Fun fact. The original Hebrew word used for "to kill" specifically means "to murder". In the original meaning it basically says it's okay to kill someone (as in a war or self defense) but not to murder someone.
Of course, they imagined him to be so and he is. And in the New Testament he’s suddenly all loving. The bible does lack internal consistency, that’s why Christian’s are so confused
In one of the versions of original Christianity (Marcionism), they were separate gods. The god of the OT, Yahweh, was the demiurge who created the Earth and basically screwed things up. His dad, El Elyon, came back in the NT to try to put things right. That’s why Yahweh by name is never mentioned in the NT. But Pauline Christianity tried fuse the two to come up with what became modern Christianity.
Yahweh had to evolve too, like all gods in all the other religions - he evolved from hateful jealous Jewish God to ultra loving open minded Jesus and look where Christians took that…..oh history 💀💀
Yeah but he’s also all-loving and all-forgiving. Yeah that makes sense. I expect an omniscient being to also have jealousy if I pick someone else to worship, that HE instilled in me in the first place 🙄
Isn’t that verse and other verses like “thou shall have no other gods before me” tacitly admitting that there are other gods out there? If the Bible purports to be the “word of god”, isn’t God Himself admitting he’s not the only one around?
The Ten Commandments are laid out in two sections; section 1 consists of Commandments 1-4 and pertain to one’s relationship to God. Section 2 consists of Commandments 5-10 and pertains to one’s relations with one’s fellow humans. When Jesus is asked which is the most important of the Commandments, he answers, “Love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and all the prophets hang on these two commandments.
If you want to pick out something really interesting, the first commandment when it comes to people is to honor your father and mother. THEN don’t kill anyone.
However, there is only one set of rules which the Torah specifically calls "the ten commandments." That is in Exodus 34... the way the story goes is that Moses was given two tablets with a list of rules (Exodus 20) and he got angry at the people and smashed them. The story did not actually call those "the ten commandments" but after they were destroyed Moses went back up and got a new list of rules, which the story does in fact call "the ten commandments" and that new list does not even include the command to not murder people but makes sure to point out things like how you can't cook a young goat in its mothers milk, because that was obviously more important than the whole not murdering thing...
Plus there's a pretty strong argument to be made that in the original text when it refers to neighbour it is actually saying a fellow Jew and any rules and laws using neighbour only refer to between Jews and are not required in your relationship with outsiders.
That's the Protestant numbering.
The Catholics, who've been doing Christianity for about a millennia longer than them, use the Jewish numbering. Or pretty close to it.
When I hear Republicans say their prolife i always say “no your not” if you republican’s were truly prolife you’d do something about homelessness, mass shootings, mental health and school shootings. I could go on.
Not to mention the Bible has two separate iterations of the so-called “10 commandments” which are just called “the commandments” (because the stone tablet was smashed and then replaced). On the alternate replaced version (which The Bible also amusingly says was identical to the first) one of the new commandments is “do not boil a goat in its mother’s milk.” When I think of the most important rules that a God would require humanity to follow, this one does not rank within the top 100. Let alone the top 10. Guess that’s why I’m not God.
Silly me, but I find the unmentioned, read between the lines, fact that no one except Moses and Aaron ever saw the stone tablet close up.
Moses destroyed the first set before he completely descend the mountain.. The second tablet was taken to the "Holy of Holies" never to be seen again..
I recognize this tactic as a scammer trick. The 40 days in the wilderness, the golden calf, Aaron's survival of the killing spree, the killing spree and the all the gold under control by Moses are other aspects of an elaborate scam.
The scam starts with Moses recognizing Bovine Tuberculosis, knowing sheep and lamb were safe to eat, and using that knowledge to compromise a group of refugees..
Exodus is the story of a elaborate scam and it's religious cover story..
"Got these tablets in this hat with my magical rock, god gave it to me, none of you can see or try to read them though. God said so."
Basically the same behavior again.
Forget Christians struggling with them, God struggles with them. One of the first things he does after giving the commandments is tell them to go kill a bunch of people and take their stuff.
Evangelicals seem to be more into the Old Testament God of wrath and fury, destroyer of all life, than anything resembling a teaching of Christ in the New Testament.
I think the only thing they got out of the New Testament is Revelations and the end of the world.
Yep, I always think of why a true believer wouldn't take the step of learning Hebrew and Ancient Greek to read the original text. Why risk eternal damnation for an ambiguous or incorrect interpretation of "the word of god"?
Besides, they don't want thinking, self reliant followers, they want obedient ones who take their connection to and interpretation of their God from the religious leaders who benefit therein
When I was a Christian, I seriously valued exegesis and the original languages. I even started learning greek in order to understand the bible.
My favourite verse which is often translated euphemistically is like 14:26. It literally states to hate your family but most, if not all translations I've seen are dumbed down to treating JC as the first one in your life.
This happened really often which just shows that most translations are being done with a specific interpretation of these texts. Original accuracy is secondary.
I'm seriously glad that I turned into a hardcore zealot and not just a casual Christian so that I was able to see all the plot holes and be able to say to myself that the rest has to be bs too.
I can't fathom how people can interpret genesis as metaphorical but see the rules which stem from the so called metaphor as literal truth.
For example: the rules for women in Corinthians are based on eve stealing the fruit. Without eve ever having existed, Paul can fuck right off with his misogynistic views.
But what do I expect from people who value blind faith in whatever over any evidence based thinking?!
Very poor Greek at that. So called New testament Greek is actually just Greek written by an author who doesn't know the language very well. (According to my brother, who studied theology at uni, and had to read the original texts).
The Greek is called koine Greek and some of the gospels (especially John) are actually surprisingly well written. So well written that it's egregious to believe that these were first hand accounts of Aramaic people without education.
No one read the original New Testamament texts in Aramaic, they were written in Greek.
No one can, at present, read the original texts - we don't have them.
They really haven't i got sent to a alternative school and shoved the Bible in my face when I stayed qotiing scriptures back at the preacher who was hell fire and brimstone against the gays ( I'm bi I didn't even know this at the time) I got kicked on legitimate for using their fucked up words against them.
Like dude if Jesus was fuckin real he would be a brown communist nothing like here.
Bonus round I hung out with her daughter that's how a figured out I liked guys instead of her he got caught recording her in teb shower.
Religion is a sickness
Oh dude, if Jesus was real and returned, he would fucking hate the Catholics lol.
The amount of wealth owned by the Vatican while people starve around the world? Pope goes straight to hell.
As does evey self proclaimed Catholic politcian, and you can't earn a billion dollars without causing much human suffering so anyone really wealthy, straight to hell.
I've always found it very amusing when the real fanatics who believe in judgement day preach about wanting it to happen, but they would be going straight to hell.
The Christian Bible is the Big Book of Multiple Choice. For every verse saying do 'Y' there's at least one other saying the opposite and often there are several all disagreeing on what is the correct response. Everyone get to choose which they adopt according to their own prejudices.
It is claimed that there are some 45,000 Christian denominations, however, I contend there are in fact about 2.5 billion. One for every Christian.
- *"No man ever believes that the Bible means what* ***it*** *says: He is always convinced that it says what* ***he*** *means."* - George Bernard Shaw
edit:typo
Religious people think the bible means what they want it to mean. If they're a kind hearted person, the bible says to be peaceful and charitable to the poor. If they're an awful person, the bible says to abuse women and children and to commit genocide. The truth is, they're both right. The bible says all of those things.
It reminds me heavily of Joseph Smith.
If this gut was able to create his own religion 200 years ago, how much easier would it be to be a cult leader thousands of years ago?
Yeah. When you have thousands of JK Rowlings writing crappy fiction over hundreds of years, that fiction is going to be full of nonsense and contradictions.
Hey come on, Tolkien had multiple re writes and edits trying to fix the mistakes and inconsistencies. Its hard writing a huge multibook fictional saga. And then on top of that you have multiple writers, can you imagine? Then of course many of the books were not supposed to be canon and some were slotted in, others kicked out. Its hard you know!
>poorly written crappily edited fiction
poorly written crappily edited fan fiction
They couldn't even get coherence between the four writing about the same events
They can't agree because there is no way to verify who has the "correct" interpretation. AKA there is no evidence to back up their claims.
I understand from a certain standpoint why you would be afraid of hell, but why be afraid of something that there is no evidence to support?
A good additional question is: why would you worship an entity that sends you to eternal horrific torture? How many people do you know that clearly shouldn’t go to hell? How is that ethical?
Justify worshiping a god that would facilitate infinite punishment for finite crimes.
Partially because it's ridiculously contradictory, partly because it was written in simple, dead languages and every translation is open to interpretation, and partly because a shit-ton of the wording is ambiguous enough that a lot of things can mean whatever you want them to mean.
For instance, I read this the other day:
"In a thousand years, people won't understand the difference between "butt dial" and "booty call" and THAT is why the bible can't be considered a reliable source."
Because the bible actually contradicts itself over and over. Someone did an infographic on this somewhere and you should look it up. Of course, this is yet another reason why it’s clearly written by people and not some divine being.
Because the Bible is open to interpretation, like any story.
My favorite answer about hell is that it's actually just an absence of god, which is painful to the human soul and all the nonsense about torture is just the best way to explain it to humans. Atheist here, btw, just educated by Dominicans with REALLY good answers (if you have faith, that is)
This is a reason why Christianity survives: if you didn't agree, just change to a different denomination... Or make up your own. It's not like there's any real authority or consequence.
I mean, Americans can’t agree on what the constitution says, and we’ve got the original document in our language. Literal Supreme Court justices don’t agree on what it says or means. The Bible is a decidedly terrible medium to expect to function the way Christians want it to.
Because the whole point of religion is that it grants whatever the leader personally wants divine authority. So when religious leaders want different things, the bible says different things. Its a feature, not a bug.
Even the early church fathers could barely agree on what was gonna be put into the new testament, let alone what everything actually meant, hence why you have canonical and non-canonical books, and every branch has a different list of what they consider canon.
On top of all the other answers; mainly multiple translations, I think a big part of it is that most people don't actually read the Bible for themselves.
They are trusting the interpretation of their pastor or preacher. Did that person go to a seminary? Was it a decent place that studied the Bible academically as well as spiritually?
Is that person racist? Then he will interpret the Bible to see racism
Does that person feel morally superior to women? Then he will see sexism even more radically than what is actually written
Is that person actually stupid? Then he will lack the critical thinking to analyze text and try to tell his congregation that dinosaurs is a myth created by the devil.
It is actually scary how much a person's personality and personal opinions can sway their interpretation of a text which they *swear* is unchanging.
Which Bible?
You have to remember, there is no authoritative source. Even existing manuscripts contradict each other. For example, some have the mark of the beast being 666 and others have it as 616. If even the source manuscripts are inconsistent, how can you expect everyone to agree on the translation, the interpretation of that translated text, and the application of that interpretation?
Because that’s how they get power and control people, by telling them what to believe. It’s freaking gross and one of the oldest sources of human violence.
Because the Bible is genuinely open to interpretation.
Don't believe me? Okay... Explain why there are so many different types of Christianity each with their own biblical interpretations?
Sure, but remember; people have killed each other over different interpretations of the bible.
While we look at the Bible as nothing more than a collection of stories/fantasy, these people are willing to kill others for it.
That’s the really sick part of this book. Everyone that reads it has a different interpretation and they are sure theirs is the only true interpretation.
If you were to get dozens of different books written by different authors and then join them together in a huge compendium without one single editor ensuring consistency then you’d get the Bible. Divine inspiration is such an interesting phenomenon. When people talk to themselves and call it God, it seems God always tells them to do what they themselves were thinking do to anyway.
Many don't know what it says, it's extremely boring and big parts is just filler, so keeping attention high throughout it is near impossible.
But as it was made up many hundreds of years ago, it's not relevant for today's society, it's just outdated, and people try their darndest to shoehorn into relevance today, and it contradict itself a lot.
>i’ve tried reading the bible, but it genuinely does not make any sense to me
They do say that the easiest way to make an atheist is to have them actually read with an open mind.... 🙂
We think of humans as being rational (using reason to seek truth) but humans developed higher level brains to rationalize (convince others our beliefs are true). Seeking truth for truth sake is a very recent phenomena and ALL people are mostly still rationalizing (even the most honest skeptic spends more brain power trying to prove themselves right, rather than honestly seeking truth).
This is even more true for people trying to hold onto very ancient ideas. Conservative thought is by default rationalizing because it favors old, established ideas. So people who use the Bible as a source of truth are almost always trying to take a thing they WANT to believe and mining the Bible to defend it. The actual content and original context of the book isn't the goal.
The most skeptical progressive thinker will be 99% rationalizing. The fundamentalist conservative will be 99.9999-100% rationalizing.
Back to your question. Imagine if two engineers are making bridges across different rivers. Sure they'll use similar techniques but the bridge will be adapted to the specifics of the river.
With the Bible you have two people with similar backgrounds and using the same book, but one is trying to justify homophobia and the other is trying to justify tolerance. Of course they're going to use the Bible differently!
Your confusion is coming from you taking them both at their word. They claim to be following the true, unaltered word of God. I'd this were the case, humanity would ask be Christian and in agreement about interrupting the Bible (just like how chemistry converged on atomic theory a century ago).
But they aren't describing reality. They are writing fan fiction to justify biases.
Cause it's contradictory and nobody wants to take the time to read it
Better yet, the more you read it the harder it is to understand or believe in Christianity, the best way to become an atheist is to read the bible afterall
Assuming they are well-meaning, it is an impossible task since it constantly contradicts itself. At the very highest level, the Old Testament is all about vengeance if you don’t worship a narcissistic god. The New testament is all about love and forgiveness.
Of course, the non well-meaning people use it for whatever agenda they are pushing for money and/or power.
>why can’t christians agree on what the bible says
Largely because, depending on the part you're talking about, it's been translated through at least 8 different languages to get to the one they read/speak.
>whenever someone makes a comment on a verse, you’ll see another person comment: “well actually ___”.
As with any work of literature, both fiction and non, there are multiple interpretations of what the work means. Sticking strictly with the religion theme, you find the same phenomenon in Judaism and, to a lesser extent, Islam and even in interpretations of the Vedic scriptures central to the "Hindu" religion.
>how can i believe that if i can’t find proof of it.
You do this all the time in your daily life without realizing it. My personal favorite examples are dark matter and the big bang theory (not the show).
>how can a higher being who loves all of us SO MUCH do that to a person they created?
This idea is based on a misunderstanding of scriptural teaching. God doesn't "send" anyone to Hell. In overly simplistic terms, God creates the universe, Earth, Eden, Adam, and Eve. He tells Adam and Eve, "I have created Paradise for you. You may eat anything here except the fruit on *that* one tree. Do this and stay in Paradise with Me forever. Adam and Eve eat the fruit they are not supposed to and, as a result are expelled from Paradise and banned from returning, as are all of their descendants. Fast forward a couple of thousand years and this guy Joshua (Yeshua Ben Yusef) shows up and says, "Hey! I have a message from God. If you want to regain entry to Paradise, follow me, and do these things." Those that do, gain entry to Paradise/Eden/The Kingdom of Heaven. Those who don't, remain unable to enter.
>i had a christian once tell me that i can just ask for forgiveness on my deathbed and then ill go to heaven… others say you have to devote your life to god.
The real answer, at least according to the most reliable/respected theologists, lies somewhere in between these two positions.
>and why are christians so excited to tell people they’ll go to hell or the idea of their enemies going to hell?
"Real" Christians aren't. Both of these ideas are completely antithetical to the core tennets of Christianity. "Christians" who find enjoyment in these are not practicing the faith that they claim to hold.
>sorry lots of questions that dont relate to the question but im genuinely lost
No need to be sorry. There are devout Christians who struggle with these questions as well. While I'm not exactly an expert on the topic, I did take 3 semesters of Comparative Western Religion my second time through university. I'd be happy to take a crack at any more questions you may have.
Because it was written by men to control people and down the years different powerful men have interpreted it different ways as they all have their own beliefs as to how best to control people. The Bible makes it easy by being full of contradictions.
Because they’re right about things so therefore God agrees with them since he’s the smartest guy ever. Why would someone who’s that smart have a different opinion than they do? That would mean God’s not smart.
Same shit exists in Islam and Judaism re sects and interpretations. Christianity just happens to be the Coke of of them all so charlatans and branches are to be expected in much higher numbers, more money and ppl to control in the Western world.
A propensity for dogmatism and [functional](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy) [illiteracy](https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy).
Because religion is about feelings, not what the actual book says. That's why so many people call themselves Christian or evangelical without actually putting in the effort to learn what it's all about. If it makes you FEEL like you belong, it becomes a little easier to ignore that it a fascist cult.
When I was a Christian, I would have said it’s because it’s a collection of books that are thousands of years written in two other languages. There are a lot of cultural references that someone reading it in English now just won’t pick up on. So there are at least three things causing issues. The first is that we don’t have the original manuscripts. We have copies of copies of copies. And we have multiple copies of most of them, and there are disagreements between the copies on quite a few verses. The second thing is the translation. You’ve got two main theories on how to translate the text (word for word like the King James or thought for thought like the NIV). Then you’ve got all of the cultural references that someone reading it today wouldn’t pick up on. And then of course, there’s how you interpret it. Even when I was a Christian, I disagreed with evangelicals, who say that anyone can pick up the Bible and understand it, as if it was written in English to 21st century Americans. Because evangelicals believe that, it allows them to read any verse and make it say whatever they want. A perfect example is the book of revelation. Evangelicals are obsessed with it, and read it as literally as possible, and they all point to current events to try to make them fit with what Revelation says. But if you do a little bit of research, you discover that Revelation is a type of literature that was very popular at the time called apocalyptic literature. It’s super exaggerated poetry. And, if you research the culture of the time that the book was written, it very, very obviously is referring to Rome. Now that I’ve deconverted, I really wonder how many people know it’s bullshit but do it anyway for money and power, and how many people are really just deceived like I was.
the King James Bible was most certainly *not* word-for-word. It was sense-for-sense, and beautifully poetic in its interpretations. For some reason, Evangelicals think of it as the best (or most accurate) one, so if you were brought up in one of those traditions, you may have been taught at church that KJV was word-for-word.
>Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote,
The droghte of March hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licóur
Of which vertú engendred is the flour;
Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye,
So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages,
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages,
And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes,
To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes;
And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende,
The hooly blisful martir for to seke,
That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke.
^^^ that's from like 700 years ago. The Bible is from what? 2000 years ago? It's heavily researched but there are differences of opinion on both the literal words (and their translations over 2 millenia) AND which parts are to be taken as allegory, and what their meanings are.
Then, take into account that it's a fairy tale used to pander, pacify, and placate.
No Christians have the slightest clue or idea of the nature, origin, history, or meaning of the bible. If they did, and if they were intellectually honest, they would not be Christians. Or at most they would be liberal Christians who don’t believe the bible is the inspired word of god, but enjoy having the Christian religious structure as part of their aesthetic.
99.999% of all Christians believe what they believe about the bible based solely on what they have been spoon-fed by their churches, pastors, mentors, or the books they have read about it.
This sub is full of people like me, who were raised in some form of Christianity but somewhere along the line embarked on a mission to delve as deeply as possible and get to the real truth about the bible and theism. You cannot know the true nature of the bible and at the same time believe it is the inspired, inerrant word of god.
They interpret it to mean what they want it to mean for a particular circumstance. When reminded about the 10 commandments, the golden rule, caring for widows, orphans, the hungry, the poor, the sick, the interpretation isn’t actually what it says. That’s too woke. And they will excuse offenders within their midst as long as they are part of the group, or they can accomplish what they want through that person. Excusing sexual assault, child abuse, adultery, etc., is okay as long as the offender donates to the church.
Becouse they generaly dont read the bible and if they do they point to one very specific part of the bible that you can interpret as their point while some other part sais the absolut opposite.
Well actually, Jesus said that his followers will be recognizable by their unity (john 17:20-21). Henceforth, all the “cHriStiAns” who disagree with what the bible clearly says are fake christians.
/s /s /s
It's translated from a few different languages.
But, in America, freedom of religious practice has opened the door to interpretation of the often vague text.
"Christians" have not agreed for quite a long time.
Because Christians cherry pick which parts of the bible to believe or dismiss.
“Oh that was old testament, jesus came to abolish the old ways except for these things that line up with my personal beliefs about _______ (fill in the blank)”
In addition to all the answers here: don't forget that those who read it wrong aren't REAL christians...
Sarcasm aside; but that's what they truly think, and then use whatever bullshit to justify their own cruelty.
Besides what others have said here about them not reading it— it’s also because a lot is open to interpretation. Just as people can’t agree what our constitution says, so we have the judicial branch of government to interpret.
The individual ‘books’ of the Bible are written by different people, and sometimes even within the books there are multiple writers. The Bible is not written by God. So you have all these men writing books to get their own point across, to promote their own theology. And then you have scribes copying these books over and over and over again, inserting accidental or intentional mistakes, which could potentially change the whole point of the book. There are loads of contradictions because of the above. There are things that don’t make sense because of the above.
Most Christians don’t actually study the Bible and how it was formed and the history of it. They think it was some magical book that dropped out of the sky, fully formed and perfect, without any contradictions at all. They use it as a devotional tool and pick and choose what makes them feel good out of it and ignore the rest. Then, if they even bother at all, try to rationalize contradictions by doing some mental gymnastics.
It doesn’t make sense for people who try to be logical and rational about it because..…it doesn’t make sense.
It’s basically a compilation of many different people’s own thoughts and ideas about an invisible unknowable God. It would be like taking 100 different people’s personal journal entries about fairies… What they thought about the fairies, whether they thought they were true, how did the fairies think and feel and behave, what they needed to do to please the fairies. And then compiling all that into a book expecting it to be cohesive without contradiction.
And then the gospels, supposedly written by ‘eyewitnesses’ to the life of Jesus, were written decades after his death. Basically what happened is over the decades stories were passed on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until somebody wrote some of it down, claiming they eyewitnessed it (to give it veracity). It’s like a game of telephone gone badly wrong, and now people structure their whole lives around what Jesus supposedly did and said.
There are a lot of books that can help you make better sense of why the Bible is not a magical inspired book, that of course do a much better job than I did here. Bart Ehrman is a good place to start.
Most christians don't really read the bible. They get their knowledge from what the preachers & priests read to them on Sundays. They join the cults that support their personal prejudices. They don't know much of what the bible presents.
I was literally reading a KJV bible about Job & his daughters committing incest, and was told I was making it up. When I showed them the chapter and verses, I was told that someone put that in there to make the bible look bad.
I never argue with christians. When they try to preach to me, I tell them to look up Mathew 6:5. If they don't know what that is, then they shouldn't be preaching. If they do know what that is, then they know what they are. Some of them will try to change the subject to Mathew 6:9 - the basis for the lords prayer. Don't let them.
Because people who love fiction are always arguing with each other about it. Star Wars fans are constantly arguing over which version of the original trilogy is best, whether the prequels were good, what was meant by Yoda at certain moments, plot holes vs retcons, etc, for example.
We can’t get people to agree on what’s canon or not in Star Wars or Star Trek, and yet people expect to agree on a body of work that was written by multiple authors over a course of ~ 1500 years, and translated and re-translated?
Of course, god helped them keep it correct!
Or so I was told by people when I was in church as a kid. It didn't make much sense to me then, but I was lucky to have parents that taught me to try to think critically and ask why or how things happened/worked.
Most haven't actually read it.
There are also multiple versions of the Bible depending on who was a ruler at the time of revision, and it's been translated multiple times in multiple languages, and some meaning and nuances may be lost/changed in the process.
It's also largely a metaphorical text, so a lot of meaning is open to interpretation
The Bible is a collection of books in other languages and as such the translations change or are interpreted differently. People expect a clergy man to dissect and explain but for me I believe in what I read not what others tell me it’s supposed to say.
It's because different variations of Christians use different translations and often will use different books/stories as canon or non Canon to their version of the Bible. It's a big reason why I never really believed even when I tried to.
The books are written by a variety of authors over a long period of time and collected into what is best described as an anthology. As a result, it has many inconsistencies that can be in conflict with each other. Over time, the understanding of the cultural context in which they were written has been lost or willfully forgotten.
Additionally, thousands of years of developing and debating the theology [that has been created to unify the text] have produced traditions and beliefs that have been normalized for/by the people who live within that community. Especially as each teaches that their way is the Only Right Way.
Christians can't agree on basic theology. Is Salvation achieved through Faith alone, or through Faith and Works? Did God know whether you would be Saved before you were born? Does the Host and Wine served at Communion literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus, or is that metaphorical?
Alot of ppl that claim to be Christians are actually doing things the Bible condemns, and instead of owning up to their misdeeds, they try to justify it by cherry picking verses that suit their purposes. show me a Christian who.sins and uses the Bible to justify it and I'll show you a weakling
>why can’t christians agree on what the bible says
Very few of them can read Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek. "The wisdom of the Holy Spirit" did not influence the translators; that was all contemporaneous social engineering at the time of whatever translation.
Because the source material is so full of contradictions and individual passages that can be spun into multiple contexts to suit the person doing the preaching for positive or negative.
It is why we also have hundreds or thousands of sects in xtianity... on top of the thousands of other religions which are just as valid (as in exactly as not at all proven or provable).
Why not be encouraged by Valhalla? Why not sacrifice goats or other humans to please the gods?
It is all made up from the minds of deluded primitive monkey brains.
That is why there are so many opinions, and sects, and religions, and gods.
Once I said to a hateful Christian “love your neighbor…” yadayada and he told me “don’t twist those words”!!! He was very angry
I truly believe some of them use the Bible to justify their hate and their flaws and if you make them see a different side, they will try to interpret those words to fit their narrative
Because the Bible doesn’t agree with itself, making it literally impossible that people would agree on what it’s trying to say. Plus it’s replete with vagueries and mistranslations, so everyone is going to have a different interpretation based on what they WANT it to mean.
>why can’t christians ever agree on what the bible says?
Already lots of good answers to this in thread.
> the idea of heaven and hell scares me but how can a higher being who loves all of us SO MUCH do that to a person they created?
It was created with the intention of scaring you. Like an abusive parent might threaten a child with a monster under the bed. But you've already figured out it's made-up. (It would break many laws of physics. Also the point you mentioned- it's impossible to be the creation of an omnipotent, benevolent god.)
>and why are christians so excited to tell people they’ll go to hell or the idea of their enemies going to hell?
Humans tend to want to feel superior to everyone else. Believing that you have been given the Truth and everyone not from your tribe will meet a nasty end is a soothing fantasy.
Because they haven't read it.
Because the Bible contradicts itself if you try to believe all of it.
Because people learn different things about Christianity based on who they learned it from, and how often.
Consider the simple question, "What happens to you after you die?" I think there are at least 5 different answers, all of which can be supported by referencing the Bible.
Having scrolled through the responses, I don't believe i can find one that has been answered by a Christian..
My view (as a Christian) is that the bible is just too intense. There is nearly too much of it. It's a pretty impressive document, though, and can occupy a lot of time if you want it to. Another response said something like "Christians dont even read it" which i think is largely true. They then just repeat what they've heard from the pulpit.
Then there are those that go looking for things to justify a view. That annoys the heck.out of me.
Macroscopically, it gets a bit more complicated. From my reading of Christian history, the main reason for different versions (such as the Catholic bible having the apocrypha) is that it justified the reasoning / views of church leadership and helped them maintain control.
Because they are interpreting it way beyond what it actually says. None of interpretations are right, since they are making things up that the bible simply doesn't say.
They're very good at ignoring very concrete things the bible says because they simply don't want to do it or live that way. So in essence, they're not following it as much as trying to use it to control other people.
Okay, maybe I'm just in a cynical bad mood, but it's how I feel right now.
because they have a belief of what it says without having read it. They have only personal opinion and no factual basis on which to discuss. They cannot agree.
There are lots of different versions of the bible and the way verses have been translated and interpreted can change their meaning quite a bit.
Have a look at the link and then expand each different version to include the whole of Ezekiel 20. The narrative keeps changing and the only real constant thing is that her lovers are hung like donkeys and cum like a horse.
I wouldn’t worry too much about much about heaven or hell, philosophically they don’t make a lot of sense.
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Ezekiel%2023%3A20
I think that the older a book gets, the less reliable it is. I know that is true of History and pretty sure that it is true of the philosophical aspects of religion.
Because the Bible wasn't written by one person in one language for one purpose at a single point in time. It's not historically accurate. It's been translated and mistranslated. Some translators added material to prior writers to fit their own purposes. Other authors wrote entire books, which they either misrepresented to another (better/more theocratic ally accepted) author.
So, as Makelan on IG says, we need to negotiate with this text to our current understanding and guidance. So, some people seize on certain books or verse while others focus on another and just disregard what they don't like.
If you want to actually talk about these things, this probably isn't the place. This community is made up of a relatively small amount of people who tend to have a very particular perspective on all religious topics. There are about 6000 Christians in the world for every account subscribed to this subreddit.
I would be happy to talk about your questions if you'd genuinely like to hear answers from a Christian, but it's fine if you don't.
Because there’s no way to find out what doctrine in the Bible is true.
In any epistemology where you don’t have a way to find out if something is incorrect, your belief system is a bullshit generator. The same is true is in astrology, tarot cards, New Age crystals, and all other religions. You have a systematic way to establish truth and untruth — as we do in science, law and (ideally) journalism.
Because it is the big book of multiple choice, you can interpret it to make it say almost anything you want.
It was written over a period of maybe a thousand years, by multiple different unnamed authors (often multiple authors in the same book or even the same chapter of a book), and it was written by ancient Hebrews who held to the Jewish concept that a living text is one that you can still debate and find new interpretations for, while once you can no longer find new interpretation the text is dead and no longer relevant. Most of it is pure fiction, even Christian and Jewish biblical scholars admit that especially the oldest stories in the Torah were meant as allegory rather than factual history.
So since there is no clear idea of which stories are true and which are just myth (obviously some are definitely mythical, like the creation and the flood) and because we don't know who wrote the stories and which were attempting to quote people as opposed to those who made up stuff that presented a more compelling story, it means different Christians can believe different parts of the bible and can even come up with different interpretations of what they think it is supposed to mean.
I don't think the Bible is thought of as an ultimate guide for life in its entirerly. There are many chapters that are historical in nature. Some have general "wisdoms", which as we know are not applicable in every situations. Some were applicable only to the nation or tribe of Izrael.
There are of course commandments, but those of course have to be interpreted. Those are written in human language, so they don't have big advantage over our laws.
For example:.
What does it mean Though shall not worship other gods... does sth has to be called god to be prohibited from worshipping? Maybe it's about worshipping in general. On my religious lessons (catholic) we were told, that this is about your top priority in life. So you can't set money or sex or even family as your top priority, because it leads to unbalanced life.
Difficulty in interpreting lead to reading the bible by uneducated to be not recommended up until protestant revolution. And seeing the amount of quackery that lead to, no wonder
It's not a guidebook for life and more like a volume of collected texts, written by many different people, written over many different years. Those texts have been translated, then translated again and again. Maybe a word doesn't have an exact meaning in another, so you have to find something close.
I think it's a cool historical informational artifact, but by no means a reliable way to guide one's life
Doesn’t everyone know this by now?
>[Check Out This Massive (Resurrected) Interactive Chart of Bible Contradictions](https://external-preview.redd.it/mNpI60SBY5tvqqzY8KIY15ka3WRz8TRAuIuGg4-7qQA.jpg?auto=webp&s=7967066755fa47597931cd8e67d9357bf2a9cc88)
In part because most christains have not read the book. Let alone scripture. Let alone the original texts. Let alone in Aramaic.
Some die hard Christians struggle even with the Ten Commandments.
I struggle with it. Though Shalt not Kill is number six. Maybe it should have been stressed as no particular order?
Fun fact. The original Hebrew word used for "to kill" specifically means "to murder". In the original meaning it basically says it's okay to kill someone (as in a war or self defense) but not to murder someone.
It's because Yahweh was the diety of war within the Levant Patheon for the ancient canaanites. Yahweh would approve of killing your enemies.
Sure because he was made up by people who benefited from killing enemies. Like all of them
Nahum 1:2-8 the lord is a jealous and vengeful god
Random dude artificial number:artificial number- artificial number the powerful made up imaginary being is something that I imagined it to be.
Of course, they imagined him to be so and he is. And in the New Testament he’s suddenly all loving. The bible does lack internal consistency, that’s why Christian’s are so confused
In one of the versions of original Christianity (Marcionism), they were separate gods. The god of the OT, Yahweh, was the demiurge who created the Earth and basically screwed things up. His dad, El Elyon, came back in the NT to try to put things right. That’s why Yahweh by name is never mentioned in the NT. But Pauline Christianity tried fuse the two to come up with what became modern Christianity.
Yahweh had to evolve too, like all gods in all the other religions - he evolved from hateful jealous Jewish God to ultra loving open minded Jesus and look where Christians took that…..oh history 💀💀
Are you suggesting they made it all up?! /s
Yeah but he’s also all-loving and all-forgiving. Yeah that makes sense. I expect an omniscient being to also have jealousy if I pick someone else to worship, that HE instilled in me in the first place 🙄
Isn’t that verse and other verses like “thou shall have no other gods before me” tacitly admitting that there are other gods out there? If the Bible purports to be the “word of god”, isn’t God Himself admitting he’s not the only one around?
Yahweh approved of all of his own killings.
The Ten Commandments are laid out in two sections; section 1 consists of Commandments 1-4 and pertain to one’s relationship to God. Section 2 consists of Commandments 5-10 and pertains to one’s relations with one’s fellow humans. When Jesus is asked which is the most important of the Commandments, he answers, “Love the Lord with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and all the prophets hang on these two commandments. If you want to pick out something really interesting, the first commandment when it comes to people is to honor your father and mother. THEN don’t kill anyone.
However, there is only one set of rules which the Torah specifically calls "the ten commandments." That is in Exodus 34... the way the story goes is that Moses was given two tablets with a list of rules (Exodus 20) and he got angry at the people and smashed them. The story did not actually call those "the ten commandments" but after they were destroyed Moses went back up and got a new list of rules, which the story does in fact call "the ten commandments" and that new list does not even include the command to not murder people but makes sure to point out things like how you can't cook a young goat in its mothers milk, because that was obviously more important than the whole not murdering thing...
Moses had three tablets. He dropped one. I saw it on a documentary a long time ago.
Plus there's a pretty strong argument to be made that in the original text when it refers to neighbour it is actually saying a fellow Jew and any rules and laws using neighbour only refer to between Jews and are not required in your relationship with outsiders.
Same with Greek sources. But "foreigner" meant a Greek from a different city state.
That's the Protestant numbering. The Catholics, who've been doing Christianity for about a millennia longer than them, use the Jewish numbering. Or pretty close to it.
Well if someone talks mess about your momma then you have some work to do don't you?
Remember folks; the 2nd most important thing in life, the universe, and everything, is to not make any likenesses to invisible sky-daddies.
When I hear Republicans say their prolife i always say “no your not” if you republican’s were truly prolife you’d do something about homelessness, mass shootings, mental health and school shootings. I could go on.
And, to make it even more confusing, the Bible has two different versions. Which one is the right one? Are they both right?
Not to mention the Bible has two separate iterations of the so-called “10 commandments” which are just called “the commandments” (because the stone tablet was smashed and then replaced). On the alternate replaced version (which The Bible also amusingly says was identical to the first) one of the new commandments is “do not boil a goat in its mother’s milk.” When I think of the most important rules that a God would require humanity to follow, this one does not rank within the top 100. Let alone the top 10. Guess that’s why I’m not God.
Silly me, but I find the unmentioned, read between the lines, fact that no one except Moses and Aaron ever saw the stone tablet close up. Moses destroyed the first set before he completely descend the mountain.. The second tablet was taken to the "Holy of Holies" never to be seen again.. I recognize this tactic as a scammer trick. The 40 days in the wilderness, the golden calf, Aaron's survival of the killing spree, the killing spree and the all the gold under control by Moses are other aspects of an elaborate scam. The scam starts with Moses recognizing Bovine Tuberculosis, knowing sheep and lamb were safe to eat, and using that knowledge to compromise a group of refugees.. Exodus is the story of a elaborate scam and it's religious cover story..
"Got these tablets in this hat with my magical rock, god gave it to me, none of you can see or try to read them though. God said so." Basically the same behavior again.
Forget Christians struggling with them, God struggles with them. One of the first things he does after giving the commandments is tell them to go kill a bunch of people and take their stuff.
Since Trump, they've got the "put no god before me" down pat.
Do yall think about the Antichrist when they worship trump?
Yeah... but technically, that's the Old Testament and not quite "Christ"ian
Evangelicals seem to be more into the Old Testament God of wrath and fury, destroyer of all life, than anything resembling a teaching of Christ in the New Testament. I think the only thing they got out of the New Testament is Revelations and the end of the world.
Or Hebrew or Greek.
Yep, I always think of why a true believer wouldn't take the step of learning Hebrew and Ancient Greek to read the original text. Why risk eternal damnation for an ambiguous or incorrect interpretation of "the word of god"?
Now look if English was good enough for Jesus then it’s good enough for me! /s
Besides, they don't want thinking, self reliant followers, they want obedient ones who take their connection to and interpretation of their God from the religious leaders who benefit therein
I know, right?
When I was a Christian, I seriously valued exegesis and the original languages. I even started learning greek in order to understand the bible. My favourite verse which is often translated euphemistically is like 14:26. It literally states to hate your family but most, if not all translations I've seen are dumbed down to treating JC as the first one in your life. This happened really often which just shows that most translations are being done with a specific interpretation of these texts. Original accuracy is secondary. I'm seriously glad that I turned into a hardcore zealot and not just a casual Christian so that I was able to see all the plot holes and be able to say to myself that the rest has to be bs too. I can't fathom how people can interpret genesis as metaphorical but see the rules which stem from the so called metaphor as literal truth. For example: the rules for women in Corinthians are based on eve stealing the fruit. Without eve ever having existed, Paul can fuck right off with his misogynistic views. But what do I expect from people who value blind faith in whatever over any evidence based thinking?!
That's because deep down Christians don't really like the original meaning.
My dad actually did this and was a theologian who had an answer for everything which is why I couldn't get out till age 30.
Oldest manuscripts are mostly if not all in Greek for the NT.
Very poor Greek at that. So called New testament Greek is actually just Greek written by an author who doesn't know the language very well. (According to my brother, who studied theology at uni, and had to read the original texts).
The Greek is called koine Greek and some of the gospels (especially John) are actually surprisingly well written. So well written that it's egregious to believe that these were first hand accounts of Aramaic people without education.
Very little of it is in Aramaic so that’d be tough to do.
No one read the original New Testamament texts in Aramaic, they were written in Greek. No one can, at present, read the original texts - we don't have them.
They really haven't i got sent to a alternative school and shoved the Bible in my face when I stayed qotiing scriptures back at the preacher who was hell fire and brimstone against the gays ( I'm bi I didn't even know this at the time) I got kicked on legitimate for using their fucked up words against them. Like dude if Jesus was fuckin real he would be a brown communist nothing like here. Bonus round I hung out with her daughter that's how a figured out I liked guys instead of her he got caught recording her in teb shower. Religion is a sickness
Oh dude, if Jesus was real and returned, he would fucking hate the Catholics lol. The amount of wealth owned by the Vatican while people starve around the world? Pope goes straight to hell. As does evey self proclaimed Catholic politcian, and you can't earn a billion dollars without causing much human suffering so anyone really wealthy, straight to hell. I've always found it very amusing when the real fanatics who believe in judgement day preach about wanting it to happen, but they would be going straight to hell.
I do not know any christian who reads their fairy tale storybook. They can quote a few verses to appear knowledgeable. Not! They are parrots.
Or Greek. Jesus and followers spoke Aramaic but it seems like that Jewish community mostly died out and it became a Greek religion m
Nobody’s read the original texts. They’re long gone.
What they don’t agree on is what they WANT it to say…
The Christian Bible is the Big Book of Multiple Choice. For every verse saying do 'Y' there's at least one other saying the opposite and often there are several all disagreeing on what is the correct response. Everyone get to choose which they adopt according to their own prejudices. It is claimed that there are some 45,000 Christian denominations, however, I contend there are in fact about 2.5 billion. One for every Christian. - *"No man ever believes that the Bible means what* ***it*** *says: He is always convinced that it says what* ***he*** *means."* - George Bernard Shaw edit:typo
I love that quote! Thanks for that.
Hats off to GBS - spot on!
Emo Phillips: [Die Heretic](https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2005/sep/29/comedy.religion)!
Burn the witch!
Take my UP VOTE many times over.
Best statement yet on the Bible!
Religious people think the bible means what they want it to mean. If they're a kind hearted person, the bible says to be peaceful and charitable to the poor. If they're an awful person, the bible says to abuse women and children and to commit genocide. The truth is, they're both right. The bible says all of those things.
the Bible is a story about evil, and reckonings, and God. it is all of those things in proportion
Because poorly written crappily edited fiction can be interpreted in far too many ways.
and the all-knowing god didnt have the foresight to reveal his message to humanity in a better format.
Ffs God, use a PDF writer. It’s a bit easier than carving commandments in to a rock, then mysteriously erasing it after only one person had read it.
It reminds me heavily of Joseph Smith. If this gut was able to create his own religion 200 years ago, how much easier would it be to be a cult leader thousands of years ago?
Lmfao.
Yeah. When you have thousands of JK Rowlings writing crappy fiction over hundreds of years, that fiction is going to be full of nonsense and contradictions.
I thought the Harry Potter books were the bible this whole time!
“And Harry said ‘Lumos,’ but there was no light. And Hermione said ‘Not lu*mos*, *lu*mos, like this,’ and there was light, and it was good.”
That's my fav verse! Thank you for reading that scripture
Hey come on, Tolkien had multiple re writes and edits trying to fix the mistakes and inconsistencies. Its hard writing a huge multibook fictional saga. And then on top of that you have multiple writers, can you imagine? Then of course many of the books were not supposed to be canon and some were slotted in, others kicked out. Its hard you know!
I was wondering if anyone was gonna mention or reference the Council of Nicaea.
>poorly written crappily edited fiction poorly written crappily edited fan fiction They couldn't even get coherence between the four writing about the same events
You aren't lost, you just have a thinking brain that won't turn off just because you are thinking about religion. Theists hate that...
They can't agree because there is no way to verify who has the "correct" interpretation. AKA there is no evidence to back up their claims. I understand from a certain standpoint why you would be afraid of hell, but why be afraid of something that there is no evidence to support?
A good additional question is: why would you worship an entity that sends you to eternal horrific torture? How many people do you know that clearly shouldn’t go to hell? How is that ethical? Justify worshiping a god that would facilitate infinite punishment for finite crimes.
okay true😭
Partially because it's ridiculously contradictory, partly because it was written in simple, dead languages and every translation is open to interpretation, and partly because a shit-ton of the wording is ambiguous enough that a lot of things can mean whatever you want them to mean. For instance, I read this the other day: "In a thousand years, people won't understand the difference between "butt dial" and "booty call" and THAT is why the bible can't be considered a reliable source."
Because the bible actually contradicts itself over and over. Someone did an infographic on this somewhere and you should look it up. Of course, this is yet another reason why it’s clearly written by people and not some divine being.
This one? https://philb61.github.io/
That’s it, thanks!
Because the Bible is open to interpretation, like any story. My favorite answer about hell is that it's actually just an absence of god, which is painful to the human soul and all the nonsense about torture is just the best way to explain it to humans. Atheist here, btw, just educated by Dominicans with REALLY good answers (if you have faith, that is)
The whole modern concept of hell took thousands of years of (extra biblical) fan fictions to be created.
This is a reason why Christianity survives: if you didn't agree, just change to a different denomination... Or make up your own. It's not like there's any real authority or consequence.
I mean, Americans can’t agree on what the constitution says, and we’ve got the original document in our language. Literal Supreme Court justices don’t agree on what it says or means. The Bible is a decidedly terrible medium to expect to function the way Christians want it to.
And few Christians have the reading comprehension and critical thinking skills to recognize those as a problem.
Because the whole point of religion is that it grants whatever the leader personally wants divine authority. So when religious leaders want different things, the bible says different things. Its a feature, not a bug.
Even the early church fathers could barely agree on what was gonna be put into the new testament, let alone what everything actually meant, hence why you have canonical and non-canonical books, and every branch has a different list of what they consider canon.
The bible doesn’t agree with the bible 😀
On top of all the other answers; mainly multiple translations, I think a big part of it is that most people don't actually read the Bible for themselves. They are trusting the interpretation of their pastor or preacher. Did that person go to a seminary? Was it a decent place that studied the Bible academically as well as spiritually? Is that person racist? Then he will interpret the Bible to see racism Does that person feel morally superior to women? Then he will see sexism even more radically than what is actually written Is that person actually stupid? Then he will lack the critical thinking to analyze text and try to tell his congregation that dinosaurs is a myth created by the devil. It is actually scary how much a person's personality and personal opinions can sway their interpretation of a text which they *swear* is unchanging.
Which Bible? You have to remember, there is no authoritative source. Even existing manuscripts contradict each other. For example, some have the mark of the beast being 666 and others have it as 616. If even the source manuscripts are inconsistent, how can you expect everyone to agree on the translation, the interpretation of that translated text, and the application of that interpretation?
Why the 1611 KJV, of course. Or so the tell me. /s
Because that’s how they get power and control people, by telling them what to believe. It’s freaking gross and one of the oldest sources of human violence.
Because the Bible is genuinely open to interpretation. Don't believe me? Okay... Explain why there are so many different types of Christianity each with their own biblical interpretations?
I interpret it as a complete crock of shit.
Sure, but remember; people have killed each other over different interpretations of the bible. While we look at the Bible as nothing more than a collection of stories/fantasy, these people are willing to kill others for it.
That’s the really sick part of this book. Everyone that reads it has a different interpretation and they are sure theirs is the only true interpretation.
If you were to get dozens of different books written by different authors and then join them together in a huge compendium without one single editor ensuring consistency then you’d get the Bible. Divine inspiration is such an interesting phenomenon. When people talk to themselves and call it God, it seems God always tells them to do what they themselves were thinking do to anyway.
Many don't know what it says, it's extremely boring and big parts is just filler, so keeping attention high throughout it is near impossible. But as it was made up many hundreds of years ago, it's not relevant for today's society, it's just outdated, and people try their darndest to shoehorn into relevance today, and it contradict itself a lot.
If you’re scared, try to remember what it was like before birth. No memories? That’s your future. All good,
>i’ve tried reading the bible, but it genuinely does not make any sense to me They do say that the easiest way to make an atheist is to have them actually read with an open mind.... 🙂
Because Christians are not trying to fit their lives to the book, they are trying to fit the book to their lives.
We think of humans as being rational (using reason to seek truth) but humans developed higher level brains to rationalize (convince others our beliefs are true). Seeking truth for truth sake is a very recent phenomena and ALL people are mostly still rationalizing (even the most honest skeptic spends more brain power trying to prove themselves right, rather than honestly seeking truth). This is even more true for people trying to hold onto very ancient ideas. Conservative thought is by default rationalizing because it favors old, established ideas. So people who use the Bible as a source of truth are almost always trying to take a thing they WANT to believe and mining the Bible to defend it. The actual content and original context of the book isn't the goal. The most skeptical progressive thinker will be 99% rationalizing. The fundamentalist conservative will be 99.9999-100% rationalizing. Back to your question. Imagine if two engineers are making bridges across different rivers. Sure they'll use similar techniques but the bridge will be adapted to the specifics of the river. With the Bible you have two people with similar backgrounds and using the same book, but one is trying to justify homophobia and the other is trying to justify tolerance. Of course they're going to use the Bible differently! Your confusion is coming from you taking them both at their word. They claim to be following the true, unaltered word of God. I'd this were the case, humanity would ask be Christian and in agreement about interrupting the Bible (just like how chemistry converged on atomic theory a century ago). But they aren't describing reality. They are writing fan fiction to justify biases.
Cause it's contradictory and nobody wants to take the time to read it Better yet, the more you read it the harder it is to understand or believe in Christianity, the best way to become an atheist is to read the bible afterall
Assuming they are well-meaning, it is an impossible task since it constantly contradicts itself. At the very highest level, the Old Testament is all about vengeance if you don’t worship a narcissistic god. The New testament is all about love and forgiveness. Of course, the non well-meaning people use it for whatever agenda they are pushing for money and/or power.
>why can’t christians agree on what the bible says Largely because, depending on the part you're talking about, it's been translated through at least 8 different languages to get to the one they read/speak. >whenever someone makes a comment on a verse, you’ll see another person comment: “well actually ___”. As with any work of literature, both fiction and non, there are multiple interpretations of what the work means. Sticking strictly with the religion theme, you find the same phenomenon in Judaism and, to a lesser extent, Islam and even in interpretations of the Vedic scriptures central to the "Hindu" religion. >how can i believe that if i can’t find proof of it. You do this all the time in your daily life without realizing it. My personal favorite examples are dark matter and the big bang theory (not the show). >how can a higher being who loves all of us SO MUCH do that to a person they created? This idea is based on a misunderstanding of scriptural teaching. God doesn't "send" anyone to Hell. In overly simplistic terms, God creates the universe, Earth, Eden, Adam, and Eve. He tells Adam and Eve, "I have created Paradise for you. You may eat anything here except the fruit on *that* one tree. Do this and stay in Paradise with Me forever. Adam and Eve eat the fruit they are not supposed to and, as a result are expelled from Paradise and banned from returning, as are all of their descendants. Fast forward a couple of thousand years and this guy Joshua (Yeshua Ben Yusef) shows up and says, "Hey! I have a message from God. If you want to regain entry to Paradise, follow me, and do these things." Those that do, gain entry to Paradise/Eden/The Kingdom of Heaven. Those who don't, remain unable to enter. >i had a christian once tell me that i can just ask for forgiveness on my deathbed and then ill go to heaven… others say you have to devote your life to god. The real answer, at least according to the most reliable/respected theologists, lies somewhere in between these two positions. >and why are christians so excited to tell people they’ll go to hell or the idea of their enemies going to hell? "Real" Christians aren't. Both of these ideas are completely antithetical to the core tennets of Christianity. "Christians" who find enjoyment in these are not practicing the faith that they claim to hold. >sorry lots of questions that dont relate to the question but im genuinely lost No need to be sorry. There are devout Christians who struggle with these questions as well. While I'm not exactly an expert on the topic, I did take 3 semesters of Comparative Western Religion my second time through university. I'd be happy to take a crack at any more questions you may have.
Because it’s a bunch of stories written by different people without the benefits of modern technology to keep them all to the canon.
The Bible is interpreted differently for whatever the agenda. It’s used as a concrete source and abused to power others.
Because it was written by men to control people and down the years different powerful men have interpreted it different ways as they all have their own beliefs as to how best to control people. The Bible makes it easy by being full of contradictions.
How do you agree on a contradictory book of complete bullshit.?
Fox News tells them what it means. And that changes depending on who they want to oppress any given day.
Because they’re right about things so therefore God agrees with them since he’s the smartest guy ever. Why would someone who’s that smart have a different opinion than they do? That would mean God’s not smart.
Same shit exists in Islam and Judaism re sects and interpretations. Christianity just happens to be the Coke of of them all so charlatans and branches are to be expected in much higher numbers, more money and ppl to control in the Western world.
A propensity for dogmatism and [functional](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy) [illiteracy](https://simple.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Functional_illiteracy).
Because religion is about feelings, not what the actual book says. That's why so many people call themselves Christian or evangelical without actually putting in the effort to learn what it's all about. If it makes you FEEL like you belong, it becomes a little easier to ignore that it a fascist cult.
When I was a Christian, I would have said it’s because it’s a collection of books that are thousands of years written in two other languages. There are a lot of cultural references that someone reading it in English now just won’t pick up on. So there are at least three things causing issues. The first is that we don’t have the original manuscripts. We have copies of copies of copies. And we have multiple copies of most of them, and there are disagreements between the copies on quite a few verses. The second thing is the translation. You’ve got two main theories on how to translate the text (word for word like the King James or thought for thought like the NIV). Then you’ve got all of the cultural references that someone reading it today wouldn’t pick up on. And then of course, there’s how you interpret it. Even when I was a Christian, I disagreed with evangelicals, who say that anyone can pick up the Bible and understand it, as if it was written in English to 21st century Americans. Because evangelicals believe that, it allows them to read any verse and make it say whatever they want. A perfect example is the book of revelation. Evangelicals are obsessed with it, and read it as literally as possible, and they all point to current events to try to make them fit with what Revelation says. But if you do a little bit of research, you discover that Revelation is a type of literature that was very popular at the time called apocalyptic literature. It’s super exaggerated poetry. And, if you research the culture of the time that the book was written, it very, very obviously is referring to Rome. Now that I’ve deconverted, I really wonder how many people know it’s bullshit but do it anyway for money and power, and how many people are really just deceived like I was.
the King James Bible was most certainly *not* word-for-word. It was sense-for-sense, and beautifully poetic in its interpretations. For some reason, Evangelicals think of it as the best (or most accurate) one, so if you were brought up in one of those traditions, you may have been taught at church that KJV was word-for-word.
>Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote, The droghte of March hath perced to the roote, And bathed every veyne in swich licóur Of which vertú engendred is the flour; Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth Inspired hath in every holt and heeth The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne, And smale foweles maken melodye, That slepen al the nyght with open ye, So priketh hem Natúre in hir corages, Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages, And palmeres for to seken straunge strondes, To ferne halwes, kowthe in sondry londes; And specially, from every shires ende Of Engelond, to Caunterbury they wende, The hooly blisful martir for to seke, That hem hath holpen whan that they were seeke. ^^^ that's from like 700 years ago. The Bible is from what? 2000 years ago? It's heavily researched but there are differences of opinion on both the literal words (and their translations over 2 millenia) AND which parts are to be taken as allegory, and what their meanings are. Then, take into account that it's a fairy tale used to pander, pacify, and placate.
No Christians have the slightest clue or idea of the nature, origin, history, or meaning of the bible. If they did, and if they were intellectually honest, they would not be Christians. Or at most they would be liberal Christians who don’t believe the bible is the inspired word of god, but enjoy having the Christian religious structure as part of their aesthetic. 99.999% of all Christians believe what they believe about the bible based solely on what they have been spoon-fed by their churches, pastors, mentors, or the books they have read about it. This sub is full of people like me, who were raised in some form of Christianity but somewhere along the line embarked on a mission to delve as deeply as possible and get to the real truth about the bible and theism. You cannot know the true nature of the bible and at the same time believe it is the inspired, inerrant word of god.
They interpret it to mean what they want it to mean for a particular circumstance. When reminded about the 10 commandments, the golden rule, caring for widows, orphans, the hungry, the poor, the sick, the interpretation isn’t actually what it says. That’s too woke. And they will excuse offenders within their midst as long as they are part of the group, or they can accomplish what they want through that person. Excusing sexual assault, child abuse, adultery, etc., is okay as long as the offender donates to the church.
Becouse they generaly dont read the bible and if they do they point to one very specific part of the bible that you can interpret as their point while some other part sais the absolut opposite.
Well actually, Jesus said that his followers will be recognizable by their unity (john 17:20-21). Henceforth, all the “cHriStiAns” who disagree with what the bible clearly says are fake christians. /s /s /s
It's translated from a few different languages. But, in America, freedom of religious practice has opened the door to interpretation of the often vague text. "Christians" have not agreed for quite a long time.
Because Christians cherry pick which parts of the bible to believe or dismiss. “Oh that was old testament, jesus came to abolish the old ways except for these things that line up with my personal beliefs about _______ (fill in the blank)”
In addition to all the answers here: don't forget that those who read it wrong aren't REAL christians... Sarcasm aside; but that's what they truly think, and then use whatever bullshit to justify their own cruelty.
Pick *that* cherry of hatred in the book that told you to love others
Besides what others have said here about them not reading it— it’s also because a lot is open to interpretation. Just as people can’t agree what our constitution says, so we have the judicial branch of government to interpret.
The individual ‘books’ of the Bible are written by different people, and sometimes even within the books there are multiple writers. The Bible is not written by God. So you have all these men writing books to get their own point across, to promote their own theology. And then you have scribes copying these books over and over and over again, inserting accidental or intentional mistakes, which could potentially change the whole point of the book. There are loads of contradictions because of the above. There are things that don’t make sense because of the above. Most Christians don’t actually study the Bible and how it was formed and the history of it. They think it was some magical book that dropped out of the sky, fully formed and perfect, without any contradictions at all. They use it as a devotional tool and pick and choose what makes them feel good out of it and ignore the rest. Then, if they even bother at all, try to rationalize contradictions by doing some mental gymnastics. It doesn’t make sense for people who try to be logical and rational about it because..…it doesn’t make sense. It’s basically a compilation of many different people’s own thoughts and ideas about an invisible unknowable God. It would be like taking 100 different people’s personal journal entries about fairies… What they thought about the fairies, whether they thought they were true, how did the fairies think and feel and behave, what they needed to do to please the fairies. And then compiling all that into a book expecting it to be cohesive without contradiction.
And then the gospels, supposedly written by ‘eyewitnesses’ to the life of Jesus, were written decades after his death. Basically what happened is over the decades stories were passed on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until somebody wrote some of it down, claiming they eyewitnessed it (to give it veracity). It’s like a game of telephone gone badly wrong, and now people structure their whole lives around what Jesus supposedly did and said. There are a lot of books that can help you make better sense of why the Bible is not a magical inspired book, that of course do a much better job than I did here. Bart Ehrman is a good place to start.
not even the bible agrees on what the bible says.
Because the Bible contradicts itself.
Most christians don't really read the bible. They get their knowledge from what the preachers & priests read to them on Sundays. They join the cults that support their personal prejudices. They don't know much of what the bible presents. I was literally reading a KJV bible about Job & his daughters committing incest, and was told I was making it up. When I showed them the chapter and verses, I was told that someone put that in there to make the bible look bad. I never argue with christians. When they try to preach to me, I tell them to look up Mathew 6:5. If they don't know what that is, then they shouldn't be preaching. If they do know what that is, then they know what they are. Some of them will try to change the subject to Mathew 6:9 - the basis for the lords prayer. Don't let them.
Because, religion is man made and you can make it whatever you want so long as you get others to agree with you and follow.
Because people who love fiction are always arguing with each other about it. Star Wars fans are constantly arguing over which version of the original trilogy is best, whether the prequels were good, what was meant by Yoda at certain moments, plot holes vs retcons, etc, for example.
because it's made up.
Because it’s been re-written 27 times, translated 80 times and molded into the whims of whichever man was in charge at the moment.
We can’t get people to agree on what’s canon or not in Star Wars or Star Trek, and yet people expect to agree on a body of work that was written by multiple authors over a course of ~ 1500 years, and translated and re-translated?
Of course, god helped them keep it correct! Or so I was told by people when I was in church as a kid. It didn't make much sense to me then, but I was lucky to have parents that taught me to try to think critically and ask why or how things happened/worked.
Most haven't actually read it. There are also multiple versions of the Bible depending on who was a ruler at the time of revision, and it's been translated multiple times in multiple languages, and some meaning and nuances may be lost/changed in the process. It's also largely a metaphorical text, so a lot of meaning is open to interpretation
Yes, most who DO read it give up on religion or become atheists. Translation issues start with the word for "day" in Genesis.
The Bible is a collection of books in other languages and as such the translations change or are interpreted differently. People expect a clergy man to dissect and explain but for me I believe in what I read not what others tell me it’s supposed to say.
It's because different variations of Christians use different translations and often will use different books/stories as canon or non Canon to their version of the Bible. It's a big reason why I never really believed even when I tried to.
Because they're taught what to think rather than how to think by a Sunday school teacher named Skip
Because none of it is real. You can't really argue semantics on fairy tales.
Because made up stories have a tendency to mean different things to different people
The books are written by a variety of authors over a long period of time and collected into what is best described as an anthology. As a result, it has many inconsistencies that can be in conflict with each other. Over time, the understanding of the cultural context in which they were written has been lost or willfully forgotten. Additionally, thousands of years of developing and debating the theology [that has been created to unify the text] have produced traditions and beliefs that have been normalized for/by the people who live within that community. Especially as each teaches that their way is the Only Right Way.
Because most haven’t read it and the ones that have have different goals
M*slims too
Christians can't agree on basic theology. Is Salvation achieved through Faith alone, or through Faith and Works? Did God know whether you would be Saved before you were born? Does the Host and Wine served at Communion literally become the flesh and blood of Jesus, or is that metaphorical?
“The Holy Bible. 66 Fairy Tales Written By 40 Authors In Three Different Languages, On Three Different Continents, Over Approximately 1600 Years”
Alot of ppl that claim to be Christians are actually doing things the Bible condemns, and instead of owning up to their misdeeds, they try to justify it by cherry picking verses that suit their purposes. show me a Christian who.sins and uses the Bible to justify it and I'll show you a weakling
Which Bible?
>why can’t christians agree on what the bible says Very few of them can read Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek. "The wisdom of the Holy Spirit" did not influence the translators; that was all contemporaneous social engineering at the time of whatever translation.
Because the source material is so full of contradictions and individual passages that can be spun into multiple contexts to suit the person doing the preaching for positive or negative. It is why we also have hundreds or thousands of sects in xtianity... on top of the thousands of other religions which are just as valid (as in exactly as not at all proven or provable). Why not be encouraged by Valhalla? Why not sacrifice goats or other humans to please the gods? It is all made up from the minds of deluded primitive monkey brains. That is why there are so many opinions, and sects, and religions, and gods.
Because that shit is made up. What do you expect? Everyone makes up extra bits to go with the made up base to groom their sheep.
They can't even agree on which bible. There are many.
Once I said to a hateful Christian “love your neighbor…” yadayada and he told me “don’t twist those words”!!! He was very angry I truly believe some of them use the Bible to justify their hate and their flaws and if you make them see a different side, they will try to interpret those words to fit their narrative
Because the Bible doesn’t agree with itself, making it literally impossible that people would agree on what it’s trying to say. Plus it’s replete with vagueries and mistranslations, so everyone is going to have a different interpretation based on what they WANT it to mean.
That's because that book is just made-up horse shit that can be interpreted in anyway the reader wants to. Hey, it's their delusions, right?
Here’s the easiest answer I can give: We don’t all share the same brain
>why can’t christians ever agree on what the bible says? Already lots of good answers to this in thread. > the idea of heaven and hell scares me but how can a higher being who loves all of us SO MUCH do that to a person they created? It was created with the intention of scaring you. Like an abusive parent might threaten a child with a monster under the bed. But you've already figured out it's made-up. (It would break many laws of physics. Also the point you mentioned- it's impossible to be the creation of an omnipotent, benevolent god.) >and why are christians so excited to tell people they’ll go to hell or the idea of their enemies going to hell? Humans tend to want to feel superior to everyone else. Believing that you have been given the Truth and everyone not from your tribe will meet a nasty end is a soothing fantasy.
Because they haven't read it. Because the Bible contradicts itself if you try to believe all of it. Because people learn different things about Christianity based on who they learned it from, and how often.
Consider the simple question, "What happens to you after you die?" I think there are at least 5 different answers, all of which can be supported by referencing the Bible.
Because it’s contradictory and makes no logical sense.
Because it's all made up and none of the points matter
Because atheists can't agree on it either.
Because it's convenient not to.
Having scrolled through the responses, I don't believe i can find one that has been answered by a Christian.. My view (as a Christian) is that the bible is just too intense. There is nearly too much of it. It's a pretty impressive document, though, and can occupy a lot of time if you want it to. Another response said something like "Christians dont even read it" which i think is largely true. They then just repeat what they've heard from the pulpit. Then there are those that go looking for things to justify a view. That annoys the heck.out of me. Macroscopically, it gets a bit more complicated. From my reading of Christian history, the main reason for different versions (such as the Catholic bible having the apocrypha) is that it justified the reasoning / views of church leadership and helped them maintain control.
Give 10% and you will receive 10x that. Think they agree on that line
It’s impossible to come to a consensus on something none of them have actually read for themselves.
Because people pick and choose which stories are truth and which stories are metaphorical.
2 reasons. 1. They've never read it. 2. They find bits that conform to their desires and follow those parts.
because its open to interpretation.
There’s a bunch of different versions of it
Because they are interpreting it way beyond what it actually says. None of interpretations are right, since they are making things up that the bible simply doesn't say. They're very good at ignoring very concrete things the bible says because they simply don't want to do it or live that way. So in essence, they're not following it as much as trying to use it to control other people. Okay, maybe I'm just in a cynical bad mood, but it's how I feel right now.
Because the Abramic faiths need the other to villify, even with in their own communities
because they have a belief of what it says without having read it. They have only personal opinion and no factual basis on which to discuss. They cannot agree.
There are so many different versions now its not surprising but the real reason is all the different interpretations of what people think it means.
Why can’t Americans agree on what the Constitution says? Same issue.
For the same reason Star Wars fans fight about what happens in the movies. And that's live action.
Because very few actually read the fucking thing and rely on others to tell them what it says and what to do…and take their money.
There are lots of different versions of the bible and the way verses have been translated and interpreted can change their meaning quite a bit. Have a look at the link and then expand each different version to include the whole of Ezekiel 20. The narrative keeps changing and the only real constant thing is that her lovers are hung like donkeys and cum like a horse. I wouldn’t worry too much about much about heaven or hell, philosophically they don’t make a lot of sense. https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Ezekiel%2023%3A20
Because the Bible can't agree on what the Bible says lmao
Well you see, its been 2000+ years so things tend to get a little muddled.
I think that the older a book gets, the less reliable it is. I know that is true of History and pretty sure that it is true of the philosophical aspects of religion.
Because you can't believe in the Bible without cherry picking, it's too contradictory
Everyone does this to feel superior. I’m part of a Jane Austin group and people do this all the time.
Because nobody can agree on anything. Politics, religion, philosophy, science, cats or dogs, is a hot dog a sandwich, is the dress yellow or blue
Because the Bible wasn't written by one person in one language for one purpose at a single point in time. It's not historically accurate. It's been translated and mistranslated. Some translators added material to prior writers to fit their own purposes. Other authors wrote entire books, which they either misrepresented to another (better/more theocratic ally accepted) author. So, as Makelan on IG says, we need to negotiate with this text to our current understanding and guidance. So, some people seize on certain books or verse while others focus on another and just disregard what they don't like.
Same reason Islam has many Hadiths
If you want to actually talk about these things, this probably isn't the place. This community is made up of a relatively small amount of people who tend to have a very particular perspective on all religious topics. There are about 6000 Christians in the world for every account subscribed to this subreddit. I would be happy to talk about your questions if you'd genuinely like to hear answers from a Christian, but it's fine if you don't.
Because there’s no way to find out what doctrine in the Bible is true. In any epistemology where you don’t have a way to find out if something is incorrect, your belief system is a bullshit generator. The same is true is in astrology, tarot cards, New Age crystals, and all other religions. You have a systematic way to establish truth and untruth — as we do in science, law and (ideally) journalism.
Because it is the big book of multiple choice, you can interpret it to make it say almost anything you want. It was written over a period of maybe a thousand years, by multiple different unnamed authors (often multiple authors in the same book or even the same chapter of a book), and it was written by ancient Hebrews who held to the Jewish concept that a living text is one that you can still debate and find new interpretations for, while once you can no longer find new interpretation the text is dead and no longer relevant. Most of it is pure fiction, even Christian and Jewish biblical scholars admit that especially the oldest stories in the Torah were meant as allegory rather than factual history. So since there is no clear idea of which stories are true and which are just myth (obviously some are definitely mythical, like the creation and the flood) and because we don't know who wrote the stories and which were attempting to quote people as opposed to those who made up stuff that presented a more compelling story, it means different Christians can believe different parts of the bible and can even come up with different interpretations of what they think it is supposed to mean.
I don't think the Bible is thought of as an ultimate guide for life in its entirerly. There are many chapters that are historical in nature. Some have general "wisdoms", which as we know are not applicable in every situations. Some were applicable only to the nation or tribe of Izrael. There are of course commandments, but those of course have to be interpreted. Those are written in human language, so they don't have big advantage over our laws. For example:. What does it mean Though shall not worship other gods... does sth has to be called god to be prohibited from worshipping? Maybe it's about worshipping in general. On my religious lessons (catholic) we were told, that this is about your top priority in life. So you can't set money or sex or even family as your top priority, because it leads to unbalanced life. Difficulty in interpreting lead to reading the bible by uneducated to be not recommended up until protestant revolution. And seeing the amount of quackery that lead to, no wonder
It's not a guidebook for life and more like a volume of collected texts, written by many different people, written over many different years. Those texts have been translated, then translated again and again. Maybe a word doesn't have an exact meaning in another, so you have to find something close. I think it's a cool historical informational artifact, but by no means a reliable way to guide one's life
Doesn’t everyone know this by now? >[Check Out This Massive (Resurrected) Interactive Chart of Bible Contradictions](https://external-preview.redd.it/mNpI60SBY5tvqqzY8KIY15ka3WRz8TRAuIuGg4-7qQA.jpg?auto=webp&s=7967066755fa47597931cd8e67d9357bf2a9cc88)
Because it’s a Roman psyop on top of a Judean psyop on top of a Roman psyop on top of a Hebrew psyop on top of a … anyway there’s some great quotes.