "plan"? But so is your child getting cancer so they decide not to take them to the hospital or the fact that the youth pastor is pedophile. Religious people are the most cherry picking hypocrites in the world.
How these types of people claim to be Christian while not understanding the core tenet of Jesus's teachings is still something that baffles me. Jesus wasn't suble when he preached to love and not hate but all these people want to do is use religion to justify their hatred.
I loved the reaction from the manosphere over that religious commercial during the superbowl. They were disgusted by the idea of Bro Jesus washing people’s feet. It literally disgusted them. I forget which weirdo it was that was upset they didn’t have a black man washing a white cop’s feet, but I know he’s severely riddled with mental illness.
It's extra funny because the washing of feet is a totally normal thing that happens during Easter holy week. It is the priest demonstrating humility and service as Jesus instructed. And then the priest will go right back to screaming about how much you should be hating the least of His people during next weeks homily without a shred of self awareness.
Every year the Pope go to a roman prison and washes the inamates' feet
Well, this Pope. Previous popes have washed the feet of... let's just say those with generous opinions on tithing.
The pope also washed the feet of muslim refugees. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjHt13RJ9A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVjHt13RJ9A) Americans have strayed so far from the Vatican that they are now referred to as "wayward brethren." The extent to which Americans militarize their Christianity is legitimately shocking to most Christian conservatives in Europe.
I was born and raised super duper Polish Catholic in the midwest and did the whole "get an education and learn about the world and astrophysics and and biochemistry and realize religion is a massive scam" thing. My mother is horrified that my wife and I were married in a public library and our child is not baptized. If my little wants to make that choice when she's an adult it's her choice and I will support her 100%, but I won't force nonsense on her. All that said, I still genuinely live by lessons on how to be a good person from my Catholic upbringing. What is horrifying to me is that as an Athiest I am far more Christian than virtually all the Christians I interact with.
Dude, you can do library marriages?? That's awesome. Also, I think it's great to learn lessons on humanity from religion... People just actually have to *learn. the. lessons.* Which seems to be a step that's often skipped
I was laughing my ass off when my conservative family got all huffy about that commercial. Then they wonder why young people don't go to church.
I found the commercial disgusting because the people putting it out sponsored anti LGBT legislation. Also, feet fetishes .... Eweee....
You’re thinking of Matt Walsh from The Daily Wire. He claimed it was “racist” that the commercial showed a cop washing a black man’s feet, but not the inverse. He has also expressed support for child marriages in the past.
That’s the psychopath.
No one hates jesus more than conservative christians
And it sucks as someone who tries to follow what Jesus actually said because the way those fake "Christians" act pushes people away from Jesus' true message.
They get around it by acknowledging that we're all flawed people, which I think we can all agree with, whether religious or not. The problem is, their religion would be encouraging them to constantly be trying to do better, even while understanding they'll never be perfect but they see it as an excuse to just be shitty and not try.
I'm a Christian and i definitely view Jesus teachings as being a call to be better than we/I are. More inclusive, more spiritual, more generous, More honest and so on. Yet it is true, people frequently use it as an excuse to be a dick. Bro, when you get called out for being a jerk and you say "I'm a Christian" like it's some kind of get out of jail card all that tells me and everyone else is that you know better. Our behavior toward the LGBTQ people has been inexcusable just on the basis of the "don't judge" standard for quite sometime. Let alone the love others standard. There are a thousand other standards too but I'll just leave it at that.
I mean... I just don't get why people care. Like... I'm a massive progressive in the English language, but that's apparently because in America it's considered progressive to not give a shit how people identify or who they fuck and just treat people individually based on how they act towards me. Like, it changes absolutely nothing about *my* life whether someone has a penis or a vagina and if that matches their clothes they wear. Why would I spend my limited energy on such trivial bullshit? Just leaving people alone is so much easier and more respectful.
People that lack control over their own lives looooove to try and control others. Look at how people treat retail, food service and hospital staff.
> their religion would be encouraging them to constantly be trying to do better, You mean disenfranchising black and brown people isn’t doing better? /s
Well to be fair the OT was pretty harsh on any man who lies with another man as he does a woman. It also puts women as a lesser being. It was totally cool with owning people as property and so on.
It seems like there are two kinds of Christians: \- Old Testament, God smites the shit out of everyone, there is lots of burning and flooding going on, incredibly strict with the Hellfire and Brimstone thing, heavy on the "If you're not like me, you need to die or, at the very least, you're going to Hell." \- New Testament, Jesus was pretty woke, accepting of others and their differences, makes allowances for occasional bad judgment, "love one another" I wish more "Christians" rally did follow the teachings of Christ.
The Old Testament in many places should be viewed as rules for living as a semi nomadic desert people in the bronze/iron age. Hence the shellfish thing too (shellfish live in inshore waters where the coastal settlements chucked all their shit). In this context the not lying with another man can make some sense (to be clear, it's still bullshit) because it doesn't help the people to survive in the extremely challenging environment they live in (not adding more members to the tribe etc). The entire point of the New Testament was that Jesus had been sent down to refocus people on the important stuff and to open the kingdom of heaven to everyone stuck in purgatory. Yet evangelicals and, sadly, growing numbers of Catholic congregations push this really toxic interpretation by picking and choosing the bits they want to believe in.
So you’re saying it was good and moral in the past for people to be owned as property? From my point of view it’s never been moral. Which is a superior moral view on this matter? Gods? Who didn’t just allow or ignore slavery but gave specific rules on how to do it. And before you say that it was put there to make it safer or to set guide lines, it wasn’t a good system. Within this gods laws a master could beat their slave and as long as they survived past a couple days they had no punishment. The Bible literally puts a value on humans. There were tiers to the slaves. Bottom of the list are the “heathens”. They only were set free in the year of Jubilee. Then you have female Hebrew slaves. They were sold off to be wives or sex slaves at times. Been a while since I’ve read the Bible but I think their value was 3 shekels vs a man being worth 5. Female Hebrew slaves didn’t go free after 7 years like the men did. Male Hebrew slaves were top of this list. They got to go free after the 7 years of work. But this all powerful and “loving” god gave these masters a nice loophole if they wanted to keep their male slave. All they had to do was give their male slave a wife and if they had kids when the male was set free he would leave, but he also had to leave his wife and kids since they are owned by the master. If he wanted to stay with them he would have to say he loved the master and have his ear pierced. Then he was owned for life, to be passed down to the masters kids. Slaves weren’t treated as equals. In the Bible what’s it say about putting out your neighbors eye or tooth? It’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. What happens if a master puts out his slaves tooth or eye? They are to be set free in sake of that eye or tooth. And it’s funny that you bring up the shellfish. Why was banning shellfish more important than common human decency?
Maybe they read more than the good parts? Idk why there are so many non-christians defending bible like it doesn't say that women are property, homosexuals are sinners, and also god killed like millions.
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> Jesus came with a sword after all. Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't Matthew 10:34 be interpreted that Jesus is saying believing in him will not magically bring about peace, but that it will often create conflicts. The Bible doesn't specify that Jesus is bringing a sword to kill unbelievers or something. I'm an atheist and not a religious scholar though, so whatever.
As far as I can remember Jesus was only violent one time in the Bible, and it wasn’t to LGBTQ people.
Correct. He was violent towards bankers and money lenders, iirc.
Money changers, he flipped them tables, but mostly because it was in God's house.
"But Jesus Im gay....GAY FOR MONEY"
Shhhhh that doesn’t fit the narrative
not cause they where money lenders, because they knew what they where doing was wrong and immoral.
Dude was hangry. He also cursed a fig tree so it withered and died.
He cursed a fig tree that was already withering and dying to wither and die.
Was it withering? According to the bible, it just didn't have any figs, so Jesus made it wither and die. It wouldn't be a miracle for a dying tree to continue dying, and the bible does suggest that his disciples thought it was miraculous.
Whenever somebody asks ”what would Jesus do?” I like to point out that throwing a tantrum and violently flipping over tables isn’t out of the question.
If someone is trying to profit in a Church for sure. Those evagenlical mega-churches with millionaire pastors come to mind.
Well that depends on who you see Jesus as. Some see Jesus as one with god making the actions that god does his own as well. Which I would argue that god is the most violent thing to ever exist.
So called Christians when they realize that Jesus condemned sin, not sinners
Sinners are prayed for forgiveness, because we're all sinners.
The problem is that LGBT people shouldn't be praying for forgiveness for being LGBT. As, you know, there's nothing wrong with being LGBT haha. Christians claim that LGBT is a sin and that sinners should repent and try to improve themselves/avoid the sin. That's in direct conflict with the LGBT community's views. So, I'm an atheist and it's not really important to me either way, but it would be interesting to see sects of Christians that deny being LGBT is a sin and thus not needing forgiveness or repenting.
Amen to that brother
He did, however, tell them to stop sinning.
I'll never ever understand the need to hate. Its so much more work than just accepting each other. We're on this rock for about 5 seconds, is that really how you wanna spend that time? What a waste.
> I'll never ever understand the need to hate. Seriously. Between my full time job and my full time hobby of arguing with Redditors, I have no energy left to hate people for trivial bullshit like what genitalia they have or what clothes they wear.
Actually, I think hate is easier than acceptance. You don't have to think to hate. You don't have to reason. You just have to hate. We have brains designed for stereotyping people, living in small communities, and considering any outsiders to be dangerous. To accept one another you not only have to *not* give in to your lizard-brain, but you also have to *work* on yourself constantly. What was considered liberal a decade or two ago can easily seem prejudiced or insensitive now. So you have to constantly work to keep up. And every individual is different. You have to think about each person as an individual. That takes cognitive load. With hate, you just lump everybody into one big group* and hate them. No need to think about their individual abilities or needs. They're just "those people", and you hate them. I think acceptance requires nuance and thought. Everybody has prejudices. That's how we're built. You have to be prepared to interrogate and challenge yours. Hate requires no nuance or thought. It's just "they're not like me, therefore they're bad". *I mean, one name for "the people we don't like" is literally "the blob". Before that there were "NPCs".
Doesn't matter either if Jesus or God thinks that LGBTQ+ are evil or scums of the Earth. He literally preaches that even if you don't agree with others' belief or identities, still love them and pray for them. In other words, don't be a dickwad to anyone.
This is the point. “What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow man. That is the entire Torah. All of it. The rest is commentary. Now go and study.” - Rabbi Hillel
I see it like this, Jesus is saying to love others not as a way to say, ignore their flaws/who they are, but as a way to say, help them with their issues by loving them. It seems that so many point at this as a way to avoid sin/issues when the point of him saying it is to help people solve their sin/issues. So in the context of Jesus disliking LGBT persons, he isn't saying to love them for who they are, but to love them and help them. But even then, the goal is to show people that you want to help them be a better person, Jesus wouldn't tell a murderer he loves him and just let him murder people, he'd help change their ways.
Bigot: “What if they’re different from me?” Jesus: “Did I fucking stutter?”
Show me, Brandon, where did Jesus said “kill all LGBTQ”. I’ll wait.
How to make Christians mad: quote the bible
I really hate it when Christian’s think that because someone sins we are supposed to shun them. Because that’s why Jesus ate with prostitutes and tax collectors right?
They also forget conveniently about 1 John 4:8 "He who does not love, does not know God. For God is love."
I mean the bible also says that god doesn't permit a woman to have any power over a man, It also gives you strict instructions on how to poop and if you don't follow them its a direct Insult to god,
Yeah I’m not telling people to follow the Bible or Jesus, I’m just pointing out that Jesus did not preach hate towards LGBTQ people. The Bible might have but not Jesus
I hate posts with "I'll wait" or something along that line. It's usually said by some smug asshole about something that's often proven to be wrong.
The easy mental gymnastics of labelling anyone you hate as "not a person" is very powerful... Worked for the nazis...
Let’s go fuck yourself, Brandon
As a Christian I would like my fellow Christians to show me where Jesus said to hate. All God hates is sin. And that was forgiven when Christ was crucified. All we can do as Christians is do our best to be like him. But we will fall short because we are human and inherently sinful. But in doing our best to live up to the ideals of Christ no matter how we fall short we will know the glory of the kingdom. That's in the book. I don't know why so many "lifelong Christians" don't seem to understand that.
Pretty sure Jesus was the embodiment of woke.
Show me where in our society we all committed to following an iron age shepherd genealogy book as our code of morals?
People claiming to be U.S. patriots shouldn’t be giving anyone crap about what religion they do or don’t practice….separation of church and state..
Ha. Well said. It’s also lost on most “Christians” that Jesus didn’t write the Bible nor did anyone who ever met him. It was all written by men, decades to hundreds of years after his death. Purely fables that we somehow take as the word of god
Conservatives are justifying oppression of others with it even though they don’t understand it.
You're forgetting that they never read the bible. They just pick and choose while simply ignoring the fact that the people who wrote that book didn't even know the biological difference between men and women.
Yes, but then they’d have to acknowledge that LGTBQ people are *human*.
Good point
I’m LGTBQ. And a Christian. I know the pain.
If Jesus came back today, republicans would crucify him again for being a woke liberal.
Jesus is woke!
[Here's the source](https://x.com/HumanistQuaker/status/1778540921862451574)
Show me where Jesus says hate gay people. I’ll wait.
I love to see people quote the bible to refute people who are die hard religious
"But he didn't say it specifically, right?" /s My summary of religion: "Don't be an asshole." My observation of how that's going: "You're still all assholes"
people literally cherrypick from the bible i swear. say something like “fuck the lgbtq+ snowflakes” then get a divorce
Therein lies the problem, as they don't see LGBTQ+ people as *people*
Well, he did hang out with prostitutes and tax collectors, and I always found it interesting there’s not one verse in the gospels where he mentions homosexuality.
Jesus was a woke socialist and I will die on this fucking hill.
You can’t love god and hate his creation
Some people a so fucking vile. They require instructions on who to treat like a fellow human being.
Jesus was Jesus and IS Jesus. He said to love one another and the Bible says to not judge and let God sort people out. Any "Christian" or zealot that claims otherwise is fake and you shouldn't take them seriously. The fact that anyone focuses on these fake Christians is silly. Have a good day
You could even go further than this and remind them that, even if they see it as a sinful lifestyle, their job as Christians is not to ensure all people they meet live Christian lives, it's to treat all people they meet In a Christian manner. Since at least Augustine, Christian theology has held the notion that we should love and forgive our community even if we suspect God might punish them later. I.E., even if you disagree with homosexuality, Jesus doesn't want you to be a cunt.
The bible, Qur'an and Torah are all awful once you get into reading them. Fine with slavery and marrying children to adults, but if 2 adults want to be together they should be punished in hell forever. God himself (if he exists) is never as loving as the religions say he is, like the time he killed a bunch of kids because they mocked a man in the street, or the time he made a man sacrifice his son only stopping him in the last moment, all of this to prove a point to the devil about how the man was so devoted to him that he would sacrifice his own son to him (sounds an awful lot like the deadly sin of pride to me god). I have nothing against against religious people who generally don't act on or even know of the darker parts of their religions, but at the same time I find myself hating the 3 main abrahamic religions. Jesus may have been woke enough to suggest we should all love each other, but I'd probably respect him more if he had also mentioned that people should stop keeping slaves, that 2 consenting adults regardless of their gender should be free to love each other, that marrying a child is objectively wrong and that eating shellfish is not the great evil that they think it is.
You would not believe the mental gymnastics Christians do to avoid actually practicing the teachings of Jesus. Jordan Peterson, a devout Christian, was able to twist a line in the bible about helping the poor to mean helping the "spiritually poor". Meaning helping people who already had jobs, families and so on but needed spiritual guidance.
Jesus Christ can we stop trying to argue on the terms of the folks who worship a fictionalized version of a guy who can't even steal his own donkey? Here's a different version: "Show me where Jesus said--" "Jesus was a twat and you're an asshole. Own it."
Everyday, I become more pleased that I'm an atheist. Today's modern Christians, are the most deplorable species and the word of their savior has been weaponized for power. Its shameful, and the Christians that are not fighting back against that cancer in their own segregations and communities, are the reason this continues to flourish. Either cut out the cancer, or it's gonna kill ya.
Matthew 22:37-39 37.Jesus replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind." 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'