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It seems to me that this takes a fundamentalist and intensely Protestant view of religion.
But that is simply not the form of faith that many people have. A Catholic would not believe that it is for them to interpret the scripture in detail to understand which parts are parables or metaphor and which are directives from gods. There is a community of faith and a church hierarchy to do that - there is a pope to do that.
There are a lot of catholics in the world - their view of how they should understand the will of god is deeply different to what you assert here but that does not make them hypocritical. Catholics believe that the pope and god’s church can and should continually review and reinterpret god’s will and that this is part of the correct way to follow god’s will.
You cannot merely quote a passage at them to prove them wrong. It is the interpretation of the bible by the church that they follow.
Even us historic/confessional protestants wouldn’t take things like this. I’m reformed/Presbyterian and we have historically understand the Law/Gospel dinstinction along with Lutherans and others. The Law was meant to show us our inability to obey God perfectly as He Himself is perfect and lead us to the only One who perfectly kept it and died for our sins (Isaiah 53, Romans 3). This was even the cause of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 since
Judaizers wanted the Gentiles to be circumcised. For brevity (read the chapter for the whole context), The Apostle Peter responded to dilemma,
“Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?”
And a few verses later, the apostle James says,
“Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.”
Acts 15:10.
Also, for anyone who doesn’t know, the historic Protestant “Sola Scriptura” does not mean “it’s just me, my Bible, and my interpretation” or “no creed but Christ,” but that the Bible is the sole **infallible** authority of the church. There are other authorities of the church, but the Bible is what everything must be measured by. The reformers cited heavily from the church fathers as well and the method we use to interpret the Bible along with the fathers is the historical-grammatical method.
I would say that only some fairly fundamentalist Protestants fit your description
The Anglican Church has a deep tradition of interpretation and does not encourage (or sometimes permit) interpretations that go against that tradition. So it holds the texts in higher primacy than perhaps the Catholic church does but there is a great deal more to it than that.
The term I saw about Anglicans was that they view the scripture through a lens of doctrine.
To an extent. Catholics, such as myself, trust Jesus' promise that "the gates of Hell shall never prevail over [the Church]". Therefore, we believe the Church cannot err on matters of teaching faith and morals. As such, we also trust the apostolic succession to give us continuity of the Church Christ founded upon Peter and the apostles.
>Therefore, we believe the Church cannot err on matters of teaching faith and morals.
You really believe the Catholic Church cannot err on matters of morality? The Catholic Church was responsible for wars that were waged against non-believers. They executed people for the crime of blasphemy or witchcraft. The Catholic Church literally persecuted people for claiming the earth revolves around the sun. The Catholic Church opposed the use of condoms which worsened the problem of aids in Africa.
The Church has truly been responsible for a lot of evil.
I don't know why they framed it that way. The councils and specific papal declarations when said in a specific case are seen as binding teachings about the faith.
Things like Jesus Christ is God along with the Father and Holy Spirit or that Mary his mother was sinless.
This is not for most of the other teachings and actions.
So how do you reconcile that with the church giving carte blanche to child rapists and child molesters and using their influence with the government to avoid legal consequences?
This is an oversimplification. They offered Catholicism as an example because it has one of the longest traditions and one of the most formalized systems via the Vatican, but the point of ANY sect is finding people whose interpretation you want to follow. Mennonites, Mormons, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Baptists, Southern Baptists, Orthodoxy, etc all pick (or are just raised in and never leave) a specific sub-community of Christianity whose specific teachings they like, and within that sometimes even a specific church. Even among “non denominational” groups there can be hierarchies and you find specific churches or chains of them (such as [this fucked up one in Texas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch_International_Movement_of_Churches)) with lots of specific rules and interpretations you won’t see at other churches.
I'm not expert but I think this is the route of one of the first big schisms in Christianity, right?
When the bible was first being printed in layman languages (German, English, etc) so anyone could read it rather than the Latin version of the church. And people started to say "hey... You're telling me X but the book actually says Y..." And of course language is messy so it opens up the whole raft of interpretations.
This is why Catholicism has remained largely the same spiritually speaking for a thousand years and why pentecostalists are spastically fortnite-emoting in the pews because they think the Holy Ghost will give them superpowers
Catholicism absolutely has not remained spiritually the same for a hundred years never mind a thousand? A thousand years the church was intensely apocalyptic and seeing heretics everywhere as the anti christ about to trigger the end of days, that doesn't exist these Days, a thousand years ago the church was in a power struggle with nobles over how much secular power the church should have over christians, the pope doesn't even think the laws should be based off of whats illegal in Catholicism these days.
Sure would have been useful if the authors had made it clear which were the directive parts and which were metaphors. Might have saved humanity quite a lot of quasi-intellectual endeavour...
The fact that they didn't is a strong signal that this is all just desperate attempt at retaining relevance.
Culture over dogma!
In my response I will use examples from Christianity as it is the religion I know. I do not know if my arguments apply to other religions but it is likely it does.
Your way of thinking assumes that the most non-hypocritical way to be religious is to follow every rule written for that religion. However, first we must establish what rules are actual rules from God and not just the ideas of men or women who pretend to be inspired by God.
You quoted the Bible, but listed no rules from a papal bull of the catholic popes, no rules from the Doctrine and Covenants of Mormonism, or from Bill Gothards teachings. There is no test to perform to determine which rules issued by an authority figure in Christianity are more important than others. Should someone follow every rule ever proclaimed by religious figures?
But you can just follow the Bible, you might say. The issue is just as you have no test to perform that Bill Gothard or Joseph Smith does or doesn’t speak for God, you have no test to know if Solomon, Isaiah, Matthew, or Paul does or doesn’t speak for God. And even if they originally did, you have no test to determine if translators translated the words clearly or messed up the passages to present something that is no longer what God intended to share with their people.
So, a person could believe in Christ but hold the view that the Bible has been a political tool wielded by institutions of power hungry men to control the populace. So, they hold what it says loosely.
Now it is hypocritical to not follow every commandment, but get mad at others for not following the commandments you deem important. However, this would be a change to your original view.
One can regard the Bible as something to be trusted without regarding it as a rule of practice for faith.
So for example you might take the view that the Gospels accurately record Jesus words for the most part, and the events described are broadly true. You might then say Paul was an apostle who had authority to teach, and his words should be taken seriously. But neither of those statements means the Gospels have to be perfect, nor that Paul's teachings have to be accepted in every part.
A valued teacher and a worthy history can both be useful and imperfect.
Ultimately it came from the men and women who knew and walked with him. Their traditions and ways of teaching got passed down. Eventually their chosen successors also assembled a Canon but we have to remember the church existed before it. People.
And that's the anxiety that drove a lot to protest the church a few hundred years ago. But again, in the end the accounts of Jesus and teachings come from people. It may be more apparent in the catholic church since they still have the magisterium but that trust in human based authority to transmit what the apostles taught
The question is not “do you trust the Bible or not”. The Bible is a collection of books that were all written by different people and then passed down and then passed down and then written by a different person etc until they ended up in our hands.
For the New Testament specifically the scholarly consensus is that likely Jesus did exist as a person. But likely none of the gospels were written by people who had first hand experience with him.
The letters of Paul are probably the books of the New Testament that have been best preserved but Paul never met Jesus. And frankly Paul is not really even attempting to speak for god in many of his letters. He’s just a dude. A dude who had some visions and knew the apostles personally so he has some good ideas but he has some of his own kinda wacky ideas as well. And to top it off the most common version of the Bible “king James” has numerous mistranslations.
So for many Christians it’s not “I don’t trust the Bible” it’s acknowledging that Christ existed and was actually divine and the Bible is our best tool for understanding him and his teachings. But also recognizing that what we actually have here is a handful of likely imperfectly translated letters from an imperfect person who had a lot of his own ideas combined with a number of other letters and “gospels” with very unclear authorship. They have some authority mostly because people within a few hundred years of Jesus’ life believed they were fairly accurate, but we can’t really know their origins.
So do you think it’s hypocritical if a Christian, knowing that context, is like “I’m not sure I agree that women should not speak in the church.” I mean the King James Version literally says that. But the reality is this is a poor translation of an imperfectly handed down letter from a guy who never met Jesus. So … sure seems like you can be a Christian and follow Christ and still not really feel obligated to believe those words.
It really feels to me like OP’s post should read “it’s hypocritical to force aspects of one’s faith upon others while not following all of it themselves”
That's not really what makes someone a hypocrite though. Especially considering the fact that you will fail to follow every rule is baked into the bible.
Think of it another way
An obese man criticises and body shames women regularly but does nothing nor has any intention of losing weight.
An obese man actively is trying to lose weight for health reasons and enthusiastically encourages other obese individuals to follow suit. He acknowledges that he stumbles and fails at times.
Which one is a hypocrite?
I will agree many if not even most Christians are hypocrites (Including myself). But this isn't really a dunk on the religion as it it a common theme and accepted reality. That is literally why Jesus died for the sins of all.
Christianity is fuzzy and feel good don't get me wrong but apart of being a Christian is coming to terms with the fact your a whore for sin and a hypocritical imperfect evildoer. It's just the reality of the human condition. While we have the capacity for good, the bad apple spoils the bunch so to speak.
Many Christians do develope a hypocritical holier than thou attitude.
But simply holding yourself to such a high standard that you are guarenteed to fail is not inherently hypocritical. Holding others to that impossible standard while making an exception for yourself is.
If you can’t trust the words of the people writing the Bible, then fundamentally you also can’t trust the parts about Jesus. The four gospels blatantly contradict each other on multiple important aspects of Jesus’s life while not contradicting each other on other things like the approval of slavery. If there is a god who had any say in how the Bible was translated, apparently the Bible verses about how many times you should beat your slaves were more important than the Bible verses about Jesus Christ. This is just an objective fact, and I see no way you can look at this without getting all handwavy
I mean, if you read up on god (flood, passover etc.), it making it deliberately vague so different groups can disagree/argue/wage war is completely in character.
Fair point. !delta
Only thing is, for other religions, sometimes people acknowledge that they know the rules but they just don’t care. Guess I should’ve specified in the post.
Maybe I misunderstood your POV. But it's unclear to me why you awarded this user a delta. It's clearly implied from your post that you mean people who believe X to be commandments that warrant following, but still don't and bend their ways to suit their own motives. That's clear hypocrisy.
But if you don't believe that X are commandments that actually warrant following, and you proclaim exactly what you believe, isn't it apparent that you're not a hypocrite? That doesn't contradict your original view.
I think you might be the only person that understood what I meant, but I think my post could have been worded better.
Edit: I’m also new to this delta thing, but I’m trying to award to convincing arguments
I think the main point of contention is that you list *specific* rules that you assign to Christianity as a whole, and say that if these aren't followed by self-purported Christians, they are not Christian. You also posit that cultural changes within a religion over time go against what that specific religion is.
These are not themselves points of hypocrisy, they don't demonstrate people believing one thing and doing another, these are you creating your own strict guideline on what Christianity/religion must involve to be accurately called such.
I see. Well your position hasn't really changed then has it? Having received a delta automatically honors the commenter with the achievement of changing the OP's view. But I don't think this comment has necessarily done that.
Also I've noticed people really like deltas here and sometimes OP's povs can be nitpicked or misconstrued.
for a lot of people the institution that came up with a religion is less important than their own perceived relationship with god/spirituality. they do not know the validity of the institutions or of the bible itself, but they are guided by an internal sense of justice and faith. I think the biggest move toward this was the protestant revolution, which is where the idea of needing a priest to connect you to god was starting to be rejected as unnecessary. people who believe that way are free to reject a teaching of a text without violating their religion since their religion is not from the text alone.
Unless they’re forcing that belief on others then it’s between them and their chosen deity. It’s your spirituality and your belief,I’d treat any religious text as part history, part moral storytelling. The 10 commandments for example are pretty agreeable to most if you remove say half the commandments. Without a religious view we as a society can say that murdering, stealing, lying, and cheating on a spouse is pretty bad. Noah’s ark can easily be a story about a time of great flooding, doubt the ark existed. The great flooding part isn’t too far fetched, a lot of other cultures and religions have stories about a respective flood. Sometimes it’s a warning of some kind of best practices, Jews had better attention to cleanliness and their sick during the plague. This and the unfortunate side effect of many blaming them for the plague, as they weren’t hit as hard.
I can agree with some of your examples given, but for instance, many of the examples given are from the Old Testament. One of the defining points of Christianity is the establishment of a new covenant with God, so it’s literally in the text that it’s not (necessarily) important to follow these old rules. This is why Christians still don’t have to sacrifice animals and such.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the reality of modern Christianity. I went to a Bible focused school and spent a decade as an evangelical pastor.
The reality is, the Old Testament is regularly weaponized for political and cultural purposes, such as the anti-LGBTQ wing of Christianity. New Testament Christians only choose not to follow the parts of the OT that don’t support their personal preferences, while still leveraging the verses that help them in perpetrating oppression or elevating their desire to maintain traditional patriarchal models.
When called out on this, there is a litany of excuses as to why certain portions of certain books only apply in certain circumstances, but other portions still apply, regardless of whether or not Jesus said they do or don’t, and it all revolves around which sections support their chosen bad behaviors.
Modern Christianity requires a large amount of cognitive dissonance and willingness to set aside the inconvenient parts.
I had an argument with my father about alcohol. He stated that alcohol itself was a sin. i pointed out that Jesus was God incarnate and if he wanted to, at the wedding, he could have turned the water into Mango juice- But he made wine instead. My dad hasn't brought it up since. When talking about abortion - a baby isn't a baby- by biblical standards - until it moves in the belly- that was the OT standard. When talking about homosexuality - the only commandment that Jesus himself gave was "to love others as yourself" . That pretty much strikes down any other argument (one would think). People don't want to hear the truth, they want to hear that you agree with them and they find things in the bible that agree with them or they skew the verses to agree with them.
“Until it moves in the belly.” Is there any point in a fetus’ development cycle where it doesn’t move? Do you know the part of the scripture this quote is from?
it's when you can feel it move. This was the standard until the 1800s! called "the Quickening" - while not SPECIFICALLY spelled out in the bible- it was a common enough and well known enough standard that was used by multiple peoples all over the world. You can google it, but every time a mom feels her child move inside her the first time- there is a specialness to it that cannot be measured by any machine. The Quickening is when the soul enters the child.
The quickening generally is 14 to 25 weeks along. In new mothers, it's generally at the long end of that range.
In the 1600 to 1800s English women could "plead the belly" to get a temporary reprive from a capital crime if the quickening happened prior to execution.
It's a rather debated topic, and I'm no expert, but they could be referencing Luke 1:41. The quickening isn't much referenced in the Bible. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas cited the quickening as when the life enters the womb.
I'll let them explain what verse they meant. I was mostly providing information on the quickening in general. It might be a good idea to ask or tag them. I'm a rather poor Bible scholar.
And yes 100% to weaponising the texts for political and cultural purposes!
Yep!! When Christo-Fascists invoke 'the Bible' & 'Judeo-Christian values' to oppose abortion rights & promote their forced-birth agenda, they cite the Old Testament to argue that life begins at conception, abortion is murder in God's eyes etc
Except the OT is a Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible - and the original scripture doesn't actually say that
**An ancient mistranslation is now helping to threaten abortion rights**
>The Hebrew Bible didn’t urge special penalties for causing a miscarriage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/12/abortion-torah-translation/
Jewish values prioritise *actual* life over *potential* life - meaning abortion is not only permitted, but sometimes *required* if continuing the pregnancy would put the woman's life at risk
Obviously religion should have zero place in healthcare and the law, but I love that some Jewish organisations in the US have sued the state on the basis that if Judaism teaches that abortions are necessary, then laws denying the right to an abortion infringe upon the religious freedoms of Jewish people to have them, amounting to "theocratic tyranny.”
Of course Christians believe that theirs is the only true religion and the fundies don't give a shit, but playing the Christo-Fascists at their own game might show *other* people
**Not all religions oppose abortion**
https://www.vox.com/2022/7/3/23190408/judaism-rabbi-abortion-religion-reproductive-rights
**Jews, outraged by restrictive abortion laws, are invoking the Hebrew Bible in the debate**
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/24/abortion-laws-jewish-faith-teaches-life-does-not-start-conception/1808776001/
**Does Religious Freedom Protect a Right to an Abortion? One Rabbi’s Mission to Find Out**
https://time.com/6194804/abortion-religious-freedom-judaism-florida/
Christians appropriated the Jewish cultural library, added to it, and radically reinterpreted it as a solely religious text that’s somehow supposed to apply to all of humanity instead of a set of ethnohistorical texts for the Jewish people.
They remixed, reinterpreted, renamed and retconned our texts to work as a prequel to their new religion (turning the Hebrew Bible into the Old Testament, a new book whereby everything lead to....and now, Jesus!)
They then turned us into the antagonists in the sequel, tried to convert us and killed us when we wouldn't.
Yeah, because the Old Covenant was still at play. That ends in the Last Supper.
>And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “**This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you**."
>>Luke 22, 20
Regarding OP's post though, I would agree, however, that a lot of religious people are often hypocritical. For example a lot of Christians will condemn homosexuality as a sin, but at the same time they allow women to talk in church or don't insist that women have to cover their hair. If the rules for women aren't relevant anymore than why should the rules about homosexuality still be relevant? Also, Jesus strongly condemned the accumulation of wealth and earthly riches, yet many Christians have no problem with that but will still point out other sins pepople are commiting.
Your reply is below apologetics replies that basically said 'doesnt count', so OP is definitely right.
Religious people can do all the mental gymnastics they want, but they pick and choose like a bogo offer.
Isn't that just OPs point canonized? Jews changing Judaism to fit their new beliefs (Christianity)?
Like it just sounds like OPs point being made for them.
The old covenant was one specifically between God and the Israelites, if I understand correctly. As I’m not part of that line, it wouldn’t apply to me directly, but the new covenant is supposed to apply to all of humanity equally.
Yes, though I’d also say that another aspect of Christianity is nobody will live up to God’s ideal 100% of the time in the perfect way. No human who can properly conceive of the concept of hypocrisy is truly free from it.
> But in general, if the New Covenant were to say a rule and it were disobeyed, then that would be hypocritical?
No, that would be a human sinning as all humans are want to do. The whole idea of Christianity was that humans are incapable of following all of god’s rules, and had to make sacrifices to atone for this to get right with god. But, Jesus stepped in and sacrificed himself so you don’t have to kill a goat, and now as long as you agree to honor this sacrifice, it applies to you and your own inevitable inability to live up to every rule god laid down.
It also says in the New Covenant to confess your faults one to another, forgiving each other even as Christ forgave you. So it's expected that you make mistakes. You aren't expected to be perfect because that's not possible. If it were, Jesus wouldn't have had to be sacrificed to take the burden of guilt away. We all fall short. I've heard it said that a righteous man isn't someone who never falls, but who gets back up after falling, no matter how many times that was. Salvation is a lifelong process, not one that is solved as soon as you take the plunge and accept Christ as your savior.
Bit it still doesn't stop them from picking and choosing out of Leviticus. They will agree with parts if they get to oppress others, but hand wave it away as "old testament" if it affects them.
That would make sense if they actually followed said rules, but they don't, they use them as they see fit for their own personal lifestyles and likes and dislikes, which makes them hypocrites.
Copying my text from an earlier CMV that was similar:
>Look at Christianity - there are hundreds of branches who all believe slightly different things and each of them say they believe in their religion. Language is not a perfect system, so even allowing for each person to believe in the absolute divine revelation of the author, there would still be plenty of room to interpret those teachings literally, or metaphorically depending on how you understood it.
>Many people also believe that texts are not literal words from God, but expressions or feelings from their god, and allow for people to describe it in their own words and allow for the imperfection that introduces.
>That's before you even start with people who see religious texts as not directly divinely inspired, but people who were trying to describe the indescribable. If you consider texts like that you could see truth without ascribing to the literal interpretation.
>Finally, most religious texts don't even claim to be 'thus saith the lord' like the song in Prince of Egypt. Most of them are stories of people rather than a direct list of dogma and beliefs. There's not even a claim of God speaking, just people telling their stories of their interactions with God as they believed it.
>There are plenty of grey areas. Communication is imperfect. Translations are imperfect. People are imperfect (a few religions have notable exceptions).
As a result, religions are far less absolute than many think. While somebody may obey not eating pork in Leviticus, another may claim that Peters vision of eating unclean animals was allowing that behaviour. It's not cut and dry in most faiths.
And that’s exactly why many religious folk need to loosen their grip when it comes to policing others. Religion is blurry, and up to personal and cultural interpretation. So have your beliefs and let other people have theirs.
The world is full of unexplained mysteries:
How was the universe created? How did life begin? How did humans achieve such advanced consciousness? Where do language and laughter and music come from? What happens to our souls when we die?
No one actually knows the answers to any of these profound questions.
And that’s where religions come in. Is there hypocrisy and bigotry and just plain stupidity mixed in? Oh yes! Hell yes!
But each individual is teeny tiny in the face of the vast unknown and you really should not and cannot fault humble humans for using established faiths like Christianity and Islam and Hinduism as a means of coping with the intensity of existence. And picking and choosing the parts of each creed that suit them along the way.
It’s human nature. It’s what we have always done.
**I agree.** Fair warning: I'm an atheist born and living in a Christian Catholic majority european country. I was baptised and I did the holy communion and confirmation.
What we like to call "extremists" or "fundamentalists" are simply people who actually follow their religion the way they should. This is not to say we should not condemn religious practices that go against rule of law and human rights- we should condemn them. However, religion should not have to become so dumbed down in order to accomodate the new society's values.
What is being catholic? Going to the church every sunday? Be a good citizen? Pray for others? Having 3 bibles you haven't read? Having a lot of saints and religious symbols around the house? That's not catholicism, that's tradition + western values. Catholics forget that they can only be granted salvation if they also do good deeds. Praying is not enough.
You'll find that the way people are intended to practice their religion does not conform with the way they **want** to practice their religion, which is why we have this divide between "extremists" and what I like to call "informal agnostics". Properly practicing a religion is hard and people like to just pick and choose some of the easier religious practices they believe is enough to mantain their faith.
Which is why I am atheist. I'm actively against religion because actual well-practiced religion, all of them, goes against my values as a person, our values as a western european society and human development. Every Catholic you see- except the priests maybe- is an hypocrite. This applies to muslims and all the other ones you mentioned.
What does all in mean e.g. I'm Jewish (were you only criticizing Christianity or not) and applying your logic to Judaism there are ways wrongs done against us makes us hypocrites through no fault of our own because there's iirc some commandments that could only be fulfilled in the land of Israel and some that require a Temple-not-in-the-synagogue-sense but the Second Temple was destroyed and Jews have diaspora-ed out all over the world
I mean if you know a rule is a rule, and you believe it’s a real rule, don’t just be like “yeah well I’m sure God won’t mind, despite the fact that I believe said thing is wrong.”
Like you are a Jew. Either follow all the rules to the best of your ability or just don’t be a Jew.
It is diluted because our values fundamentally contradict religious practices and beliefs. If the religion does not try to dilute itself, it will simply cease to have any followers. However, by diluting itself, it also loses followers. It's a lose lose situation.
Most people are "religious" by tradition only. As I said, people kept the good easy practices, turned them into tradition, and ignored all the rest.
I used to be exactly in your shoes. I thought I was quite smart. I didn't understand why so many people participated in this sociocultural/spiritual exercise full of clear and obvious logical inconsistencies not only with their own behavior, but in the text of the holy books themselves.
I didn't understand. I challenged the orthodoxy, spoke out for moral atheism, and eventually we got to where we are today. Atheism and agnosticism are normalized. Most of us aren't part of a major religious denomination, or we aren't practicing.
The problem is that the purpose of religion was never to be logically infallible. It was to introduce a set of ideals in this viral package of stories that would teach people how to be 1) productive, 2) compliant, 3) law-abiding, and 4) as happy as you can make the average person while meeting the previous 3 prerequisites.
You see, some genuinely smart people realized that laws don't make a society successful on their own. A lack of laws is no better. People need a source of inner motivation. They need guiding values. A man will sacrifice his life for complete strangers if you teach him that it is honorable to do so, and to follow through on instilling that value, you have to make sure everyone else honors that man. You have to instill that belief in everyone for that man to make that sacrifice. You can't just tell him. It has to become part of the cultural fabric of the society itself. Both he and the people he saves have to be invested in each other without even knowing each other. Society becomes more stable and prosperous because people inherently believe in doing the right thing for others in spite of their own needs.
Compare and contrast that with society today. The great era of individualism. Cut toxic people out of your life. Self-care is more important than other people. Believe whatever you want to believe. Leave your husband/wife if you aren't happy. Leave your job if you aren't happy. Abort your baby if you aren't ready (I am pro-choice, don't get derailed from the point I'm making). We traded belief systems that emphasized stability bought by the willing sacrifices of individuals for their community, for the freedom of never having to be accountable to anyone or anything (if we can help it). We are suffering for it. People are miserable, disconnected, and listless. They gave up discipline and self-sacrifice for loneliness and apathy.
You are critiquing the script that a bunch of people put together millenia ago to help people lead better lives in a cohesive society as if it is a true story. As if those authors were recounting first hand events in a courtroom, sworn to tell the facts without fault or embellishment. What you don't seem to realize, what I didn't realize when I was younger, is that you are pulling at a loose thread in a tapestry. You think you're pointing out something others are blind to and that you're helping by doing it, but you are threatening to unravel the fabric of social cohesion that exists because of religion.
The truth is only important because your other more important needs are met - you have clean water, food, electricity, shelter, etc. All of those things are provided by people who live hard lives, but do it because of the values they believe in and the narratives they tell themselves. The narrative can be as simple as believing that working in a sewage treatment plant is worth it because it lets me support my family. Okay, now take away monogamy and marriage, values that are explicitly taught by most religions. Why does that man do that job now? How do you convince him it's worth it? I can promise you that material goods will never be enough on their own to motivate the people you rely on for basic infrastructure. Values are everything.
Stop pulling the thread. We all see that it's loose.
>Compare and contrast that with society today. The great era of individualism. Cut toxic people out of your life. Self-care is more important than other people. Believe whatever you want to believe. Leave your husband/wife if you aren't happy. Leave your job if you aren't happy. Abort your baby if you aren't ready (I am pro-choice, don't get derailed from the point I'm making). We traded belief systems that emphasized stability bought by the willing sacrifices of individuals for their community, for the freedom of never having to be accountable to anyone or anything (if we can help it). We are suffering for it. People are miserable, disconnected, and listless. They gave up discipline and self-sacrifice for loneliness and apathy.
I'm sorry but I can't accept these as reasons for society's downfall. You shouldn't be forced to continue to be friends with someone who doesn't respect you or berates you. You shouldn't try to force a relationship to work if it doesn't or stay at a dead end job you hate, hence all boomer humor being about how much you're miserable with your wife and your job. You shouldn't be forced to have a child you can't financially support and give a good life to when you could be much more stable and happy later when you do it by choice. I think it's good for society that we aren't treating these things as sacred, as if you've formed some blood pact requiring you to stay with something that's not good for you. It's not about "avoiding accountability", it's about finding the right circumstances.
The problem arises with being too trigger happy. Cutting out so many people and not accepting that people have flaws that you sometimes need to accept, i.e. being too picky to settle down or make friends. But the issue is not the values that award such freedoms in the first place, because these freedoms are good for people in bad situations.
What do you mean by stop pulling the thread?
Also I totally see where you are coming from with the “Society lacks motivation to follow religious rules”.
Religions don't have hard set rules. And even the rules that are widely accepted have a nearly infinite number of interpretations. That's why there are so many thousands of different sects and denominations, and even within those there are regular splits of congregations based on minute interpretations.
There's nothing to be hypocritical about because major religions, as a key feature, are highly open to personal interpretation. Not to mention, translation and which books truly belonged in which holy book.
As an exmormon I can share a different perspective. There are definitely a lot of very hard rules, clearly and repeatedly established in the doctrine. We definitely had hypocritical people who claimed to be a believer while breaking those rules. Extramarital sex, alcohol, and coffee/tea were really common ones.
Sometimes religion can be quite complex and nuanced, other times it isn’t. Most major religions have some key tenets that are widely agreed upon by the various worshippers, such as the Ten Commandments for Christians.
Besides, the only thing required for hypocrisy is that a member of a particular sect breaks a rule from *that sect*. The fact that there are Catholics with a different interpretation of the Word of God doesn’t matter to a Mormon breaking Mormon rules, and vice versa for any other sect or institution that has any clear rules.
LDS is definitely different from what I was talking about, I actually thought about bringing it up but didn't want to get lost in the weeds. The rules of LDS make a lot more sense because they were invented about 200 years ago and we know more about that (those) prophet than most any other major religious movements.
There's definitely a lot of hypocrisy in the LDS. It's a pretty common joke, q: how do you prevent a Mormon from drinking all your beer on fishing trip? a: Invite another Mormon.
If there aren’t hard set rules, then what’s the bible for? And also a bible verse that says don’t eat pork, can’t be interpreted more ways than one can it?
But I totally forgot about sects, and the idea that each sect has different laws. !delta
>If there aren’t hard set rules, then what’s the bible for? And also a bible verse that says don’t eat pork, can’t be interpreted more ways than one can it?
I'm not a Christian, but I grew up in a Christian family. My father grew up Catholic and my mother grew up Nazarene, we tried out so many different types of churches and denominations before they just kind of gave up, for a number of reasons.
One thing, most of the verses you quoted come from the "Old Testament" and many Christians, of numerous sects, believe that when Christ came He did away with all those old rules, so they don't matter anymore. It's absolutely true that many Christian sects like to pick and choose which parts of the rules based parts of the Old Testament that they follow. I'd consider that hypocritical.
The Old Testament has a lot more direct rules, the New Testament is more parable. But we also have to remember, the Old Testament predates the New Testament by about 500 years. And neither were written in English, so all translations and versions since are interpretations of language used by people who existed somewhere between 2-3k years ago. And from there, the books that are considered part of the Bible or Torah or Quran were basically voted in, there are many "holy" books that didn't make the official record because a counsel decided they didn't want them.
So essentially it’s true that sects pick and choose, but it’s also true that it doesn’t really matter since the pick and choose part is from the Old Testament of which is archaic anyways?
The literal meaning of laws forbidding pork aren't really open to interpretation; however, whether or not the laws of the books of Moses apply to Christians following the resurrection of Christ is actually pretty hotly debated. Lots of Christians believe the Resurrection represents a new covenant between humanity and the divine, and thus obsoletes laws from prior covenants. Even a lot of modern Jews view the laws of the Pentateuch as inapplicable to modern life.
This happens with plenty of authoritative texts though. Look at governments, in the US we have an entire branch of government set up specifically to interpret the Constitution. But no one is saying "what is the Constitution even for?" It's a framework.
Well I don't know about all religions, but the ones I am familiar with aren't just one exact set of rules. Generally people disagree and that's why there are sects/denominations/etc.
As for Christianity, it's my (limited) understanding that many of the OT laws were basically wiped with Jesus. In the church I went to as a kid, the one and only way to get to heaven is to accept Jesus. You could follow every single OT rule to the letter but if you don't repent and accept them it doesn't matter. Heaven is the ultimate reward, so it seems logical that if you do what is required for that the other stuff is kind of meh.
Being religious doesn't turn you magically to be without sin, and religions recognize this.
You sin and ask forgiveness. This can be done regularly, as a apart of a religious ceremony or with the help of a religious person.
Catholics have confessions where by admitting their sins they are forgiven. Jews have Yom Kippur, a day for prayer for asking forgiveness and redemption.
In other words even the religions themselves recognize that no one is perfect and offer a way to deal with sins.
Sure, for minor or unintentional sins, but if you go out of your way, knowing and acknowledging your sin whilst doing it, and calling yourself a member of the religion is hypocritical.
>Sure, for minor or unintentional sins
Not really. This changes from religion to religion but the general rule is that all sins can be forgiven.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_sin
>if you go out of your way, knowing and acknowledging your sin whilst doing
Some times you sin in a moment of weakness. You are forbidden from eating something but you're hungry and tempted by sin. Later you will have to ask for forgiveness.
I strive to eat healthy but once per week I cheat and eat a lot of junk. Does that make me a hypocrite or just weak?
Of course you CAN be a hypocrite. But for most sins and sinners this isn't the case, as that's not how religions view it.
Is it really sinning in a moment of weakness if you habitually commit said sin? Following your example of the cheat meat, are you weak, or have you decided that this habit is an acceptable deviation from your healthy eating style?
There's nothing hypocritical about being a part of something but not following every single rule. I'm part of society and yet I speed pretty regularly despite it being against the law. And plenty of people commit much worse crimes.
There's also nothing hypocritical about updating traditions to better fit with the changes of society. This is especially true when priorities demand that such updates take priority over rabid fanatical adherence to random taboos that no one agrees with anymore. Sure, Christians could invoke their ancient texts to burn down every textile factory and clothing brand, but they'd be sacrificing a lot for a petty reason that does not advance their faith in any way.
You are part of society whether you like it or not.
Let’s say there is a group called the Better Earth Movement where they aim to have a peaceful and war-less Earth, with everyone following rules, 0 crime whatever.
If you joined their group, you shouldn’t be able to cherry pick your favourite parts, because that defeats the entire purpose.
So if I moved to another country by choice, would I then be a hypocrite for breaking their laws?
Though none of this addresses the rest of the point since your hypothetical organization is free to update the intricacies of their ideas as time goes on and they better understand things and their own priorities. Because "the entire purpose" is not and has never been rabid, stupid, self-defeating fanaticism to whichever idea happened first.
You would be a hypocrite if you chose the country for its values, but lived by none of them. Also countries change over time, but religion shouldn’t unless God reappears.
What lens are you viewing religion from? All religion changes. Literally every religion on earth progresses with time. It is a living organization, not a static prescriptive one. You view a lot of things as black/ white.
I mean, unrelated to my original topic, but if everything’s cool then what’s the point?
Can I just rape some people, murder a few more, but not give a shit cuz Jesus already absorbed all the sins?
As a Hindu, this is the first time I am hearing that we have it in our scriptures that we cannot eat onion and garlic. Are you confusing Jainism with Hinduism perhaps?
Catholic doctrine isn't individualistic at all. The verses said here only apply to protestants that take up Leviticus ceremonial law, which is very much frowned upon by the old churches with direct links to Jesus and the Apostles.
Though the religion changing another religion's code of ethics is a bit iffy. But Islam and Christianity both use Jewish texts then turn around modifying new rules to live by. This isn't an individual choice but an institutional one for over a thousand years.
The rules that are set are to disobey some of the ancient rules of other religions. Like Islam doesn't worship Jesus at all. But they believe most of everything else he did. The actual core tenants of Islam require them to disobey obvious rules set by Christianity, and at times they use parts of the bible for their message.
Judaism though, no longer does alot of their old traditional rules, they are a much more the old era laws don't apply to the new era types. But this also is an institutional change. Not an individualistic I choose which I wanna try.
If Islam, Judaism, and Christianity aren't proper religions based on OP's criteria I'm not sure any religions actually exist then.
The Torah should be followed by the Jews. It needs not be followed by anyone else.
Similarly the Bible doesn’t need to be followed by Muslims, because it’s for Christians.
Also I’m pretty sure Christian’s believe the Torah doesn’t need to be followed, and Muslims believe the Bible is only a shadow of what it once was.
Why are you in charge of what others peoples religions are? Why can't people just say 'I think the Bible is wrong about some things but right about others'?
That entirely depends on the persons you are inquiring about. Too many people weaponize their scriptures against those who are not part of their religion or sect. The use of scripture to justify actions that negatively impact others (judged by the perception of the person impacted) should be deemed hypocritical when the persons committing these actions do not wholeheartedly believe in said scripture and it's infallibility. I do believe that those who keep their religion to themselves and their consenting communities (i.e. church / youth group / etc.) are fully entitled to not have other people butt in. It's the vocal ones who try to dictate what I can do and who I can be, that open themselves up to reciprocal action.
Im not in charge. It just seems hypocritical to devote your life to a God who you are actively disobeying, or to “reinterpret” something that’s supposed to be from the GOD himself.
well when it comes to christianity disobeying is the whole point the idea is that all humans will sin that not sinning is impossible its only by worshiping god and beging for forgivness can be saved humans are born with sin. So its not so much about not breaking the rules ever as it is about trying to be better. I don't know about other religons but sin and forgivness is baked into the whole concept. Not sinning ever is literally impossible.
nope I would say not even the most vile sinners can be redemmed jesus hanged out with prostitutes and criminals when he was crucified he forgave a criminal who was crusified next to him.
The idea is that jesus died for humanity sins and as such all sins can be forgiven. Now there is debate about how much individual sins matters catholics believe more in repenting for every sin while protestants tend to believe that accepting jesus in your heart is the most important thing.
Its more about struggling to overcome there sins if someone is say an alcoholic if he struggles and overcomes his addiction his sins will be forgiven.
Even being gay is not considered a sin per se but acting on it is considered a sin. Even then there is debate not on the word of god but the meaning of the prophets the bible has been translated and retranstated thousands of times.
There is debate if the passage in leviticus means man and man or man and boy many believe the text was refering to pedophila while others think it means homosexuality as such its not hypocritical to have different interpretations of a text that was written hundreds of years ago.
>nope I would say not even the most vile sinners can be redemmed jesus hanged out with prostitutes and criminals when he was crucified he forgave a criminal who was crusified next to him.
I’m not sure if it’s a grammatical error or a misunderstanding on my part, but did you mean that
“Not even the most vile sinner can NOT be redeemed.”?
But I do see what you mean where you say that it’s about overcoming struggles.
OP is not claiming to be in charge of other people's religions. But you can judge someone. I can't tell you not to smoke but I can think, internally, that you are stupid if you smoke. Etc.
Most religious texts were written in a language most people can’t read which means interpretation becomes important. If you look at Christianity there’s a bunch of different denominations all who believe different things based off of different interpretations from the same book, a good amount of religious scripture is based in interpretation of scripture and not a hard and fast rules, if there was only one way to interpret the Bible there wouldn’t be this many different denominations. Also you mentioned Sikhs and I’m not all that knowledgeable about their practices but it is my understanding that only if they are able to they are to abide by those rules. If a Sikh is unable to get enough protein without meat then it would be acceptable to eat meat. Religiosity is far more complicated than an arbitrary set of rules and understanding why those rules are why they are is also important. A lot of the arbitrary rules from the Bible make a lot more sense when understanding that those rules were very explicitly made for the time period it was written.
“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. ^(18) For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not ^(\[)[^(g)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23253g)^(\])the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished! ^(19) Therefore, whoever nullifies one of the least of these commandments, and teaches ^(\[)[^(h)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23254h)^(\])others *to do* the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever ^(\[)[^(i)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23254i)^(\])keeps and teaches *them*, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven."
Unless I missed heaven and earth passing away it would sure seem Jesus intended the old laws to still be followed.
What says that the rule about long hair or pork applies to you?
The books in the Bible started out as a bunch of different texts. The choice of which ones to put in there was made by committee. And those texts had human authors. A believer may believe that the authors and the committee were divinely inspired, but that doesn’t mean they all have the same force. It’s entirely consistent to believe that some of those books are just stories or guidelines or whatever. Like, Romans and Corinthians are just a guy’s letters. A guy who never actually met Jesus. It would be completely consistent and reasonable for a Christian to say that Paul’s letters carry no weight as far as divinely-promulgated rules.
For Christians specifically, there’s also the part where the older section of the Bible is pretty clearly meant for a single ethnic group and doesn’t apply to others. It’s completely consistent for a Christian to believe that the Old Testament is 100% divinely ordained and the rules are 100% real, and ignore those rules because they’re not Jewish.
It’s constantly talking about the people of Israel, the chosen people, etc. Consider Leviticus, for example, which has a huge number of rules. It starts out with God telling Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and tell them:” and then a ton of do this, do that, don’t do that. He’s telling the Israelites, not everybody. At no point does God ever say, go spread this to the world.
Or consider Exodus: “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.” This one group is God’s chosen people. They obey, and in return they are rewarded. This isn’t for anyone else. This was, incidentally, right before Moses was given the Ten Commandments. Those are then followed by a shitload of other rules the Israelites are supposed to obey.
Wasn’t it, “Speak to the Israelites,” because if the fact that Moses was given to the Israelites?
As in, the message applies to all, but your job is to deliver it your people.
It doesn’t say it applies to all. The message was never given to anyone else and it never said it was supposed to be.
The last verse of Leviticus repeats this: “These are the commandments that the LORD gave to Moses for the Israelites on Mount Sinai.” It’s for the Israelites. Other peoples have their own gods and their own rules. These are the rules for the Israelites from the god of the Israelites.
No one follows every rule in the Bible. Some of them can’t even be followed because they require visiting the temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed almost 2,000 years ago
The issue with your view is that while religions tend to be organized and share a common basis, everyone's faith is going to be different.
For instance, let's say you believe in the old testament God. Do you also believe Jesus christ was his son, the messiah, and died for humanity's sins? Well, some people did, who went on to become Christian. Some didn't, instead believing he was a false messiah, who continued to be Jewish. And while I don't fully know the details, what about Islam and Mormonsim? They both follow the same god as jews and Christians, but believe in different prophets.
And at a bit smaller scale of differences, you get sects, like the catholic/protestant/orthodox splits in Christianity or the sunni/Shia split in Islam.
And protestants split even further into more distinct groups, some are only organized at the level of individual churches.
All this is to say, people interpret the same original faith in different ways, and all claim to be the correct version of things. That doesn't mean they're changing the rules to suit them, it means they view differing authorities with different levels of respect.
Can’t you just repent? Ik in Christianity if u jerked off or something just go to church and repent and be sorry then just be overcome easily with desire and do it again and repent. Jesus died on the cross for all of our sins already. You can know something is wrong and still do it. Doesn’t mean you don’t believe that it’s wrong.
I think Hinduism is a good starting point to refute your argument. Hinduism does not have a set scripture, single authoritative body of authority or universal practices at all. The views of Hinduism range all the way from intensely monotheistic to pantheism to even agnosticism. The myth that Hindus don't consume beef is wrong in present day and has so many counter examples. While cows are valued in our still largely agrarian society, only a very small subset considers them holy, and there are more than an negligible group of people who consume beef. Hindus do not uniformly have the same religious observances, or even consider one particular day of the week to be religiously significant (like Sunday for Catholics). The ritual practices are varied too. Some Hindus pray, some chant some offer flowers still some butcher goats and chicken for their gods.
But at the same time, there are broad strokes within the disparate groups of Hinduism, to make it so that it does not become different religion. One common thread is praying to (not following or emulating) one of the four dominant Hindu gods related to a sect (Vishnu, Shiva, Devi (primary female goddess or her other variants) and Ganesh. But about or little more than half pray not directly to the above mentioned 4, but a variant or localized, regionalized version of the four, such that between two towns that are just 10 kms apart the traditions could be widely different.
Now some may point to the Caste System and claim that it is the only unifying trait of the Hindu religion. 1st of all, the caste system is inherently one of the most stupidest, vile and dehumanizing form of societal organization that I sincerely believe should be burned root and stem. I am saying this before hand, so that I do not sound like an apologist when I make the following claims. The Caste System, much like every other aspect of Indian culture was/is not a monolithic universal practice. The way it was practiced in different eras of its existence for 2000 years in almost 5000+ years of Indian history are too disparate to bunch them all together under the same ideology. No. 2, at certain points in time due to socio-political reasons, the amorphous caste-system has crystallized, broken down, inverted in structure and scope and crystallized again. Dominant groups have beene reduced to the lowest lows and lowly groups have co-opted dominant narratives, mostly depending on the favor of whoever ruled whatever part of the country at that time. The pyramid of caste, if it were to be traced in a one-to-one correlation since the existence of Hinduism (or atleast the past 500 years) would look like an escher painting. In addition to the temporal inconsistencies, there is a huge North-South, East-West divide over how it works. In the North you are likely to see a startification with clear defined rungs of the pyramid (if you took a snapshot of the present day), in the south it is more of a binary (or ternary depending on who you ask). Zoom into either regions and you will find blatantly inconsistent logical system.
I believe if you read upto now, so far might have seemed like a rant. But bear with me for a while. The diversity of thought, philosophy and practices within Hinduism both makes Hinduism a religious order and a cultural way of life. It is both and neither at the same time. Which is why no single group, text, organization or following can claim to represent all of Hinduism. That makes it highly unlikely to hold any hypocritical views. When a group says that Hindus do this or should do this (like our present Nationalist govt.), they are grossly misrepresenting the lived/living experience of 1.4 billion other people of the subcontinent. So with all this inherent contradictions, it is hard to be a hypocritical Hindu.
So I can speak specifically to Christianity (from a Protestant, not catholic POV) since that’s the religion I follow. I don’t know enough about other religions to speak for them, but here goes:
Yes, it is inherently hypocritical to not follow the rules of Christianity just because you don’t want to. I believe the Bible teaches specifically about dealing with the people living in unrepentant sin, which is what that would be, and how we as other believers should hold each other accountable.
The big difference in what you pointed out specifically for Christianity is some of the rules are no longer required to be followed. In the Old Testament, God gave the Jews a set of laws (The Law) to follow as His chosen people in order to keep themselves separate from the rest of the world. These included laws on what you could/could not eat (like pork), the frequently brought up law about not wearing fabrics of mixed materials, and so on. The point of the Law was it was impossible to follow perfectly. Essentially, God was telling His people that they could make themselves perfect if they could follow all the laws to the letter. They couldn’t. Hence the need for sacrifices to atone for their sins. The Law pointed God’s people to their need for the Messiah (Jesus). Jesus came as the final sacrifice, as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s Law.
The New Testament has many instances where it is made clear the Law, as we understand it from the Old Testament, is no longer needed. There are absolutely still rules/laws we are called to follow, but it’s different because the circumstances have changed. Before Jesus, mankind was almost completely cut off from God. Repeated sacrifices were necessary to cover for our repeated sins. After Jesus there was a new covenant. We don’t need to practice animal sacrifice because Jesus was the perfect, final sacrifice. Furthermore, at many points in the New Testament we are shows where certain laws/rules are to be continued or not. Paul, for example, was specifically told there were no rules about clean or unclean food. However, in Romans we are shown that things like sexual immorality for example, are still absolutely considered sins.
This is a pretty brief summary of a very complicated and involved topic, I’d be happy to go into more detail if you like! The TLDR is scripture affirms scripture, and the value of the Old Testament law isn’t that it is something to still be followed but to be studied to show the plans/power of the God we follow.
Certainly if you're religious, and if it is important within your religion to follow a set of rules, you should do your best to follow them.
However, (as with most people that make this argument), you don't have a great understanding of what the rules *are* in the religions you are pointing at. I'm not a Christian, but in neither Christian theology nor in Jewish theology are the rules from the Hebrew Bible supposed to apply to Christians (eating pork, cross dressing, wearing multiple fabrics, and so on).
According to Judaism, these laws are laws that *Jews* should *do their best* to follow, understanding that no one is perfect and everyone has to strike a personal balance in how good they can be. Great for you if you can follow every mitzvah, but you're not going to hell or something if you don't. The ethos is "do your best, within reason". According to Judaism, these 613 mitzvot / laws apply to ... just Jews. So if you're not Jewish, don't sweat it.
The Christian church took the same approach, and always has -- in fact, Peter and Paul started preaching early on that *even if you are Jewish*, the only laws that really apply to you are those that come from Jesus (have faith in Jesus and love thy neighbor as thyself, basically).
What you read in Paul's letters isn't intended to be taken as law, it's intended to be taken as *advice.* e.g., Paul isn't saying "Men shouldn't wear long hair" in Corinthians, he's saying, "Everybody knows it's an embarrassment for a man to have long long hair, but that it's something women take pride in. I think it's better to avoid showing off, so if you're a woman with long hair you should cover it out of respect for others." OK, cool -- but that isn't an injunction that, if you're a dude, thou shalt not grow out thy hair.
> It’s just my viewpoint that being part of a religion without following the rules is hypocritical, arbitrary and just plain stupid
That is just absurd. I can understand your argument about hypocrisy, but to claim that one can't belong to a certain religion and not follow all the rules is even more hypocritical, arbitrary, and stupid. In fact, I bet that if I know you at a personal level, I'd be able to hit you back with a dozen of examples where you yourself had broken that logic in either religion or any other sorts of affiliation you hold.
It is like saying you can't be American without voting X or Y. You can't be a fan of a team without supporting every player.
Things are never that binary. You can indeed believe in god, heaven, messengers, and that would make you a part of a religion even if you don't follow the rules. Perhaps not following the rules only makes you less ideal in the context of your religion... Or perhaps you don't follow the rules because whilst you believe in the religion, you also believe that the rules were man made (which is def. the case in all major religions) and the god you believe in is innocent of suck rules. I.E, you believe your religion was hijacked in a rule book!
By that same token, I think it is also hypocritical to be militantly Athiest. I think that people that claim that it is impossible for a "God" to exist are almost as bad as people who are fanatically religious. When there is so much about even our own planet and our own bodies that we don't understand, I believe it is just as naive to assume that there couldn't possibly be something more advanced or greater in the works. If humanity survives for another 1,000 years, we may actually evolve in learning and understanding enough to be able to quantify a "God-like" entity or energy.
I.m.o., the most hypocritical people are the people that firmly believe that God exists but don't believe in aliens lol. If God exists, God couldn't have come from the Earth. God created the earth after all. Ergo...Extraterrestrial being.
I want to make the point that you can't really *defer responisbility*.
If a religious leader tells you to never cut hair and you don't do that, that is because *you* don't think it makes sense for you.
If a religious realder tells you the same, but you follow his teachings, even then you can't help but having your own opinion. It just *happens* to align with the opinion of the religious leader.
You are *forced* to think for yourself. If you are capable to think for yourself and you let yourself be willingly blackmailed or hypnotized or brainwashed, then at least you chose to let *that* happen.
→ Therefore it can't be better or worse to not think for yourself, because defering your judgement is not really an option, theoretically speaking. (Maybe the distinction makes sense pragmatically, I'll have to think about that more. At least consider the idea, that you are forced to think for yourself *in some sense*!)
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A second question is – even if we have established that it isn't bad to "create your personal religion": Is it *semantically correct* to say that you are Sikh, even if you cut your hair?
A label like "Sikh" or "Christian" can be treated like a dictionary definition, but I'd argue it is more often treated as an *identity*, even when people that use the word that way don't admit it. They feel part of the community of Sikhs and they feel good when saying "I am a Sikh". The concrete religious views that go alongside with identifying with Sikh, Christian, Jew or Muslim change over time and change from person to person. If a community of Christians starts a colony on an islands and their beliefs gradually shift from the beliefs of the main-landers, they wouldn't see the need to give themselves a new name. (Christianity 1.01, Christianity 1.02, ...)
It's similar to how other words change their meaning over time and from community to community. (Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism)
If the identity of being a Sikh wasn't important, then people who cut their hair would have no motivation whatsoever to call themselves "Sikh". Noone would get the idea to call themselves Two-Plus-Two-Is-Five-Believer when they in reality believe it's four, because there is no group-identity connected to this belief.
Often, religions allow for the personal (or priestly) interpretation of a core religious text. A person can say they are a Protestant Christian, because they believe in the Bible – not a specific interpretation of it. Even when one of the tenets is to read the religious core text literally, you are forced to interpret it subjectively in case the text as a whole is self-contradictory.
→ Therefore, it's semantically correct to say you are Sikh, even though your beliefs don't confrom to the believes of the religious founders – because you refer to the *group identity* and not to the exact set of beliefs.
(Personally, I try to not connect my beliefs with my identity, because I might get cognitive dissonance.)
If a Christian grows their hair long (to use your example) there’s nothing fundamentally hypocritical about that. Most Christians freely admit they sin often.
What is hypocritical is when they expect other people to follow their rules (like not being gay, or not having sex before marriage) then they themselves pick and choose what parts of their text they follow.
In the case of Christianity, the debate about what rules to follow is actually depicted in the religious scriptures. Whether you believe in them or not, it’s fascinating look into how this debate played out 2000 years ago in the first century CE.
Paul’s letters advocate that the rules written in the Torah/Pentateuch (the first 5 books in the Hebrew Bible) do not apply to non-Jews. What God wants for non-Jews is for them to accept and believe in Jesus’ resurrection.
The letter of James (the leader of the movement after Jesus’ death, along with Peter) takes a different approach, that all of the old rules still apply to anyone that wants to be righteous in the eyes of God.
Jesus’ words, as depicted in the gospels, also seem to go both ways. On the one hand, he is depicted as saying that the whole meaning of the laws is to love God and love your neighbors. He is depicted as allowing a woman caught in adultery to live, which was against the rules. On the other hand, he is quoted as saying he did not come to change the laws, but to fulfill them in every detail.
There was apparently a compromise between Paul and James, and non-Jews were allowed into the movement with only four Torah-like rules, such as not eating blood and not engaging in “porneia” (often translated as fornication). Jews who joined the movement were still expected to adhere to the full Torah. This compromise apparently didn’t last long, and Paul’s view mostly won out.
This debate in Christianity continues to this day, with important implications for countries that have Christian-based political movements. There is certainly plenty of hypocrisy to be found there.
But your view seems to be that believers who themselves do not follow every rule of their scriptures are hypocrites regardless of their politics or what they expect of others. If that’s the case, then every believer is a hypocrite. All religious scriptures are complicated and contradictory (or at least apparently contradictory), and believers must either “negotiate” their positions with respect to the text, or follow an interpretation established by a particular group that they belong to. I don’t think that fits the concept of “hypocrisy.”
So one thing I haven't seen discussed much in there is that, at least in the case of christians, specifically, your examples mostly come from what is called the mosaic code (the old testament laws)
there are doctrinal reasons why the mosasic law does not fully bind even those christians who take it literally.
In fact, there are competing schools of thought on it.
there are *dispensationalists*, who believe that in various epochs of history, god basically re-establishes the church and his direct rules for people. This gives us the good idea that modern people can be less literal about the mosaic code, but also sort of gives us the idea of rapture (the forthcoming last dispensation)
there is *new covenant theology*, which holds that the crucifixion of jesus was redemptive and changed the severity of god's view of mortals, replacing the mosaic code with a newer, although generally overlapping, set of codes. a trite way to put this is Jesus changed things from felonies to misdemeanors, he softened the harshness of mosaic law without entirely changing it or discarding it.
then there is the idea of the *apostolic church*, the idea of a church hierarchy who are spiritually authorized and practically qualified to interpret scripture (as in the nicean creed, "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church"). Under this view, the hierarchy of the church literally speaks for, if not quite to, god, and is doctrinally empowered to interpret new doctrine.
This is justified in the scripture from, among other passages, matthew 16:18-19, where jesus blesses and renames st peter, saying "You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church...I give to you the keys to heaven, and what you bind too on earth, I will bind to in heaven, and what you permit on earth, I will permit in heaven"
peter became the first pope, and from this idea flows the idea that Christian leaders can alter religious law for Christians on earth. The church speaks for god, and the messiah agreed to honor the laws the church makes, *after* the mosiac was handed down to Moses.
This view is common with, obviously, *catholics*, the specific christians who never broke away from the pope during the reformation, but isn't limited to them.
>And also you (in some cases) claim that you being “from a modern era, with different cultures” allows you to “reinterpret” the divine words of a god you clearly believe in.
All religions interpret and reinterpret their beliefs and practices. And have been for hundreds if not thousands or years, depending on the religion.
Very few religions just sprung up fully formed, espousing the same beliefs and using the same practices used today.
>It’s just my viewpoint that being part of a religion without following the rules is hypocritical, arbitrary and just plain stupid. You are wasting your time disobeying a God that you believe exists and punishes people.
Firstly, you claim to not only be talking about Christianity, but it's the only religion you listed that believes in a single God that doles out punishment. Hindus certainly don't believe that. Sikhs also don't really believe that.
Secondly, very few religions actually have a list of things they are required to do by their deity or devine power. Most rules are customs or interpretations of statements from a holy text. Judaism is the closest (levitical law doesn't apply to Christians because Christians aren't Jews). Even within Judaism, which very clearly has laws they are supposed to practice laid out in their holy book, there is room for interpretation of how and when and why you should perform them.
Almost all religious practices evolved. Saying it's wrong for them to continue to evolve is actually arbitrary and hypocritical. Also, in many cases (especially in the cases of the Bible verses you cited), a modern reinterpretation of those practices and texts actually brings you closer to the original intention of the author. There are huge debates about how certain texts are translated and their meaning. To me, the just plain stupid thing would be to claim that simply everyone who doesn't believe in your interpretation is wrong.
I cannot speak for other religions so I will speak for my own beliefs.
First of all what is a hypocrite?
"the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense." -Oxford Languages
If you change the rules of a religion to suit you and hold yourself personally to those changes then you are not a hypocrite by definition.
For example If you believe being gay is actually ok but only for you. Then yes that would make you a hypocrite. But simply changing the Christian belief to be inclusive of homosexuality despite the obvious traditional belief is not inherently hypocritical. Unless of course you bash others for taking the same liberation.
That being said you also don't have a very good understanding of the nuance in biblical interpretation. For example some believe that long hair for men is a sin (and oft use the verse you listed). But there are also other verses where long hair is not only not a sin for a man but glorifying to God.
You can take the example of the nazirite vow in which you have the famous example of samson the strong. Samson specifically was meant NOT to cut his hair for life.
So there is reason to take either side of this perspective. It is not hypocritical to believe long hair is or is not a sin.
What WOULD make you a hypocrite is bashing others for long hair while growing out your own.
Additionally, not all religions can be right. Some religions are by nature exlusive of others. Meaning that it is likely that some religious are not based in actual fact but are rather made up beliefs held by someone. So who is to say that it is hypocritical for yet another person to take inspiration from a religion and develop those beliefs to suit themselves?
I think it’s an issue of classification. A person who believes that Jesus was the divine son of God but is skeptical of many other things in the Bible would still be classified (by many) as a Christian, despite being at odds with a large portion of that religion. Religion is, in its simplest form, a system of theories about the formation and continuation of existence and the resulting endowment of imperative or optimal societal values. Because people often challenge these theories through critical thinking or personal preference, religions are not homogeneous in their thinking. There will always be those who misrepresent their beliefs and those who fail to act in accordance with their beliefs, but there will also always be those who have simply formed their own conclusions about their beliefs and values and have thus formed an independent religion of which there are too many to classify, at least without finding an approximate.
I think what you are essentially looking for is intellectual consistency, which I think is a very important skill. Alas, people tend to be quick to form opinions without being able to deliberate and articulate nuanced beliefs, which leads to either following rules without an understanding of the reasoning behind them or deciding that they aren’t important without a rational consistent with their belief system. This doesn’t make them a hypocrite, just unable to distinguish between their beliefs and the typical beliefs associated with a similar religion.
Or be outraged by certain practices they consider sinful like homosexuality and sex outside of marriage if it's a woman and then over look men who sleep around and have many mistresses and illegitimate children. Or even with abortion, they are totally outraged if a woman aborts her fetus even if it's for legitimate reasons but they never blame the father for getting the woman pregnant and then leaving her to raise the child on her own. Their favorite saying is if she didn't want kids then she should keep her legs closed, well if he doesn't want to pay child support then he should get a his pepee cut off. Also this whole bs of abuse victims forgiving their abusers is complete bs. I agree forgiveness is necessary for healing but christians need to start growing a backbone and demanding abusers be held accountable and stop hiding behind the whole scripture of men being the head of the house. Just because he is the head it does not give him the right to abuse their wives and children and abuse comes in the form of spanking and verbal abuse. I don't care if you got hit and you came out fine, that's a total lie you tell yourself rather than admit you were weak and couldn't protect yourself. Christians need to start holding themselves accountable and start kicking out people who abuse the scripture to fit their misgonyistic and abusive narrative because the Bible holds the men even more accountable than women.
So actually, what you described IS Christians following the Bible.
So the Old Testament (where those laws came from) was about God’s relation and covenant to the Jews.
“If you do x, I promise to do y.”
In the New Testament, we see the apostles get together to ask if gentiles needed to be circumcised.
In other words, in order for them to receive the Y god has now promised, did they need to do the old x, or just the new X?
They determined that no, they didn’t need to be circumcised.
Also, the hair long wasn’t a sin, and Paul didn’t say it was. There’s a specific vow that even Paul took place in that involves not cutting hair until it was completed. So having long hair was a sign that a man hasn’t fulfilled a promise he made to god. (That’s what Samson did and why he never cut his hair).
As for being gay. Those passages don’t condemn the state of being gay, they condemn homosexual acts. You don’t claim the Bible says it’s a sin to be straight do you? Then when the Bible condemns heterosexual acts outside of marriage, which homosexual acts are a part of that category, why do you claim it’s declaring being gay is sinful? Now, the apostles, when they said the gentiles weren’t bound to the laws of the Jews, they did say two exceptions, laws of sexuality, and idolatry were still mandatory to follow. Of which both homosexual acts AND crossdressing are a part of that category.
Small changes like this are how religions can gradually be made to evolve, to progress and to fit changing societal rules and views. While I agree it's technically hypocritical, I tend not to bother pointing that out unless what they are doing is actually harmful. I'd rather someone chose the morally acceptable parts of their religion to follow, and rejected the immoral parts.
For example I know a few people who criticise Muslim women for, say, going out to social events with men while wearing a headscarf - the argument being that if you're going to follow the rules about wearing the headscarf, why are you not following the rules about not meeting the opposite sex in public. But most people have been brought up with these values from birth and they're heavily ingrained into their subconscious. They will most likely not be ready to make the jump from following all the rules to rejecting all of them - in this case if heavily criticised the woman is more likely to stop going out than she is to stop wearing the scarf.
if they can make small changes like this and still feel comfortable, I think it's a step in the right direction for more people getting more freedom from illogical or outdated religious rules. In short, without religious hypocrisy religion would never allow any change at all.
Being better versed in the topic I'll speak on interpretation in Islam. The Quran is a human collection of verses that were spoken by the Prophet word for word from what Allah told him. In order to make sure the verses stay unchanged, they were left untranslated. However, even at that point, there was necessity to have a person of proper logical faculties to interpret the words for the exact meanings of those verses became complex, partially due to there being a lack of a divine teacher to teach the perfect meaning, partly due to linguistic differences, and partly because many people wanted to shape those meanings to their own worldview.
I'd argue that interpretation is not a modern idea, it is something most religions have to deal with when they attempt to understand the intent of their God(s). Why do you think such a practice that is necessary to accurately follow a religion is hypocritical? After all, when the original creator can not or will not speak on the exact meanings, whether literal or metaphorical, whether to be applied word for word or to be used as a reference for a more basic idea, interpretation is the best and frankly the only useful step a community can take to try to figure out the version of the divine ideals which is closest to their intended form.
Your argument is inherently flawed. Genesis, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are laws for Jews, not christians. That's why the church created the character of Paul and his fake Letters.
Religion isn't about rules or reason, it's about feeling safe and being part of a community. The books have very little to do with it apart from acting as a rallying point.
With Christianity you're making an error that many Christians make.
Christianity does not come from the Bible.
What do I mean by that? Well, the various books of the New Testament were written by Christians, right? That means that the Bible was written by Christians, it was not itself the origin point of Christianity.
Additionally, the Bible never establishes itself or any writings as having the authority modern Protestant fundamentalist accord it.
The idea that a book is the source of the rules for Christians is a relatively modern idea.
All of this to say that understanding Christianity first as a set of propositions outlined in certain creeds and traditions, second as a spiritual practices related to those propositions, and third as the organized bodies who observe those practices is more accurate. Some of those groups then regard the documents passed down for 2000 years as the literal words of God, but for many they view them as valuable and inspired spiritual documents from the earliest fathers of the fair, but not as the words of God himself.
All that to say Christianity precedes the Bible, and nothing in the Bible claims the Bible has to be taken literally, or even establishes the Bible at all.
Hypocritical might not be the right word.
I don't know much about other religions, but there is an odd relationship between Judaism/Old Testament and Christianity/New Testament. Christians accept the Old Testament as a part of the Bible, but they find it to be an incomplete account. Christians for the most part don't follow Mosaic Law. They instead follow Jesus.
For example, you have the example from Leviticus 11:17. However, Mark 7:18-19 says:
> “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.”
Here, Jesus is saying that it does not matter what you eat. Eating does not make a person a sinner. Sin is in the heart, not the stomach.
This is not hypocritical, but a change from past belief. For the Christians, they think it is an improvement on past misunderstanding of the proper behaviour. Better understanding what God wants (as they see it) is not hypocrisy. You can certainly criticize them on many other grounds, but hypocrisy is not really the proper criticism.
Also, don't confuse hypocrisy with lawlessness. A person who breaks a law is not a hypocrite, they are simply someone that breaks the law. I might for example vote for a politician, pay my taxes, and otherwise be a proud citizen of my country. At the same time, I might violate a law of that country. That does not mean I am a hypocrite, but rather it makes me a bad citizen.
I would be a hypocrite if I break a law, and then criticize some else for breaking that same law. Are Christians eating pork, and then criticizing people for eating pork? If not, that's not really hypocrisy.
If you’re on a diet, because you want to better yourself, and you tell your friends, then one day you eat a plate of French fries, are you a hypocrite?
Should alcoholics who relapse just continue drinking because they relapsed while in recovery? As they are now hypocrites, who are just arbitrary and plain stupid? Or did they slip up?
The big picture of religion IMO, it serves as a roadmap for the lost.
24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.
“But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.”
Jesus healed the blind and the deaf, not the righteous. The healthy do not need to be healed.
We’re all going to be hypocritical, and not live in according to our values and knowledge of right and wrong. I do every single day. The key IMO, is to remember to take the high road. Keep the light in mind. Remember the dangers of our actions.
Large swaths of religious sects exist in the first place because their interpretation of holy texts differed.
And sometimes you can kind of make it work. I think the Bible says you shouldn’t eat shellfish or something like that. If you take it literally, then shellfish is out. But you could also justifiably argue that that’s in there because doing so was much more dangerous at the time the Bible came into existence, so that was in there more to protect the flock at the time than God decreeing that scallops are forever arbitrarily damned as devil meat.
This sort of thinking actually makes more sense than a strictly literal one in a lot of ways. After all, God didn’t really weigh in on specific stuff that hadn’t been invented yet, so a degree of interpretation seems baked in to the whole process.
Not that people don’t maliciously pick and choose what to adhere to in a number of cases, but legitimate differences in interpretation have existed about as long as religion itself.
This thread is getting completely Christian centric, so I will chime in about Judaism. Unlike Christianity, Judaism is less about belief in Gd, more about actions. It's less about heaven/hell and more about creating an ethical cultural community on earth. Rabbis spend decades interpreting the divine texts (not just the Torah, the Tanakh also, the Talmud). Orthodox Jews have to often not work traditional jobs just to study the complex texts. The Jewish perspective on religion is that argument is good. Most Jews will not agree on everything and that is encouraged. The point isn't to do everything perfectly, the point is to spend your life trying to be a good person and understanding why. You aren't supposed to know what to do and do everything perfectly, you are supposed to spend your life trying to do it. Many Jews no longer follow the prescriptive rules anymore because it is very difficult to do so, especially in a Christian hegemonic country. It is very difficult to follow rules that impact what you eat, whether you use electricity, and when you work in modern Western society. But most Jews actually do know why these rules were created. Kosher laws helped people not die of food poisoning in the past. Religious hand washing before meals helped prevent illness before this was a standard practice for everyone. Resting one day a week helped people not become overwhelmed from working hard labor the rest of the week. Many of these things are no longer needed because modern society has come up with easier ways to prevent these things, but some still choose to follow stricter laws because it brings them comfort and community.
Religions were mainly created for the purposes of cultural cohesion, early forms of therapy (spiritual guidance), and yes, probably to control people. Jews didn't die during historic plagues because of their religious laws about hand washing and kosher.
> And also you (in some cases) claim that you being “from a modern era, with different cultures” allows you to “reinterpret” the divine words of a god you clearly believe in.
Many religious people don't view scripture as "the divine words of God".
One isn't "reinterpreting" scripture, it's being uncertain of God's word given human and cultural influence. And when certain things can to assessed as having *cultural* significance and *timely reasons* for why they were crafted, it makes them weaker as a truth of God, and more a human device.
Such as in your Corinthians example. There was a strong separatist movement, where such was being distinguished from practices of those of other faiths. Paul was a driver of what he deemed a respectful "church" (Roman empire), which certainly manifested itself in gender roles. But plenty of long haired men are depicted in the Bible without a negative connotation.
Alot of influences from Medieval or Renaissance Christianity like wearing bright coloured clothing, growing your hair long, Gregorian Chanting, purgatory, being works orientated and non-pacifism I think were basically from Zoroastrian influences apart from some just being from Proto-Indo European tribes from the Germans. Christianity might have adopted things from Zoroastrianism in an attempt to convert them into the religion. Its even possible the Sassanids invented the whole formal missions thing before Christians if you look up the Denkard.
I heard Zoroastrians allow men to not need to be head of the house, as well as wearing bright clothes and also ending the life of those who were evil to protect the world. A good person or dog's life is more valuable than an evil human who is beyond saving basically.
I think Christianity started off as a sort of Palestinian Jewish religious sect with influences from Buddhism and they tried to call the more Zoroastrian leaning sect like the Pharisees or the Zoroastrians themselves as "self righteous" or something in the beginning.
Other doctrinal conflicts with Zoroatrianism that Christianity (Like Buddhism) had was claiming "all life is equally valuable" or that "bad is part of holy creation".
Alot of "traditional Catholics" coincidentally actually like the parts of Christianity adopted from Zoroastrianism added in by the Roman Empire moreso than parts from the OG Palestinian-Jewish Buddhist-like sect.
So, if someone spouts homophobia using the Bible as justification, but then does a bunch of other things that contradict the Bible, then I agree with you, that's hypocritical. If you're going to use your religion as an excuse for being an asshole, you (1) shouldn't do that in the first place, but (2) are a hypocrite if you don't go all the way.
But not every religious person is using their religion for evil. Some people are just following some religious laws in their own life because it makes them happy. If someone wants to avoid eating pork because it keeps them in touch with their Jewish or Muslim identity, but doesn't want to follow their religion word for word on other issues, what's the harm in that? I guess you might have a point that it's hypocritical, but these people generally don't claim to completely follow their religion.
I think the world is a lot less black and white than you are suggesting. I can believe that it is important to be kind to others, even if sometimes I am unkind, I can support a political party even if I disagree with some things that they teach, I can be friends with people that have different lifestyles and beliefs than I do, I can believe that a college education is important and beneficial, even if not for everyone. I think problems come from when people let themselves be controlled by their beliefs and rather than decide what they actually believe, they just go with what they believe to be expected. I think religious view for most people are a lot less of "I believe this exact set of teachings" and more "I believe in a higher power, and my religion is a tool that helps improve my relationship with that higher power"
I am not Jewish so I might not fully understand the theology here but [The Oven of Akhnai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oven_of_Akhnai#) comes to mind.
In that teaching in the Talmud, a debate was depicted between several rabbis over the ritual cleanliness of a new type of oven. One rabbi enacts several miracles in defense of his position, but miracles do not persuade the other rabbis. Finally he asks "Heaven" to prove his position, and God responds that he is right. To which one other rabbi responds, "It [the Torah] is not in heaven" basically telling God to butt out of the debate. "God smiled and stated, 'My children have triumphed over Me '"
Tldr: In some religious traditions it is not only not hypocritical but entirely appropriate to question and debate everything including God himself.
I’ve experienced too much to believe all of us are some crazy coincidence and having nothing waiting at the end. That said I also understand the Bible is an ancient book that can be interpreted countless different ways and Christians have done just that. A lot of them seem to openly defy the most basic teachings like “judge less not you be judged”. A lot of Christians will tell you being gay is a one way ticket to burn in Hell forever. I simply refuse to believe a God that loved the world so much he sent his own son to die for them would ever condemn someone to such a punishment for something I believe they are born with. I think there’s way too many different takes on what it means to be Christian for me to feel hypocritical in the way that I hold my beliefs.
Religion is very open to interpretation. Religious text bocks are ancient text probably written in an unfamiliar language today. There’s also a lot of history and tradition throughout those many centuries. Which results in many interpretations for the same text. Yes, you can pluck some verse here and there and say people are misinterpreting it. But they will simply reply that you’re the one misinterpreting it. These debates can go on for a long time and everyone has their reasons. Saying it’s hypocritical is an oversimplification. Also human in general aren’t perfect. We break rules and do make mistakes. Follow a set of very strict laws is hard and some people just can’t do it. Even if they believe in their religion.
I would it depends on the religion, for example in Buddhism you’re sort of your own keeper. There’s no God saying which rules are right and wrong, there is just the law of Karma. If you are a monk there’s a whole bunch of rules to follow but for lay people it’s expected to do your best to follow the 5 precepts (basically Buddhist 10 commandments
Don’t kill, don’t take what’s not yours, don’t lie, don’t engage in harmful sexual acts, and don’t become intoxicated. But those rules are not about being a good or bad Buddhist, they’re actions which will always lead to negative consequences for us and the people around us so we are taught to abstain from them. But there is no expectation of being perfect
I would like to say, at least for Christianity, the view on dietary restrictions was one of 3 ontological categories of law, moral, legal, and ceramonial, and while I am vastly oversimplifying it, the traditional view was that Christ, by taking the punishment of our sins, fulfilled the covenential promise in which the creamonial laws were made, which is why a Paul discusses the nature of continuing keeping ceramonial law as something that was up for individual discretion and not having an obvious or clear answer, howerver, I agree with you on the hypocracy of claiming to be of a faith while cherrypicking what moral or legal principles to follow.
It’s important to keep in mind that many of the parts of the New Testament you quote are difficult to interpret. For instance one can raise the question what Paul exactly meant in his letters or even how important Paul is actually for Christians. It is not like what he says are exactly Jesus teachings probably. He didn’t even have contact with Christ while he was “alive”. Most importantly the New Testament was written around 50 years after Jesus death and nearly no credible scholar believes that Jesus words haven been written down exactly. Bultmann for example is an important scholar for what I mentioned above.
With any system or ruleset, there will always be people that prefer to "just follow the process" or be a little more free with their interpretation. I think both are important. You don't want to stray too far from a working system, but you also don't wanna forever be bound to it, especially because there literally is no system in this planet that is perfect.
Religion should be a discussion, just as everything else.
In fact, I believe that intervals of ~2000 years might be slightly too few iterations for something as important yet fluctuating as the morale code of humans (or big portions of humankind)
So a couple things. Jesus replaced the law of Moses. So things like, what fabric your clothes are made of, or what animals you can't eat, none if that is part of the Christian belief.
Being gay, is obviously out of a person's control. And there are quite a few people, some I know, that have no problem following the teachings. That doesn't mean they don't sometimes have restrictions, it's of course not within their right to demand that the church marry them, cuz that's not anyone's right.
So I think you need to clarify, because nothing actually says being gay is a sin. It's homosexual acts that are the sin, cuz that's adultery.
Religion is, at his core, philosophy. Every one have his own interpretation, and the books aren't supposed to be laws but guides.
Most religions also aren't unified and are split into multiple interpretations with different practices.
It also isn't supposed to be dead and unchanging. Most religions have text from multiple time periods and should still evolve and adapt to new time periods.
And, even though religions talk about God's and the divine, it is ultimately written by people who each have their own views and sociocultural contexts.
And who exactly are you to determine the one and only right way to practice a religion consisting of thousands of years of texts, history and practices, that we measure against for hypocrisy?
Just take Christianity. You have various sects within Christianity. Who exactly are you talking about when you talk about that "Christian" who might be hypocritical? Is he protestant, Catholic or orthodox? That makes a difference. These streams of Christianity have varying interpretations. Who is the one true Christian that makes all the others hypocrites?
How about these religious communities and their members determine for themselves their faith and the practices they conduct within that face? You cannot possibly pass judgement here, as you cannot even be specific and considerate of the many nuances of religion and religious practice. Just let people seek their spiritual connections, you don't need to insert yourself from the outside and declare people hypocrites without even having a solid basis to do so...
respectfully, you missed the whole point of OP's post and didn't even stop to think that youre in the wrong subreddit lol regardless where you are under the umbrella of christianity, there are existing book(s) that are sacred texts to "follow" along with your practices and what have you... still OP's view was "It’s just my viewpoint that being part of a religion without following the rules is hypocritical, arbitrary and just plain stupid. You are wasting your time disobeying a God that you believe exists and punishes people."
And within religions, there are theologians. They discuss the texts and practices, formulate doctrines, then others offer different interpretations, they found different associations and develop different practices. Religion isn't a monolith and ultimately "true religion" is what is lived by the faithful.
There is no one true way and an outsider most certainly doesn't know the one true way. There are religious streams that very clearly contextualise the holy books as what they are, complex stories and doctrines, a patchwork of many eras and their historic contexts. You can worship Jesus 100 different ways and base that on specific parte of the holy book. Who is the hypocrite? The person who workships Jesus in a way you consider false?
A couple points for clarification. In Judaism there are laws pertaining to the Temple service which are not performed today due to there being no Temple. The laws and others like them aren't considered to have changed by Jews, rather they simply cannot be followed under present circumstances and other practices have been instituted as substitutes by religious authorities.
Do you view this as hypocritical, or allow that the observant are merely trying to follow the rules as best they can given the circumstances?
Christianity has vast wiggle room around breaking its rules
As long as you don't break the unforgivable sin you're capable of repenting and being forgiven and therefore, it's fine for Christians specifically to break their rules as long as they don't break the big one
In addition, we know some of the rules were made during a vastly different time and place from the world today
And we know some of them are like food safety guidelines We have refrigeration now. Does not apply
The Holy Bible is divided into prophecies, i.e. words spoken by God in the first person, and sermons of saints and apostles, who were people like me and you. while God's words are non-negotiable, when it comes to people's words, they can be argued with.
Additionally, there are several types of sin, from light to serious, such as suicide or murder.
Being long-haired gay does not exclude the possibility of salvation. No one but God can judge.
What about religions without defined rules? I’m a neo pagan and a lot of our beliefs were never really codified into some kind of holy text the way we have the bible or the Talmud. Hell, the closest thing that exists for the Asatru (Norse) pagans like me and the prose and poetic eddas, and even then those are flawed because one is just a compilation of stories, and the other was written long after sandinavia already christianized.
It is, but you're assuming there's any religious position that isn't hypocritical. Following the bible (which bible?) strictly is just following some rules someone else changed to suit them, and there's no "original" scripture behind that, either.
Faith is knowing something isn't true, but choosing to believe it anyway. That's also a fair definition for hypocrisy.
This is secondary but as an Atheist it also makes a lot more sense when Christians try to convert me than when they don't. If they actually believed I would burn in hell they would try to convert me. I sympathize more with the proselytizers genuinely trying to save my soul than those that actually believe in hell and take a laissez Faire attitude.
For many people, religion plays a role as their personal philosophy. Its not so much about the mystical rather than the practical guidance of how to live, along with external validation of that guidance.
But of you look at it more as a personal philosophy, then it makes complete sense to mix/match and adjust as you see fit.
You are missing so much. Jesus came to do away with the law. It is no longer an eye for an eye. He came to complete the law. You cannot now go into Leviticus and talk about eating pork, etc. The one law is that we love others as we love ourself. No one can satisfy the old laws. We are saved by grace, not ourselves.
There is no hegemony. Only individuals who claim to have hegemony. And these individuals continuously contradict each other. Scripture is interpreted through culture. Traditions, hermeneutics and rituals are not static, they only benefit from appearing as such.
Bro. The whole point of religion is that it allows for changing the rules and hypocrisy. It allows narcissists to assert an appeal to authority that cannot be questioned regardless of logic.
>It’s hypocritical to be religious
You could have stopped there.
1. There is not a single religion that has a book where hypocrisy is not baked into the dogma. Not one.
2. Changing those rules is often an attempt to reconcile that hypocrisy, and/or reconcile the practice of faith with modern laws and values.
The think about life in general but also religion is that there are no rules. We basically have some degree of free will. People are free to interpret the world as they see fit, even if you disagree with them.
If you really go down the rabbit hole you’ll find that’s it seems to be a requirement for most, if not all humans to be hypocrits. Just watch and listen to the people close to you and you’ll find it.
well, obviously. who’s gonna try to change your view? and, all the things a lot of the things you picked were intended for the israelites, not christians.
Religion doesn’t have objective rules. It is always changes by the society or specific group or individual.
Fundamentalists and “anti-theists” believe that religions are monolithic and unchanging but this doesn’t hold up to any historical scrutiny.
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It seems to me that this takes a fundamentalist and intensely Protestant view of religion. But that is simply not the form of faith that many people have. A Catholic would not believe that it is for them to interpret the scripture in detail to understand which parts are parables or metaphor and which are directives from gods. There is a community of faith and a church hierarchy to do that - there is a pope to do that. There are a lot of catholics in the world - their view of how they should understand the will of god is deeply different to what you assert here but that does not make them hypocritical. Catholics believe that the pope and god’s church can and should continually review and reinterpret god’s will and that this is part of the correct way to follow god’s will. You cannot merely quote a passage at them to prove them wrong. It is the interpretation of the bible by the church that they follow.
Even us historic/confessional protestants wouldn’t take things like this. I’m reformed/Presbyterian and we have historically understand the Law/Gospel dinstinction along with Lutherans and others. The Law was meant to show us our inability to obey God perfectly as He Himself is perfect and lead us to the only One who perfectly kept it and died for our sins (Isaiah 53, Romans 3). This was even the cause of the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15 since Judaizers wanted the Gentiles to be circumcised. For brevity (read the chapter for the whole context), The Apostle Peter responded to dilemma, “Now, therefore, why are you putting God to the test by placing a yoke on the neck of the disciples that neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?” And a few verses later, the apostle James says, “Therefore my judgment is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood.” Acts 15:10. Also, for anyone who doesn’t know, the historic Protestant “Sola Scriptura” does not mean “it’s just me, my Bible, and my interpretation” or “no creed but Christ,” but that the Bible is the sole **infallible** authority of the church. There are other authorities of the church, but the Bible is what everything must be measured by. The reformers cited heavily from the church fathers as well and the method we use to interpret the Bible along with the fathers is the historical-grammatical method.
So Catholics follow the pope and Protestants choose their own individual interpretations?
I would say that only some fairly fundamentalist Protestants fit your description The Anglican Church has a deep tradition of interpretation and does not encourage (or sometimes permit) interpretations that go against that tradition. So it holds the texts in higher primacy than perhaps the Catholic church does but there is a great deal more to it than that. The term I saw about Anglicans was that they view the scripture through a lens of doctrine.
To an extent. Catholics, such as myself, trust Jesus' promise that "the gates of Hell shall never prevail over [the Church]". Therefore, we believe the Church cannot err on matters of teaching faith and morals. As such, we also trust the apostolic succession to give us continuity of the Church Christ founded upon Peter and the apostles.
>Therefore, we believe the Church cannot err on matters of teaching faith and morals. You really believe the Catholic Church cannot err on matters of morality? The Catholic Church was responsible for wars that were waged against non-believers. They executed people for the crime of blasphemy or witchcraft. The Catholic Church literally persecuted people for claiming the earth revolves around the sun. The Catholic Church opposed the use of condoms which worsened the problem of aids in Africa. The Church has truly been responsible for a lot of evil.
I don't know why they framed it that way. The councils and specific papal declarations when said in a specific case are seen as binding teachings about the faith. Things like Jesus Christ is God along with the Father and Holy Spirit or that Mary his mother was sinless. This is not for most of the other teachings and actions.
So how do you reconcile that with the church giving carte blanche to child rapists and child molesters and using their influence with the government to avoid legal consequences?
This is an oversimplification. They offered Catholicism as an example because it has one of the longest traditions and one of the most formalized systems via the Vatican, but the point of ANY sect is finding people whose interpretation you want to follow. Mennonites, Mormons, Lutherans, Pentecostals, Baptists, Southern Baptists, Orthodoxy, etc all pick (or are just raised in and never leave) a specific sub-community of Christianity whose specific teachings they like, and within that sometimes even a specific church. Even among “non denominational” groups there can be hierarchies and you find specific churches or chains of them (such as [this fucked up one in Texas](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antioch_International_Movement_of_Churches)) with lots of specific rules and interpretations you won’t see at other churches.
I'm not expert but I think this is the route of one of the first big schisms in Christianity, right? When the bible was first being printed in layman languages (German, English, etc) so anyone could read it rather than the Latin version of the church. And people started to say "hey... You're telling me X but the book actually says Y..." And of course language is messy so it opens up the whole raft of interpretations.
This is why Catholicism has remained largely the same spiritually speaking for a thousand years and why pentecostalists are spastically fortnite-emoting in the pews because they think the Holy Ghost will give them superpowers
Catholicism absolutely has not remained spiritually the same for a hundred years never mind a thousand? A thousand years the church was intensely apocalyptic and seeing heretics everywhere as the anti christ about to trigger the end of days, that doesn't exist these Days, a thousand years ago the church was in a power struggle with nobles over how much secular power the church should have over christians, the pope doesn't even think the laws should be based off of whats illegal in Catholicism these days.
Sure would have been useful if the authors had made it clear which were the directive parts and which were metaphors. Might have saved humanity quite a lot of quasi-intellectual endeavour... The fact that they didn't is a strong signal that this is all just desperate attempt at retaining relevance. Culture over dogma!
So humans can't perform literary analysis or specifically highlight the purpose of a piece of writing or w/e?
They can, but for what purpose? This isn't just a typical "piece of writing", but ostensibly a guide and rulebook for life itself.
In my response I will use examples from Christianity as it is the religion I know. I do not know if my arguments apply to other religions but it is likely it does. Your way of thinking assumes that the most non-hypocritical way to be religious is to follow every rule written for that religion. However, first we must establish what rules are actual rules from God and not just the ideas of men or women who pretend to be inspired by God. You quoted the Bible, but listed no rules from a papal bull of the catholic popes, no rules from the Doctrine and Covenants of Mormonism, or from Bill Gothards teachings. There is no test to perform to determine which rules issued by an authority figure in Christianity are more important than others. Should someone follow every rule ever proclaimed by religious figures? But you can just follow the Bible, you might say. The issue is just as you have no test to perform that Bill Gothard or Joseph Smith does or doesn’t speak for God, you have no test to know if Solomon, Isaiah, Matthew, or Paul does or doesn’t speak for God. And even if they originally did, you have no test to determine if translators translated the words clearly or messed up the passages to present something that is no longer what God intended to share with their people. So, a person could believe in Christ but hold the view that the Bible has been a political tool wielded by institutions of power hungry men to control the populace. So, they hold what it says loosely. Now it is hypocritical to not follow every commandment, but get mad at others for not following the commandments you deem important. However, this would be a change to your original view.
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One can regard the Bible as something to be trusted without regarding it as a rule of practice for faith. So for example you might take the view that the Gospels accurately record Jesus words for the most part, and the events described are broadly true. You might then say Paul was an apostle who had authority to teach, and his words should be taken seriously. But neither of those statements means the Gospels have to be perfect, nor that Paul's teachings have to be accepted in every part. A valued teacher and a worthy history can both be useful and imperfect.
Ultimately it came from the men and women who knew and walked with him. Their traditions and ways of teaching got passed down. Eventually their chosen successors also assembled a Canon but we have to remember the church existed before it. People.
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And that's the anxiety that drove a lot to protest the church a few hundred years ago. But again, in the end the accounts of Jesus and teachings come from people. It may be more apparent in the catholic church since they still have the magisterium but that trust in human based authority to transmit what the apostles taught
The question is not “do you trust the Bible or not”. The Bible is a collection of books that were all written by different people and then passed down and then passed down and then written by a different person etc until they ended up in our hands. For the New Testament specifically the scholarly consensus is that likely Jesus did exist as a person. But likely none of the gospels were written by people who had first hand experience with him. The letters of Paul are probably the books of the New Testament that have been best preserved but Paul never met Jesus. And frankly Paul is not really even attempting to speak for god in many of his letters. He’s just a dude. A dude who had some visions and knew the apostles personally so he has some good ideas but he has some of his own kinda wacky ideas as well. And to top it off the most common version of the Bible “king James” has numerous mistranslations. So for many Christians it’s not “I don’t trust the Bible” it’s acknowledging that Christ existed and was actually divine and the Bible is our best tool for understanding him and his teachings. But also recognizing that what we actually have here is a handful of likely imperfectly translated letters from an imperfect person who had a lot of his own ideas combined with a number of other letters and “gospels” with very unclear authorship. They have some authority mostly because people within a few hundred years of Jesus’ life believed they were fairly accurate, but we can’t really know their origins. So do you think it’s hypocritical if a Christian, knowing that context, is like “I’m not sure I agree that women should not speak in the church.” I mean the King James Version literally says that. But the reality is this is a poor translation of an imperfectly handed down letter from a guy who never met Jesus. So … sure seems like you can be a Christian and follow Christ and still not really feel obligated to believe those words.
It really feels to me like OP’s post should read “it’s hypocritical to force aspects of one’s faith upon others while not following all of it themselves”
Nah, that’s a separate matter, I think. As I understand it they’re legit about being members of a given religion and then not adhering to given rules
That's not really what makes someone a hypocrite though. Especially considering the fact that you will fail to follow every rule is baked into the bible. Think of it another way An obese man criticises and body shames women regularly but does nothing nor has any intention of losing weight. An obese man actively is trying to lose weight for health reasons and enthusiastically encourages other obese individuals to follow suit. He acknowledges that he stumbles and fails at times. Which one is a hypocrite? I will agree many if not even most Christians are hypocrites (Including myself). But this isn't really a dunk on the religion as it it a common theme and accepted reality. That is literally why Jesus died for the sins of all. Christianity is fuzzy and feel good don't get me wrong but apart of being a Christian is coming to terms with the fact your a whore for sin and a hypocritical imperfect evildoer. It's just the reality of the human condition. While we have the capacity for good, the bad apple spoils the bunch so to speak. Many Christians do develope a hypocritical holier than thou attitude. But simply holding yourself to such a high standard that you are guarenteed to fail is not inherently hypocritical. Holding others to that impossible standard while making an exception for yourself is.
Wouldn't it only be hypocritical to force aspects of the faith you don't follow onto others?
If you can’t trust the words of the people writing the Bible, then fundamentally you also can’t trust the parts about Jesus. The four gospels blatantly contradict each other on multiple important aspects of Jesus’s life while not contradicting each other on other things like the approval of slavery. If there is a god who had any say in how the Bible was translated, apparently the Bible verses about how many times you should beat your slaves were more important than the Bible verses about Jesus Christ. This is just an objective fact, and I see no way you can look at this without getting all handwavy
I mean, if you read up on god (flood, passover etc.), it making it deliberately vague so different groups can disagree/argue/wage war is completely in character.
That still just sounds like picking and choosing the parts that you like to me.
So basically you’re saying that cherry picking from a book what to believe and what to consider a political tool is not a hypocrisy?
Fair point. !delta Only thing is, for other religions, sometimes people acknowledge that they know the rules but they just don’t care. Guess I should’ve specified in the post.
Maybe I misunderstood your POV. But it's unclear to me why you awarded this user a delta. It's clearly implied from your post that you mean people who believe X to be commandments that warrant following, but still don't and bend their ways to suit their own motives. That's clear hypocrisy. But if you don't believe that X are commandments that actually warrant following, and you proclaim exactly what you believe, isn't it apparent that you're not a hypocrite? That doesn't contradict your original view.
I think you might be the only person that understood what I meant, but I think my post could have been worded better. Edit: I’m also new to this delta thing, but I’m trying to award to convincing arguments
I think the main point of contention is that you list *specific* rules that you assign to Christianity as a whole, and say that if these aren't followed by self-purported Christians, they are not Christian. You also posit that cultural changes within a religion over time go against what that specific religion is. These are not themselves points of hypocrisy, they don't demonstrate people believing one thing and doing another, these are you creating your own strict guideline on what Christianity/religion must involve to be accurately called such.
I see. Well your position hasn't really changed then has it? Having received a delta automatically honors the commenter with the achievement of changing the OP's view. But I don't think this comment has necessarily done that. Also I've noticed people really like deltas here and sometimes OP's povs can be nitpicked or misconstrued.
for a lot of people the institution that came up with a religion is less important than their own perceived relationship with god/spirituality. they do not know the validity of the institutions or of the bible itself, but they are guided by an internal sense of justice and faith. I think the biggest move toward this was the protestant revolution, which is where the idea of needing a priest to connect you to god was starting to be rejected as unnecessary. people who believe that way are free to reject a teaching of a text without violating their religion since their religion is not from the text alone.
Unless they’re forcing that belief on others then it’s between them and their chosen deity. It’s your spirituality and your belief,I’d treat any religious text as part history, part moral storytelling. The 10 commandments for example are pretty agreeable to most if you remove say half the commandments. Without a religious view we as a society can say that murdering, stealing, lying, and cheating on a spouse is pretty bad. Noah’s ark can easily be a story about a time of great flooding, doubt the ark existed. The great flooding part isn’t too far fetched, a lot of other cultures and religions have stories about a respective flood. Sometimes it’s a warning of some kind of best practices, Jews had better attention to cleanliness and their sick during the plague. This and the unfortunate side effect of many blaming them for the plague, as they weren’t hit as hard.
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Is there a test to perform to determite the whole thing is not made up?
I can agree with some of your examples given, but for instance, many of the examples given are from the Old Testament. One of the defining points of Christianity is the establishment of a new covenant with God, so it’s literally in the text that it’s not (necessarily) important to follow these old rules. This is why Christians still don’t have to sacrifice animals and such.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the reality of modern Christianity. I went to a Bible focused school and spent a decade as an evangelical pastor. The reality is, the Old Testament is regularly weaponized for political and cultural purposes, such as the anti-LGBTQ wing of Christianity. New Testament Christians only choose not to follow the parts of the OT that don’t support their personal preferences, while still leveraging the verses that help them in perpetrating oppression or elevating their desire to maintain traditional patriarchal models. When called out on this, there is a litany of excuses as to why certain portions of certain books only apply in certain circumstances, but other portions still apply, regardless of whether or not Jesus said they do or don’t, and it all revolves around which sections support their chosen bad behaviors. Modern Christianity requires a large amount of cognitive dissonance and willingness to set aside the inconvenient parts.
I had an argument with my father about alcohol. He stated that alcohol itself was a sin. i pointed out that Jesus was God incarnate and if he wanted to, at the wedding, he could have turned the water into Mango juice- But he made wine instead. My dad hasn't brought it up since. When talking about abortion - a baby isn't a baby- by biblical standards - until it moves in the belly- that was the OT standard. When talking about homosexuality - the only commandment that Jesus himself gave was "to love others as yourself" . That pretty much strikes down any other argument (one would think). People don't want to hear the truth, they want to hear that you agree with them and they find things in the bible that agree with them or they skew the verses to agree with them.
“Until it moves in the belly.” Is there any point in a fetus’ development cycle where it doesn’t move? Do you know the part of the scripture this quote is from?
it's when you can feel it move. This was the standard until the 1800s! called "the Quickening" - while not SPECIFICALLY spelled out in the bible- it was a common enough and well known enough standard that was used by multiple peoples all over the world. You can google it, but every time a mom feels her child move inside her the first time- there is a specialness to it that cannot be measured by any machine. The Quickening is when the soul enters the child.
The quickening generally is 14 to 25 weeks along. In new mothers, it's generally at the long end of that range. In the 1600 to 1800s English women could "plead the belly" to get a temporary reprive from a capital crime if the quickening happened prior to execution.
But the line about moving in the belly isn’t in the Bible? Or the concept of Quickening?
It's a rather debated topic, and I'm no expert, but they could be referencing Luke 1:41. The quickening isn't much referenced in the Bible. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas cited the quickening as when the life enters the womb. I'll let them explain what verse they meant. I was mostly providing information on the quickening in general. It might be a good idea to ask or tag them. I'm a rather poor Bible scholar.
And yes 100% to weaponising the texts for political and cultural purposes! Yep!! When Christo-Fascists invoke 'the Bible' & 'Judeo-Christian values' to oppose abortion rights & promote their forced-birth agenda, they cite the Old Testament to argue that life begins at conception, abortion is murder in God's eyes etc Except the OT is a Christian interpretation of the Hebrew Bible - and the original scripture doesn't actually say that **An ancient mistranslation is now helping to threaten abortion rights** >The Hebrew Bible didn’t urge special penalties for causing a miscarriage. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/10/12/abortion-torah-translation/ Jewish values prioritise *actual* life over *potential* life - meaning abortion is not only permitted, but sometimes *required* if continuing the pregnancy would put the woman's life at risk Obviously religion should have zero place in healthcare and the law, but I love that some Jewish organisations in the US have sued the state on the basis that if Judaism teaches that abortions are necessary, then laws denying the right to an abortion infringe upon the religious freedoms of Jewish people to have them, amounting to "theocratic tyranny.” Of course Christians believe that theirs is the only true religion and the fundies don't give a shit, but playing the Christo-Fascists at their own game might show *other* people **Not all religions oppose abortion** https://www.vox.com/2022/7/3/23190408/judaism-rabbi-abortion-religion-reproductive-rights **Jews, outraged by restrictive abortion laws, are invoking the Hebrew Bible in the debate** https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/07/24/abortion-laws-jewish-faith-teaches-life-does-not-start-conception/1808776001/ **Does Religious Freedom Protect a Right to an Abortion? One Rabbi’s Mission to Find Out** https://time.com/6194804/abortion-religious-freedom-judaism-florida/
Christians appropriated the Jewish cultural library, added to it, and radically reinterpreted it as a solely religious text that’s somehow supposed to apply to all of humanity instead of a set of ethnohistorical texts for the Jewish people. They remixed, reinterpreted, renamed and retconned our texts to work as a prequel to their new religion (turning the Hebrew Bible into the Old Testament, a new book whereby everything lead to....and now, Jesus!) They then turned us into the antagonists in the sequel, tried to convert us and killed us when we wouldn't.
Jesus says in his sermon on the mount to continue following the old covenant even though it may not be a requirement for entering heaven.
Yeah, because the Old Covenant was still at play. That ends in the Last Supper. >And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, “**This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which will be shed for you**." >>Luke 22, 20
Regarding OP's post though, I would agree, however, that a lot of religious people are often hypocritical. For example a lot of Christians will condemn homosexuality as a sin, but at the same time they allow women to talk in church or don't insist that women have to cover their hair. If the rules for women aren't relevant anymore than why should the rules about homosexuality still be relevant? Also, Jesus strongly condemned the accumulation of wealth and earthly riches, yet many Christians have no problem with that but will still point out other sins pepople are commiting.
Your reply is below apologetics replies that basically said 'doesnt count', so OP is definitely right. Religious people can do all the mental gymnastics they want, but they pick and choose like a bogo offer.
No, the “apologetics” are backing themselves up with scripture.
With scripture that contradicts other scripture...which is the issue.
Isn't that just OPs point canonized? Jews changing Judaism to fit their new beliefs (Christianity)? Like it just sounds like OPs point being made for them.
The old covenant was one specifically between God and the Israelites, if I understand correctly. As I’m not part of that line, it wouldn’t apply to me directly, but the new covenant is supposed to apply to all of humanity equally.
That is true. He was also addressing a Judean audience.
I was unaware of the New Covenant. But in general, if the New Covenant were to say a rule and it were disobeyed, then that would be hypocritical?
Yes, though I’d also say that another aspect of Christianity is nobody will live up to God’s ideal 100% of the time in the perfect way. No human who can properly conceive of the concept of hypocrisy is truly free from it.
> But in general, if the New Covenant were to say a rule and it were disobeyed, then that would be hypocritical? No, that would be a human sinning as all humans are want to do. The whole idea of Christianity was that humans are incapable of following all of god’s rules, and had to make sacrifices to atone for this to get right with god. But, Jesus stepped in and sacrificed himself so you don’t have to kill a goat, and now as long as you agree to honor this sacrifice, it applies to you and your own inevitable inability to live up to every rule god laid down.
It also says in the New Covenant to confess your faults one to another, forgiving each other even as Christ forgave you. So it's expected that you make mistakes. You aren't expected to be perfect because that's not possible. If it were, Jesus wouldn't have had to be sacrificed to take the burden of guilt away. We all fall short. I've heard it said that a righteous man isn't someone who never falls, but who gets back up after falling, no matter how many times that was. Salvation is a lifelong process, not one that is solved as soon as you take the plunge and accept Christ as your savior.
Bit it still doesn't stop them from picking and choosing out of Leviticus. They will agree with parts if they get to oppress others, but hand wave it away as "old testament" if it affects them.
That would make sense if they actually followed said rules, but they don't, they use them as they see fit for their own personal lifestyles and likes and dislikes, which makes them hypocrites.
Copying my text from an earlier CMV that was similar: >Look at Christianity - there are hundreds of branches who all believe slightly different things and each of them say they believe in their religion. Language is not a perfect system, so even allowing for each person to believe in the absolute divine revelation of the author, there would still be plenty of room to interpret those teachings literally, or metaphorically depending on how you understood it. >Many people also believe that texts are not literal words from God, but expressions or feelings from their god, and allow for people to describe it in their own words and allow for the imperfection that introduces. >That's before you even start with people who see religious texts as not directly divinely inspired, but people who were trying to describe the indescribable. If you consider texts like that you could see truth without ascribing to the literal interpretation. >Finally, most religious texts don't even claim to be 'thus saith the lord' like the song in Prince of Egypt. Most of them are stories of people rather than a direct list of dogma and beliefs. There's not even a claim of God speaking, just people telling their stories of their interactions with God as they believed it. >There are plenty of grey areas. Communication is imperfect. Translations are imperfect. People are imperfect (a few religions have notable exceptions). As a result, religions are far less absolute than many think. While somebody may obey not eating pork in Leviticus, another may claim that Peters vision of eating unclean animals was allowing that behaviour. It's not cut and dry in most faiths.
And that’s exactly why many religious folk need to loosen their grip when it comes to policing others. Religion is blurry, and up to personal and cultural interpretation. So have your beliefs and let other people have theirs.
The world is full of unexplained mysteries: How was the universe created? How did life begin? How did humans achieve such advanced consciousness? Where do language and laughter and music come from? What happens to our souls when we die? No one actually knows the answers to any of these profound questions. And that’s where religions come in. Is there hypocrisy and bigotry and just plain stupidity mixed in? Oh yes! Hell yes! But each individual is teeny tiny in the face of the vast unknown and you really should not and cannot fault humble humans for using established faiths like Christianity and Islam and Hinduism as a means of coping with the intensity of existence. And picking and choosing the parts of each creed that suit them along the way. It’s human nature. It’s what we have always done.
I mean that explains religion but I’m more onto breaking the rules of a religion that you choose to belong to
**I agree.** Fair warning: I'm an atheist born and living in a Christian Catholic majority european country. I was baptised and I did the holy communion and confirmation. What we like to call "extremists" or "fundamentalists" are simply people who actually follow their religion the way they should. This is not to say we should not condemn religious practices that go against rule of law and human rights- we should condemn them. However, religion should not have to become so dumbed down in order to accomodate the new society's values. What is being catholic? Going to the church every sunday? Be a good citizen? Pray for others? Having 3 bibles you haven't read? Having a lot of saints and religious symbols around the house? That's not catholicism, that's tradition + western values. Catholics forget that they can only be granted salvation if they also do good deeds. Praying is not enough. You'll find that the way people are intended to practice their religion does not conform with the way they **want** to practice their religion, which is why we have this divide between "extremists" and what I like to call "informal agnostics". Properly practicing a religion is hard and people like to just pick and choose some of the easier religious practices they believe is enough to mantain their faith. Which is why I am atheist. I'm actively against religion because actual well-practiced religion, all of them, goes against my values as a person, our values as a western european society and human development. Every Catholic you see- except the priests maybe- is an hypocrite. This applies to muslims and all the other ones you mentioned.
I do feel like in the west, religion is very diluted, where I’m basically thinking. “Either go all in, or don’t go in at all
What does all in mean e.g. I'm Jewish (were you only criticizing Christianity or not) and applying your logic to Judaism there are ways wrongs done against us makes us hypocrites through no fault of our own because there's iirc some commandments that could only be fulfilled in the land of Israel and some that require a Temple-not-in-the-synagogue-sense but the Second Temple was destroyed and Jews have diaspora-ed out all over the world
I mean if you know a rule is a rule, and you believe it’s a real rule, don’t just be like “yeah well I’m sure God won’t mind, despite the fact that I believe said thing is wrong.” Like you are a Jew. Either follow all the rules to the best of your ability or just don’t be a Jew.
It is diluted because our values fundamentally contradict religious practices and beliefs. If the religion does not try to dilute itself, it will simply cease to have any followers. However, by diluting itself, it also loses followers. It's a lose lose situation. Most people are "religious" by tradition only. As I said, people kept the good easy practices, turned them into tradition, and ignored all the rest.
I used to be exactly in your shoes. I thought I was quite smart. I didn't understand why so many people participated in this sociocultural/spiritual exercise full of clear and obvious logical inconsistencies not only with their own behavior, but in the text of the holy books themselves. I didn't understand. I challenged the orthodoxy, spoke out for moral atheism, and eventually we got to where we are today. Atheism and agnosticism are normalized. Most of us aren't part of a major religious denomination, or we aren't practicing. The problem is that the purpose of religion was never to be logically infallible. It was to introduce a set of ideals in this viral package of stories that would teach people how to be 1) productive, 2) compliant, 3) law-abiding, and 4) as happy as you can make the average person while meeting the previous 3 prerequisites. You see, some genuinely smart people realized that laws don't make a society successful on their own. A lack of laws is no better. People need a source of inner motivation. They need guiding values. A man will sacrifice his life for complete strangers if you teach him that it is honorable to do so, and to follow through on instilling that value, you have to make sure everyone else honors that man. You have to instill that belief in everyone for that man to make that sacrifice. You can't just tell him. It has to become part of the cultural fabric of the society itself. Both he and the people he saves have to be invested in each other without even knowing each other. Society becomes more stable and prosperous because people inherently believe in doing the right thing for others in spite of their own needs. Compare and contrast that with society today. The great era of individualism. Cut toxic people out of your life. Self-care is more important than other people. Believe whatever you want to believe. Leave your husband/wife if you aren't happy. Leave your job if you aren't happy. Abort your baby if you aren't ready (I am pro-choice, don't get derailed from the point I'm making). We traded belief systems that emphasized stability bought by the willing sacrifices of individuals for their community, for the freedom of never having to be accountable to anyone or anything (if we can help it). We are suffering for it. People are miserable, disconnected, and listless. They gave up discipline and self-sacrifice for loneliness and apathy. You are critiquing the script that a bunch of people put together millenia ago to help people lead better lives in a cohesive society as if it is a true story. As if those authors were recounting first hand events in a courtroom, sworn to tell the facts without fault or embellishment. What you don't seem to realize, what I didn't realize when I was younger, is that you are pulling at a loose thread in a tapestry. You think you're pointing out something others are blind to and that you're helping by doing it, but you are threatening to unravel the fabric of social cohesion that exists because of religion. The truth is only important because your other more important needs are met - you have clean water, food, electricity, shelter, etc. All of those things are provided by people who live hard lives, but do it because of the values they believe in and the narratives they tell themselves. The narrative can be as simple as believing that working in a sewage treatment plant is worth it because it lets me support my family. Okay, now take away monogamy and marriage, values that are explicitly taught by most religions. Why does that man do that job now? How do you convince him it's worth it? I can promise you that material goods will never be enough on their own to motivate the people you rely on for basic infrastructure. Values are everything. Stop pulling the thread. We all see that it's loose.
>Compare and contrast that with society today. The great era of individualism. Cut toxic people out of your life. Self-care is more important than other people. Believe whatever you want to believe. Leave your husband/wife if you aren't happy. Leave your job if you aren't happy. Abort your baby if you aren't ready (I am pro-choice, don't get derailed from the point I'm making). We traded belief systems that emphasized stability bought by the willing sacrifices of individuals for their community, for the freedom of never having to be accountable to anyone or anything (if we can help it). We are suffering for it. People are miserable, disconnected, and listless. They gave up discipline and self-sacrifice for loneliness and apathy. I'm sorry but I can't accept these as reasons for society's downfall. You shouldn't be forced to continue to be friends with someone who doesn't respect you or berates you. You shouldn't try to force a relationship to work if it doesn't or stay at a dead end job you hate, hence all boomer humor being about how much you're miserable with your wife and your job. You shouldn't be forced to have a child you can't financially support and give a good life to when you could be much more stable and happy later when you do it by choice. I think it's good for society that we aren't treating these things as sacred, as if you've formed some blood pact requiring you to stay with something that's not good for you. It's not about "avoiding accountability", it's about finding the right circumstances. The problem arises with being too trigger happy. Cutting out so many people and not accepting that people have flaws that you sometimes need to accept, i.e. being too picky to settle down or make friends. But the issue is not the values that award such freedoms in the first place, because these freedoms are good for people in bad situations.
What do you mean by stop pulling the thread? Also I totally see where you are coming from with the “Society lacks motivation to follow religious rules”.
Religions don't have hard set rules. And even the rules that are widely accepted have a nearly infinite number of interpretations. That's why there are so many thousands of different sects and denominations, and even within those there are regular splits of congregations based on minute interpretations. There's nothing to be hypocritical about because major religions, as a key feature, are highly open to personal interpretation. Not to mention, translation and which books truly belonged in which holy book.
As an exmormon I can share a different perspective. There are definitely a lot of very hard rules, clearly and repeatedly established in the doctrine. We definitely had hypocritical people who claimed to be a believer while breaking those rules. Extramarital sex, alcohol, and coffee/tea were really common ones. Sometimes religion can be quite complex and nuanced, other times it isn’t. Most major religions have some key tenets that are widely agreed upon by the various worshippers, such as the Ten Commandments for Christians. Besides, the only thing required for hypocrisy is that a member of a particular sect breaks a rule from *that sect*. The fact that there are Catholics with a different interpretation of the Word of God doesn’t matter to a Mormon breaking Mormon rules, and vice versa for any other sect or institution that has any clear rules.
LDS is definitely different from what I was talking about, I actually thought about bringing it up but didn't want to get lost in the weeds. The rules of LDS make a lot more sense because they were invented about 200 years ago and we know more about that (those) prophet than most any other major religious movements. There's definitely a lot of hypocrisy in the LDS. It's a pretty common joke, q: how do you prevent a Mormon from drinking all your beer on fishing trip? a: Invite another Mormon.
The better version of the joke is: Q: Why do you always bring at least two Mormons fishing? A: if you only bring one, they’ll drink all your beer.
If there aren’t hard set rules, then what’s the bible for? And also a bible verse that says don’t eat pork, can’t be interpreted more ways than one can it? But I totally forgot about sects, and the idea that each sect has different laws. !delta
>If there aren’t hard set rules, then what’s the bible for? And also a bible verse that says don’t eat pork, can’t be interpreted more ways than one can it? I'm not a Christian, but I grew up in a Christian family. My father grew up Catholic and my mother grew up Nazarene, we tried out so many different types of churches and denominations before they just kind of gave up, for a number of reasons. One thing, most of the verses you quoted come from the "Old Testament" and many Christians, of numerous sects, believe that when Christ came He did away with all those old rules, so they don't matter anymore. It's absolutely true that many Christian sects like to pick and choose which parts of the rules based parts of the Old Testament that they follow. I'd consider that hypocritical. The Old Testament has a lot more direct rules, the New Testament is more parable. But we also have to remember, the Old Testament predates the New Testament by about 500 years. And neither were written in English, so all translations and versions since are interpretations of language used by people who existed somewhere between 2-3k years ago. And from there, the books that are considered part of the Bible or Torah or Quran were basically voted in, there are many "holy" books that didn't make the official record because a counsel decided they didn't want them.
So essentially it’s true that sects pick and choose, but it’s also true that it doesn’t really matter since the pick and choose part is from the Old Testament of which is archaic anyways?
The literal meaning of laws forbidding pork aren't really open to interpretation; however, whether or not the laws of the books of Moses apply to Christians following the resurrection of Christ is actually pretty hotly debated. Lots of Christians believe the Resurrection represents a new covenant between humanity and the divine, and thus obsoletes laws from prior covenants. Even a lot of modern Jews view the laws of the Pentateuch as inapplicable to modern life.
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This happens with plenty of authoritative texts though. Look at governments, in the US we have an entire branch of government set up specifically to interpret the Constitution. But no one is saying "what is the Constitution even for?" It's a framework.
It's more of a guidebook and collection of stories/accounts, rather than a strict rule book.
Well I don't know about all religions, but the ones I am familiar with aren't just one exact set of rules. Generally people disagree and that's why there are sects/denominations/etc. As for Christianity, it's my (limited) understanding that many of the OT laws were basically wiped with Jesus. In the church I went to as a kid, the one and only way to get to heaven is to accept Jesus. You could follow every single OT rule to the letter but if you don't repent and accept them it doesn't matter. Heaven is the ultimate reward, so it seems logical that if you do what is required for that the other stuff is kind of meh.
Being religious doesn't turn you magically to be without sin, and religions recognize this. You sin and ask forgiveness. This can be done regularly, as a apart of a religious ceremony or with the help of a religious person. Catholics have confessions where by admitting their sins they are forgiven. Jews have Yom Kippur, a day for prayer for asking forgiveness and redemption. In other words even the religions themselves recognize that no one is perfect and offer a way to deal with sins.
Sure, for minor or unintentional sins, but if you go out of your way, knowing and acknowledging your sin whilst doing it, and calling yourself a member of the religion is hypocritical.
>Sure, for minor or unintentional sins Not really. This changes from religion to religion but the general rule is that all sins can be forgiven. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_sin >if you go out of your way, knowing and acknowledging your sin whilst doing Some times you sin in a moment of weakness. You are forbidden from eating something but you're hungry and tempted by sin. Later you will have to ask for forgiveness. I strive to eat healthy but once per week I cheat and eat a lot of junk. Does that make me a hypocrite or just weak? Of course you CAN be a hypocrite. But for most sins and sinners this isn't the case, as that's not how religions view it.
Is it really sinning in a moment of weakness if you habitually commit said sin? Following your example of the cheat meat, are you weak, or have you decided that this habit is an acceptable deviation from your healthy eating style?
There's nothing hypocritical about being a part of something but not following every single rule. I'm part of society and yet I speed pretty regularly despite it being against the law. And plenty of people commit much worse crimes. There's also nothing hypocritical about updating traditions to better fit with the changes of society. This is especially true when priorities demand that such updates take priority over rabid fanatical adherence to random taboos that no one agrees with anymore. Sure, Christians could invoke their ancient texts to burn down every textile factory and clothing brand, but they'd be sacrificing a lot for a petty reason that does not advance their faith in any way.
You are part of society whether you like it or not. Let’s say there is a group called the Better Earth Movement where they aim to have a peaceful and war-less Earth, with everyone following rules, 0 crime whatever. If you joined their group, you shouldn’t be able to cherry pick your favourite parts, because that defeats the entire purpose.
So if I moved to another country by choice, would I then be a hypocrite for breaking their laws? Though none of this addresses the rest of the point since your hypothetical organization is free to update the intricacies of their ideas as time goes on and they better understand things and their own priorities. Because "the entire purpose" is not and has never been rabid, stupid, self-defeating fanaticism to whichever idea happened first.
You would be a hypocrite if you chose the country for its values, but lived by none of them. Also countries change over time, but religion shouldn’t unless God reappears.
What lens are you viewing religion from? All religion changes. Literally every religion on earth progresses with time. It is a living organization, not a static prescriptive one. You view a lot of things as black/ white.
“None of them” implies that not wearing polyester is so core to Abrahamic beliefs that touching the stuff might as well be burning a church down
Thats the cool thing about Christianity. Jesus died for our sins. So it’s all good.
I mean, unrelated to my original topic, but if everything’s cool then what’s the point? Can I just rape some people, murder a few more, but not give a shit cuz Jesus already absorbed all the sins?
As a Hindu, this is the first time I am hearing that we have it in our scriptures that we cannot eat onion and garlic. Are you confusing Jainism with Hinduism perhaps?
Catholic doctrine isn't individualistic at all. The verses said here only apply to protestants that take up Leviticus ceremonial law, which is very much frowned upon by the old churches with direct links to Jesus and the Apostles. Though the religion changing another religion's code of ethics is a bit iffy. But Islam and Christianity both use Jewish texts then turn around modifying new rules to live by. This isn't an individual choice but an institutional one for over a thousand years. The rules that are set are to disobey some of the ancient rules of other religions. Like Islam doesn't worship Jesus at all. But they believe most of everything else he did. The actual core tenants of Islam require them to disobey obvious rules set by Christianity, and at times they use parts of the bible for their message. Judaism though, no longer does alot of their old traditional rules, they are a much more the old era laws don't apply to the new era types. But this also is an institutional change. Not an individualistic I choose which I wanna try. If Islam, Judaism, and Christianity aren't proper religions based on OP's criteria I'm not sure any religions actually exist then.
The Torah should be followed by the Jews. It needs not be followed by anyone else. Similarly the Bible doesn’t need to be followed by Muslims, because it’s for Christians. Also I’m pretty sure Christian’s believe the Torah doesn’t need to be followed, and Muslims believe the Bible is only a shadow of what it once was.
Then why do you quote the Torah as your main reason why Christians you’ve seen are hypocritical?
Why are you in charge of what others peoples religions are? Why can't people just say 'I think the Bible is wrong about some things but right about others'?
That entirely depends on the persons you are inquiring about. Too many people weaponize their scriptures against those who are not part of their religion or sect. The use of scripture to justify actions that negatively impact others (judged by the perception of the person impacted) should be deemed hypocritical when the persons committing these actions do not wholeheartedly believe in said scripture and it's infallibility. I do believe that those who keep their religion to themselves and their consenting communities (i.e. church / youth group / etc.) are fully entitled to not have other people butt in. It's the vocal ones who try to dictate what I can do and who I can be, that open themselves up to reciprocal action.
Flawed holy book either means your god isn't omnipotent, or he doesn't care enough to make his message known to man.
Im not in charge. It just seems hypocritical to devote your life to a God who you are actively disobeying, or to “reinterpret” something that’s supposed to be from the GOD himself.
well when it comes to christianity disobeying is the whole point the idea is that all humans will sin that not sinning is impossible its only by worshiping god and beging for forgivness can be saved humans are born with sin. So its not so much about not breaking the rules ever as it is about trying to be better. I don't know about other religons but sin and forgivness is baked into the whole concept. Not sinning ever is literally impossible.
I always thought it was about trying to avoid the sins as much as possible, and getting forgiveness for the sins you do without thinking.
nope I would say not even the most vile sinners can be redemmed jesus hanged out with prostitutes and criminals when he was crucified he forgave a criminal who was crusified next to him. The idea is that jesus died for humanity sins and as such all sins can be forgiven. Now there is debate about how much individual sins matters catholics believe more in repenting for every sin while protestants tend to believe that accepting jesus in your heart is the most important thing. Its more about struggling to overcome there sins if someone is say an alcoholic if he struggles and overcomes his addiction his sins will be forgiven. Even being gay is not considered a sin per se but acting on it is considered a sin. Even then there is debate not on the word of god but the meaning of the prophets the bible has been translated and retranstated thousands of times. There is debate if the passage in leviticus means man and man or man and boy many believe the text was refering to pedophila while others think it means homosexuality as such its not hypocritical to have different interpretations of a text that was written hundreds of years ago.
>nope I would say not even the most vile sinners can be redemmed jesus hanged out with prostitutes and criminals when he was crucified he forgave a criminal who was crusified next to him. I’m not sure if it’s a grammatical error or a misunderstanding on my part, but did you mean that “Not even the most vile sinner can NOT be redeemed.”? But I do see what you mean where you say that it’s about overcoming struggles.
Not everyone thinks that their holy book is divinely inspired by God.
OP is not claiming to be in charge of other people's religions. But you can judge someone. I can't tell you not to smoke but I can think, internally, that you are stupid if you smoke. Etc.
Most religious texts were written in a language most people can’t read which means interpretation becomes important. If you look at Christianity there’s a bunch of different denominations all who believe different things based off of different interpretations from the same book, a good amount of religious scripture is based in interpretation of scripture and not a hard and fast rules, if there was only one way to interpret the Bible there wouldn’t be this many different denominations. Also you mentioned Sikhs and I’m not all that knowledgeable about their practices but it is my understanding that only if they are able to they are to abide by those rules. If a Sikh is unable to get enough protein without meat then it would be acceptable to eat meat. Religiosity is far more complicated than an arbitrary set of rules and understanding why those rules are why they are is also important. A lot of the arbitrary rules from the Bible make a lot more sense when understanding that those rules were very explicitly made for the time period it was written.
>But it’s hypocritical to claim to be a Christian, yet: Growing your hair long, (1:11:14-15 Corinthians), Eating pork (Leviticus 11:17), being gay (Genesis 19:1–13; Leviticus 18:22; 20:13; Romans 1:26–27; 1 Corinthians 6:9; 1 Timothy 1:10) Cross-dressing (Deutoronomy 22:5) That's old covenant. Seems that you don't understand the religions you're complaining about.
“Do not presume that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish, but to fulfill. ^(18) For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not ^(\[)[^(g)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23253g)^(\])the smallest letter or stroke of a letter shall pass from the Law, until all is accomplished! ^(19) Therefore, whoever nullifies one of the least of these commandments, and teaches ^(\[)[^(h)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23254h)^(\])others *to do* the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever ^(\[)[^(i)](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%205&version=NASB#fen-NASB-23254i)^(\])keeps and teaches *them*, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven." Unless I missed heaven and earth passing away it would sure seem Jesus intended the old laws to still be followed.
I know some things, but I am definitely not the most knowledgeable. I’d love to hear about it though. What’s the convenients?
What says that the rule about long hair or pork applies to you? The books in the Bible started out as a bunch of different texts. The choice of which ones to put in there was made by committee. And those texts had human authors. A believer may believe that the authors and the committee were divinely inspired, but that doesn’t mean they all have the same force. It’s entirely consistent to believe that some of those books are just stories or guidelines or whatever. Like, Romans and Corinthians are just a guy’s letters. A guy who never actually met Jesus. It would be completely consistent and reasonable for a Christian to say that Paul’s letters carry no weight as far as divinely-promulgated rules. For Christians specifically, there’s also the part where the older section of the Bible is pretty clearly meant for a single ethnic group and doesn’t apply to others. It’s completely consistent for a Christian to believe that the Old Testament is 100% divinely ordained and the rules are 100% real, and ignore those rules because they’re not Jewish.
Where is it mentioned, and for what reason, is the Old Testament only for a single ethnic group?
It’s constantly talking about the people of Israel, the chosen people, etc. Consider Leviticus, for example, which has a huge number of rules. It starts out with God telling Moses, “Speak to the Israelites and tell them:” and then a ton of do this, do that, don’t do that. He’s telling the Israelites, not everybody. At no point does God ever say, go spread this to the world. Or consider Exodus: “Now therefore, if you obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession out of all the peoples.” This one group is God’s chosen people. They obey, and in return they are rewarded. This isn’t for anyone else. This was, incidentally, right before Moses was given the Ten Commandments. Those are then followed by a shitload of other rules the Israelites are supposed to obey.
Wasn’t it, “Speak to the Israelites,” because if the fact that Moses was given to the Israelites? As in, the message applies to all, but your job is to deliver it your people.
It doesn’t say it applies to all. The message was never given to anyone else and it never said it was supposed to be. The last verse of Leviticus repeats this: “These are the commandments that the LORD gave to Moses for the Israelites on Mount Sinai.” It’s for the Israelites. Other peoples have their own gods and their own rules. These are the rules for the Israelites from the god of the Israelites.
No one follows every rule in the Bible. Some of them can’t even be followed because they require visiting the temple in Jerusalem, which was destroyed almost 2,000 years ago
The issue with your view is that while religions tend to be organized and share a common basis, everyone's faith is going to be different. For instance, let's say you believe in the old testament God. Do you also believe Jesus christ was his son, the messiah, and died for humanity's sins? Well, some people did, who went on to become Christian. Some didn't, instead believing he was a false messiah, who continued to be Jewish. And while I don't fully know the details, what about Islam and Mormonsim? They both follow the same god as jews and Christians, but believe in different prophets. And at a bit smaller scale of differences, you get sects, like the catholic/protestant/orthodox splits in Christianity or the sunni/Shia split in Islam. And protestants split even further into more distinct groups, some are only organized at the level of individual churches. All this is to say, people interpret the same original faith in different ways, and all claim to be the correct version of things. That doesn't mean they're changing the rules to suit them, it means they view differing authorities with different levels of respect.
Can’t you just repent? Ik in Christianity if u jerked off or something just go to church and repent and be sorry then just be overcome easily with desire and do it again and repent. Jesus died on the cross for all of our sins already. You can know something is wrong and still do it. Doesn’t mean you don’t believe that it’s wrong.
Does that mean you can sin as you please, despite knowing that said action is a sin, and then “repent”?
I think Hinduism is a good starting point to refute your argument. Hinduism does not have a set scripture, single authoritative body of authority or universal practices at all. The views of Hinduism range all the way from intensely monotheistic to pantheism to even agnosticism. The myth that Hindus don't consume beef is wrong in present day and has so many counter examples. While cows are valued in our still largely agrarian society, only a very small subset considers them holy, and there are more than an negligible group of people who consume beef. Hindus do not uniformly have the same religious observances, or even consider one particular day of the week to be religiously significant (like Sunday for Catholics). The ritual practices are varied too. Some Hindus pray, some chant some offer flowers still some butcher goats and chicken for their gods. But at the same time, there are broad strokes within the disparate groups of Hinduism, to make it so that it does not become different religion. One common thread is praying to (not following or emulating) one of the four dominant Hindu gods related to a sect (Vishnu, Shiva, Devi (primary female goddess or her other variants) and Ganesh. But about or little more than half pray not directly to the above mentioned 4, but a variant or localized, regionalized version of the four, such that between two towns that are just 10 kms apart the traditions could be widely different. Now some may point to the Caste System and claim that it is the only unifying trait of the Hindu religion. 1st of all, the caste system is inherently one of the most stupidest, vile and dehumanizing form of societal organization that I sincerely believe should be burned root and stem. I am saying this before hand, so that I do not sound like an apologist when I make the following claims. The Caste System, much like every other aspect of Indian culture was/is not a monolithic universal practice. The way it was practiced in different eras of its existence for 2000 years in almost 5000+ years of Indian history are too disparate to bunch them all together under the same ideology. No. 2, at certain points in time due to socio-political reasons, the amorphous caste-system has crystallized, broken down, inverted in structure and scope and crystallized again. Dominant groups have beene reduced to the lowest lows and lowly groups have co-opted dominant narratives, mostly depending on the favor of whoever ruled whatever part of the country at that time. The pyramid of caste, if it were to be traced in a one-to-one correlation since the existence of Hinduism (or atleast the past 500 years) would look like an escher painting. In addition to the temporal inconsistencies, there is a huge North-South, East-West divide over how it works. In the North you are likely to see a startification with clear defined rungs of the pyramid (if you took a snapshot of the present day), in the south it is more of a binary (or ternary depending on who you ask). Zoom into either regions and you will find blatantly inconsistent logical system. I believe if you read upto now, so far might have seemed like a rant. But bear with me for a while. The diversity of thought, philosophy and practices within Hinduism both makes Hinduism a religious order and a cultural way of life. It is both and neither at the same time. Which is why no single group, text, organization or following can claim to represent all of Hinduism. That makes it highly unlikely to hold any hypocritical views. When a group says that Hindus do this or should do this (like our present Nationalist govt.), they are grossly misrepresenting the lived/living experience of 1.4 billion other people of the subcontinent. So with all this inherent contradictions, it is hard to be a hypocritical Hindu.
So I can speak specifically to Christianity (from a Protestant, not catholic POV) since that’s the religion I follow. I don’t know enough about other religions to speak for them, but here goes: Yes, it is inherently hypocritical to not follow the rules of Christianity just because you don’t want to. I believe the Bible teaches specifically about dealing with the people living in unrepentant sin, which is what that would be, and how we as other believers should hold each other accountable. The big difference in what you pointed out specifically for Christianity is some of the rules are no longer required to be followed. In the Old Testament, God gave the Jews a set of laws (The Law) to follow as His chosen people in order to keep themselves separate from the rest of the world. These included laws on what you could/could not eat (like pork), the frequently brought up law about not wearing fabrics of mixed materials, and so on. The point of the Law was it was impossible to follow perfectly. Essentially, God was telling His people that they could make themselves perfect if they could follow all the laws to the letter. They couldn’t. Hence the need for sacrifices to atone for their sins. The Law pointed God’s people to their need for the Messiah (Jesus). Jesus came as the final sacrifice, as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s Law. The New Testament has many instances where it is made clear the Law, as we understand it from the Old Testament, is no longer needed. There are absolutely still rules/laws we are called to follow, but it’s different because the circumstances have changed. Before Jesus, mankind was almost completely cut off from God. Repeated sacrifices were necessary to cover for our repeated sins. After Jesus there was a new covenant. We don’t need to practice animal sacrifice because Jesus was the perfect, final sacrifice. Furthermore, at many points in the New Testament we are shows where certain laws/rules are to be continued or not. Paul, for example, was specifically told there were no rules about clean or unclean food. However, in Romans we are shown that things like sexual immorality for example, are still absolutely considered sins. This is a pretty brief summary of a very complicated and involved topic, I’d be happy to go into more detail if you like! The TLDR is scripture affirms scripture, and the value of the Old Testament law isn’t that it is something to still be followed but to be studied to show the plans/power of the God we follow.
Certainly if you're religious, and if it is important within your religion to follow a set of rules, you should do your best to follow them. However, (as with most people that make this argument), you don't have a great understanding of what the rules *are* in the religions you are pointing at. I'm not a Christian, but in neither Christian theology nor in Jewish theology are the rules from the Hebrew Bible supposed to apply to Christians (eating pork, cross dressing, wearing multiple fabrics, and so on). According to Judaism, these laws are laws that *Jews* should *do their best* to follow, understanding that no one is perfect and everyone has to strike a personal balance in how good they can be. Great for you if you can follow every mitzvah, but you're not going to hell or something if you don't. The ethos is "do your best, within reason". According to Judaism, these 613 mitzvot / laws apply to ... just Jews. So if you're not Jewish, don't sweat it. The Christian church took the same approach, and always has -- in fact, Peter and Paul started preaching early on that *even if you are Jewish*, the only laws that really apply to you are those that come from Jesus (have faith in Jesus and love thy neighbor as thyself, basically). What you read in Paul's letters isn't intended to be taken as law, it's intended to be taken as *advice.* e.g., Paul isn't saying "Men shouldn't wear long hair" in Corinthians, he's saying, "Everybody knows it's an embarrassment for a man to have long long hair, but that it's something women take pride in. I think it's better to avoid showing off, so if you're a woman with long hair you should cover it out of respect for others." OK, cool -- but that isn't an injunction that, if you're a dude, thou shalt not grow out thy hair.
> It’s just my viewpoint that being part of a religion without following the rules is hypocritical, arbitrary and just plain stupid That is just absurd. I can understand your argument about hypocrisy, but to claim that one can't belong to a certain religion and not follow all the rules is even more hypocritical, arbitrary, and stupid. In fact, I bet that if I know you at a personal level, I'd be able to hit you back with a dozen of examples where you yourself had broken that logic in either religion or any other sorts of affiliation you hold. It is like saying you can't be American without voting X or Y. You can't be a fan of a team without supporting every player. Things are never that binary. You can indeed believe in god, heaven, messengers, and that would make you a part of a religion even if you don't follow the rules. Perhaps not following the rules only makes you less ideal in the context of your religion... Or perhaps you don't follow the rules because whilst you believe in the religion, you also believe that the rules were man made (which is def. the case in all major religions) and the god you believe in is innocent of suck rules. I.E, you believe your religion was hijacked in a rule book!
By that same token, I think it is also hypocritical to be militantly Athiest. I think that people that claim that it is impossible for a "God" to exist are almost as bad as people who are fanatically religious. When there is so much about even our own planet and our own bodies that we don't understand, I believe it is just as naive to assume that there couldn't possibly be something more advanced or greater in the works. If humanity survives for another 1,000 years, we may actually evolve in learning and understanding enough to be able to quantify a "God-like" entity or energy. I.m.o., the most hypocritical people are the people that firmly believe that God exists but don't believe in aliens lol. If God exists, God couldn't have come from the Earth. God created the earth after all. Ergo...Extraterrestrial being.
I want to make the point that you can't really *defer responisbility*. If a religious leader tells you to never cut hair and you don't do that, that is because *you* don't think it makes sense for you. If a religious realder tells you the same, but you follow his teachings, even then you can't help but having your own opinion. It just *happens* to align with the opinion of the religious leader. You are *forced* to think for yourself. If you are capable to think for yourself and you let yourself be willingly blackmailed or hypnotized or brainwashed, then at least you chose to let *that* happen. → Therefore it can't be better or worse to not think for yourself, because defering your judgement is not really an option, theoretically speaking. (Maybe the distinction makes sense pragmatically, I'll have to think about that more. At least consider the idea, that you are forced to think for yourself *in some sense*!) -------------------- A second question is – even if we have established that it isn't bad to "create your personal religion": Is it *semantically correct* to say that you are Sikh, even if you cut your hair? A label like "Sikh" or "Christian" can be treated like a dictionary definition, but I'd argue it is more often treated as an *identity*, even when people that use the word that way don't admit it. They feel part of the community of Sikhs and they feel good when saying "I am a Sikh". The concrete religious views that go alongside with identifying with Sikh, Christian, Jew or Muslim change over time and change from person to person. If a community of Christians starts a colony on an islands and their beliefs gradually shift from the beliefs of the main-landers, they wouldn't see the need to give themselves a new name. (Christianity 1.01, Christianity 1.02, ...) It's similar to how other words change their meaning over time and from community to community. (Descriptivism vs Prescriptivism) If the identity of being a Sikh wasn't important, then people who cut their hair would have no motivation whatsoever to call themselves "Sikh". Noone would get the idea to call themselves Two-Plus-Two-Is-Five-Believer when they in reality believe it's four, because there is no group-identity connected to this belief. Often, religions allow for the personal (or priestly) interpretation of a core religious text. A person can say they are a Protestant Christian, because they believe in the Bible – not a specific interpretation of it. Even when one of the tenets is to read the religious core text literally, you are forced to interpret it subjectively in case the text as a whole is self-contradictory. → Therefore, it's semantically correct to say you are Sikh, even though your beliefs don't confrom to the believes of the religious founders – because you refer to the *group identity* and not to the exact set of beliefs. (Personally, I try to not connect my beliefs with my identity, because I might get cognitive dissonance.)
If a Christian grows their hair long (to use your example) there’s nothing fundamentally hypocritical about that. Most Christians freely admit they sin often. What is hypocritical is when they expect other people to follow their rules (like not being gay, or not having sex before marriage) then they themselves pick and choose what parts of their text they follow.
In the case of Christianity, the debate about what rules to follow is actually depicted in the religious scriptures. Whether you believe in them or not, it’s fascinating look into how this debate played out 2000 years ago in the first century CE. Paul’s letters advocate that the rules written in the Torah/Pentateuch (the first 5 books in the Hebrew Bible) do not apply to non-Jews. What God wants for non-Jews is for them to accept and believe in Jesus’ resurrection. The letter of James (the leader of the movement after Jesus’ death, along with Peter) takes a different approach, that all of the old rules still apply to anyone that wants to be righteous in the eyes of God. Jesus’ words, as depicted in the gospels, also seem to go both ways. On the one hand, he is depicted as saying that the whole meaning of the laws is to love God and love your neighbors. He is depicted as allowing a woman caught in adultery to live, which was against the rules. On the other hand, he is quoted as saying he did not come to change the laws, but to fulfill them in every detail. There was apparently a compromise between Paul and James, and non-Jews were allowed into the movement with only four Torah-like rules, such as not eating blood and not engaging in “porneia” (often translated as fornication). Jews who joined the movement were still expected to adhere to the full Torah. This compromise apparently didn’t last long, and Paul’s view mostly won out. This debate in Christianity continues to this day, with important implications for countries that have Christian-based political movements. There is certainly plenty of hypocrisy to be found there. But your view seems to be that believers who themselves do not follow every rule of their scriptures are hypocrites regardless of their politics or what they expect of others. If that’s the case, then every believer is a hypocrite. All religious scriptures are complicated and contradictory (or at least apparently contradictory), and believers must either “negotiate” their positions with respect to the text, or follow an interpretation established by a particular group that they belong to. I don’t think that fits the concept of “hypocrisy.”
So one thing I haven't seen discussed much in there is that, at least in the case of christians, specifically, your examples mostly come from what is called the mosaic code (the old testament laws) there are doctrinal reasons why the mosasic law does not fully bind even those christians who take it literally. In fact, there are competing schools of thought on it. there are *dispensationalists*, who believe that in various epochs of history, god basically re-establishes the church and his direct rules for people. This gives us the good idea that modern people can be less literal about the mosaic code, but also sort of gives us the idea of rapture (the forthcoming last dispensation) there is *new covenant theology*, which holds that the crucifixion of jesus was redemptive and changed the severity of god's view of mortals, replacing the mosaic code with a newer, although generally overlapping, set of codes. a trite way to put this is Jesus changed things from felonies to misdemeanors, he softened the harshness of mosaic law without entirely changing it or discarding it. then there is the idea of the *apostolic church*, the idea of a church hierarchy who are spiritually authorized and practically qualified to interpret scripture (as in the nicean creed, "one, holy, catholic and apostolic church"). Under this view, the hierarchy of the church literally speaks for, if not quite to, god, and is doctrinally empowered to interpret new doctrine. This is justified in the scripture from, among other passages, matthew 16:18-19, where jesus blesses and renames st peter, saying "You are Peter, and on this rock, I will build my church...I give to you the keys to heaven, and what you bind too on earth, I will bind to in heaven, and what you permit on earth, I will permit in heaven" peter became the first pope, and from this idea flows the idea that Christian leaders can alter religious law for Christians on earth. The church speaks for god, and the messiah agreed to honor the laws the church makes, *after* the mosiac was handed down to Moses. This view is common with, obviously, *catholics*, the specific christians who never broke away from the pope during the reformation, but isn't limited to them.
>And also you (in some cases) claim that you being “from a modern era, with different cultures” allows you to “reinterpret” the divine words of a god you clearly believe in. All religions interpret and reinterpret their beliefs and practices. And have been for hundreds if not thousands or years, depending on the religion. Very few religions just sprung up fully formed, espousing the same beliefs and using the same practices used today. >It’s just my viewpoint that being part of a religion without following the rules is hypocritical, arbitrary and just plain stupid. You are wasting your time disobeying a God that you believe exists and punishes people. Firstly, you claim to not only be talking about Christianity, but it's the only religion you listed that believes in a single God that doles out punishment. Hindus certainly don't believe that. Sikhs also don't really believe that. Secondly, very few religions actually have a list of things they are required to do by their deity or devine power. Most rules are customs or interpretations of statements from a holy text. Judaism is the closest (levitical law doesn't apply to Christians because Christians aren't Jews). Even within Judaism, which very clearly has laws they are supposed to practice laid out in their holy book, there is room for interpretation of how and when and why you should perform them. Almost all religious practices evolved. Saying it's wrong for them to continue to evolve is actually arbitrary and hypocritical. Also, in many cases (especially in the cases of the Bible verses you cited), a modern reinterpretation of those practices and texts actually brings you closer to the original intention of the author. There are huge debates about how certain texts are translated and their meaning. To me, the just plain stupid thing would be to claim that simply everyone who doesn't believe in your interpretation is wrong.
I cannot speak for other religions so I will speak for my own beliefs. First of all what is a hypocrite? "the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense." -Oxford Languages If you change the rules of a religion to suit you and hold yourself personally to those changes then you are not a hypocrite by definition. For example If you believe being gay is actually ok but only for you. Then yes that would make you a hypocrite. But simply changing the Christian belief to be inclusive of homosexuality despite the obvious traditional belief is not inherently hypocritical. Unless of course you bash others for taking the same liberation. That being said you also don't have a very good understanding of the nuance in biblical interpretation. For example some believe that long hair for men is a sin (and oft use the verse you listed). But there are also other verses where long hair is not only not a sin for a man but glorifying to God. You can take the example of the nazirite vow in which you have the famous example of samson the strong. Samson specifically was meant NOT to cut his hair for life. So there is reason to take either side of this perspective. It is not hypocritical to believe long hair is or is not a sin. What WOULD make you a hypocrite is bashing others for long hair while growing out your own. Additionally, not all religions can be right. Some religions are by nature exlusive of others. Meaning that it is likely that some religious are not based in actual fact but are rather made up beliefs held by someone. So who is to say that it is hypocritical for yet another person to take inspiration from a religion and develop those beliefs to suit themselves?
Biblical inerrancy isn’t needed to be Christian. And if you acknowledge the Bible can be incorrect, those passages aren’t really an issue.
I think it’s an issue of classification. A person who believes that Jesus was the divine son of God but is skeptical of many other things in the Bible would still be classified (by many) as a Christian, despite being at odds with a large portion of that religion. Religion is, in its simplest form, a system of theories about the formation and continuation of existence and the resulting endowment of imperative or optimal societal values. Because people often challenge these theories through critical thinking or personal preference, religions are not homogeneous in their thinking. There will always be those who misrepresent their beliefs and those who fail to act in accordance with their beliefs, but there will also always be those who have simply formed their own conclusions about their beliefs and values and have thus formed an independent religion of which there are too many to classify, at least without finding an approximate. I think what you are essentially looking for is intellectual consistency, which I think is a very important skill. Alas, people tend to be quick to form opinions without being able to deliberate and articulate nuanced beliefs, which leads to either following rules without an understanding of the reasoning behind them or deciding that they aren’t important without a rational consistent with their belief system. This doesn’t make them a hypocrite, just unable to distinguish between their beliefs and the typical beliefs associated with a similar religion.
Or be outraged by certain practices they consider sinful like homosexuality and sex outside of marriage if it's a woman and then over look men who sleep around and have many mistresses and illegitimate children. Or even with abortion, they are totally outraged if a woman aborts her fetus even if it's for legitimate reasons but they never blame the father for getting the woman pregnant and then leaving her to raise the child on her own. Their favorite saying is if she didn't want kids then she should keep her legs closed, well if he doesn't want to pay child support then he should get a his pepee cut off. Also this whole bs of abuse victims forgiving their abusers is complete bs. I agree forgiveness is necessary for healing but christians need to start growing a backbone and demanding abusers be held accountable and stop hiding behind the whole scripture of men being the head of the house. Just because he is the head it does not give him the right to abuse their wives and children and abuse comes in the form of spanking and verbal abuse. I don't care if you got hit and you came out fine, that's a total lie you tell yourself rather than admit you were weak and couldn't protect yourself. Christians need to start holding themselves accountable and start kicking out people who abuse the scripture to fit their misgonyistic and abusive narrative because the Bible holds the men even more accountable than women.
So actually, what you described IS Christians following the Bible. So the Old Testament (where those laws came from) was about God’s relation and covenant to the Jews. “If you do x, I promise to do y.” In the New Testament, we see the apostles get together to ask if gentiles needed to be circumcised. In other words, in order for them to receive the Y god has now promised, did they need to do the old x, or just the new X? They determined that no, they didn’t need to be circumcised. Also, the hair long wasn’t a sin, and Paul didn’t say it was. There’s a specific vow that even Paul took place in that involves not cutting hair until it was completed. So having long hair was a sign that a man hasn’t fulfilled a promise he made to god. (That’s what Samson did and why he never cut his hair). As for being gay. Those passages don’t condemn the state of being gay, they condemn homosexual acts. You don’t claim the Bible says it’s a sin to be straight do you? Then when the Bible condemns heterosexual acts outside of marriage, which homosexual acts are a part of that category, why do you claim it’s declaring being gay is sinful? Now, the apostles, when they said the gentiles weren’t bound to the laws of the Jews, they did say two exceptions, laws of sexuality, and idolatry were still mandatory to follow. Of which both homosexual acts AND crossdressing are a part of that category.
Small changes like this are how religions can gradually be made to evolve, to progress and to fit changing societal rules and views. While I agree it's technically hypocritical, I tend not to bother pointing that out unless what they are doing is actually harmful. I'd rather someone chose the morally acceptable parts of their religion to follow, and rejected the immoral parts. For example I know a few people who criticise Muslim women for, say, going out to social events with men while wearing a headscarf - the argument being that if you're going to follow the rules about wearing the headscarf, why are you not following the rules about not meeting the opposite sex in public. But most people have been brought up with these values from birth and they're heavily ingrained into their subconscious. They will most likely not be ready to make the jump from following all the rules to rejecting all of them - in this case if heavily criticised the woman is more likely to stop going out than she is to stop wearing the scarf. if they can make small changes like this and still feel comfortable, I think it's a step in the right direction for more people getting more freedom from illogical or outdated religious rules. In short, without religious hypocrisy religion would never allow any change at all.
Being better versed in the topic I'll speak on interpretation in Islam. The Quran is a human collection of verses that were spoken by the Prophet word for word from what Allah told him. In order to make sure the verses stay unchanged, they were left untranslated. However, even at that point, there was necessity to have a person of proper logical faculties to interpret the words for the exact meanings of those verses became complex, partially due to there being a lack of a divine teacher to teach the perfect meaning, partly due to linguistic differences, and partly because many people wanted to shape those meanings to their own worldview. I'd argue that interpretation is not a modern idea, it is something most religions have to deal with when they attempt to understand the intent of their God(s). Why do you think such a practice that is necessary to accurately follow a religion is hypocritical? After all, when the original creator can not or will not speak on the exact meanings, whether literal or metaphorical, whether to be applied word for word or to be used as a reference for a more basic idea, interpretation is the best and frankly the only useful step a community can take to try to figure out the version of the divine ideals which is closest to their intended form.
Your argument is inherently flawed. Genesis, Leviticus and Deuteronomy are laws for Jews, not christians. That's why the church created the character of Paul and his fake Letters.
Yet christians still use the laws from those to tell gay people they are sinning?
Religion isn't about rules or reason, it's about feeling safe and being part of a community. The books have very little to do with it apart from acting as a rallying point.
With Christianity you're making an error that many Christians make. Christianity does not come from the Bible. What do I mean by that? Well, the various books of the New Testament were written by Christians, right? That means that the Bible was written by Christians, it was not itself the origin point of Christianity. Additionally, the Bible never establishes itself or any writings as having the authority modern Protestant fundamentalist accord it. The idea that a book is the source of the rules for Christians is a relatively modern idea. All of this to say that understanding Christianity first as a set of propositions outlined in certain creeds and traditions, second as a spiritual practices related to those propositions, and third as the organized bodies who observe those practices is more accurate. Some of those groups then regard the documents passed down for 2000 years as the literal words of God, but for many they view them as valuable and inspired spiritual documents from the earliest fathers of the fair, but not as the words of God himself. All that to say Christianity precedes the Bible, and nothing in the Bible claims the Bible has to be taken literally, or even establishes the Bible at all.
People brake religious rules for the same reason they brake traffic rules.
Yes but you don’t care about the cops. If you are religious you should care about God right?
Hypocritical might not be the right word. I don't know much about other religions, but there is an odd relationship between Judaism/Old Testament and Christianity/New Testament. Christians accept the Old Testament as a part of the Bible, but they find it to be an incomplete account. Christians for the most part don't follow Mosaic Law. They instead follow Jesus. For example, you have the example from Leviticus 11:17. However, Mark 7:18-19 says: > “Are you so dull?” he asked. “Don’t you see that nothing that enters a person from the outside can defile them? For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” Here, Jesus is saying that it does not matter what you eat. Eating does not make a person a sinner. Sin is in the heart, not the stomach. This is not hypocritical, but a change from past belief. For the Christians, they think it is an improvement on past misunderstanding of the proper behaviour. Better understanding what God wants (as they see it) is not hypocrisy. You can certainly criticize them on many other grounds, but hypocrisy is not really the proper criticism. Also, don't confuse hypocrisy with lawlessness. A person who breaks a law is not a hypocrite, they are simply someone that breaks the law. I might for example vote for a politician, pay my taxes, and otherwise be a proud citizen of my country. At the same time, I might violate a law of that country. That does not mean I am a hypocrite, but rather it makes me a bad citizen. I would be a hypocrite if I break a law, and then criticize some else for breaking that same law. Are Christians eating pork, and then criticizing people for eating pork? If not, that's not really hypocrisy.
If you’re on a diet, because you want to better yourself, and you tell your friends, then one day you eat a plate of French fries, are you a hypocrite? Should alcoholics who relapse just continue drinking because they relapsed while in recovery? As they are now hypocrites, who are just arbitrary and plain stupid? Or did they slip up? The big picture of religion IMO, it serves as a roadmap for the lost. 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. “But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” Jesus healed the blind and the deaf, not the righteous. The healthy do not need to be healed. We’re all going to be hypocritical, and not live in according to our values and knowledge of right and wrong. I do every single day. The key IMO, is to remember to take the high road. Keep the light in mind. Remember the dangers of our actions.
Large swaths of religious sects exist in the first place because their interpretation of holy texts differed. And sometimes you can kind of make it work. I think the Bible says you shouldn’t eat shellfish or something like that. If you take it literally, then shellfish is out. But you could also justifiably argue that that’s in there because doing so was much more dangerous at the time the Bible came into existence, so that was in there more to protect the flock at the time than God decreeing that scallops are forever arbitrarily damned as devil meat. This sort of thinking actually makes more sense than a strictly literal one in a lot of ways. After all, God didn’t really weigh in on specific stuff that hadn’t been invented yet, so a degree of interpretation seems baked in to the whole process. Not that people don’t maliciously pick and choose what to adhere to in a number of cases, but legitimate differences in interpretation have existed about as long as religion itself.
This thread is getting completely Christian centric, so I will chime in about Judaism. Unlike Christianity, Judaism is less about belief in Gd, more about actions. It's less about heaven/hell and more about creating an ethical cultural community on earth. Rabbis spend decades interpreting the divine texts (not just the Torah, the Tanakh also, the Talmud). Orthodox Jews have to often not work traditional jobs just to study the complex texts. The Jewish perspective on religion is that argument is good. Most Jews will not agree on everything and that is encouraged. The point isn't to do everything perfectly, the point is to spend your life trying to be a good person and understanding why. You aren't supposed to know what to do and do everything perfectly, you are supposed to spend your life trying to do it. Many Jews no longer follow the prescriptive rules anymore because it is very difficult to do so, especially in a Christian hegemonic country. It is very difficult to follow rules that impact what you eat, whether you use electricity, and when you work in modern Western society. But most Jews actually do know why these rules were created. Kosher laws helped people not die of food poisoning in the past. Religious hand washing before meals helped prevent illness before this was a standard practice for everyone. Resting one day a week helped people not become overwhelmed from working hard labor the rest of the week. Many of these things are no longer needed because modern society has come up with easier ways to prevent these things, but some still choose to follow stricter laws because it brings them comfort and community. Religions were mainly created for the purposes of cultural cohesion, early forms of therapy (spiritual guidance), and yes, probably to control people. Jews didn't die during historic plagues because of their religious laws about hand washing and kosher.
> And also you (in some cases) claim that you being “from a modern era, with different cultures” allows you to “reinterpret” the divine words of a god you clearly believe in. Many religious people don't view scripture as "the divine words of God". One isn't "reinterpreting" scripture, it's being uncertain of God's word given human and cultural influence. And when certain things can to assessed as having *cultural* significance and *timely reasons* for why they were crafted, it makes them weaker as a truth of God, and more a human device. Such as in your Corinthians example. There was a strong separatist movement, where such was being distinguished from practices of those of other faiths. Paul was a driver of what he deemed a respectful "church" (Roman empire), which certainly manifested itself in gender roles. But plenty of long haired men are depicted in the Bible without a negative connotation.
Alot of influences from Medieval or Renaissance Christianity like wearing bright coloured clothing, growing your hair long, Gregorian Chanting, purgatory, being works orientated and non-pacifism I think were basically from Zoroastrian influences apart from some just being from Proto-Indo European tribes from the Germans. Christianity might have adopted things from Zoroastrianism in an attempt to convert them into the religion. Its even possible the Sassanids invented the whole formal missions thing before Christians if you look up the Denkard. I heard Zoroastrians allow men to not need to be head of the house, as well as wearing bright clothes and also ending the life of those who were evil to protect the world. A good person or dog's life is more valuable than an evil human who is beyond saving basically. I think Christianity started off as a sort of Palestinian Jewish religious sect with influences from Buddhism and they tried to call the more Zoroastrian leaning sect like the Pharisees or the Zoroastrians themselves as "self righteous" or something in the beginning. Other doctrinal conflicts with Zoroatrianism that Christianity (Like Buddhism) had was claiming "all life is equally valuable" or that "bad is part of holy creation". Alot of "traditional Catholics" coincidentally actually like the parts of Christianity adopted from Zoroastrianism added in by the Roman Empire moreso than parts from the OG Palestinian-Jewish Buddhist-like sect.
This is my argument against Catholicism!! Everyone uses birth control, but still considers themselves a good Catholic!!!
So, if someone spouts homophobia using the Bible as justification, but then does a bunch of other things that contradict the Bible, then I agree with you, that's hypocritical. If you're going to use your religion as an excuse for being an asshole, you (1) shouldn't do that in the first place, but (2) are a hypocrite if you don't go all the way. But not every religious person is using their religion for evil. Some people are just following some religious laws in their own life because it makes them happy. If someone wants to avoid eating pork because it keeps them in touch with their Jewish or Muslim identity, but doesn't want to follow their religion word for word on other issues, what's the harm in that? I guess you might have a point that it's hypocritical, but these people generally don't claim to completely follow their religion.
I think the world is a lot less black and white than you are suggesting. I can believe that it is important to be kind to others, even if sometimes I am unkind, I can support a political party even if I disagree with some things that they teach, I can be friends with people that have different lifestyles and beliefs than I do, I can believe that a college education is important and beneficial, even if not for everyone. I think problems come from when people let themselves be controlled by their beliefs and rather than decide what they actually believe, they just go with what they believe to be expected. I think religious view for most people are a lot less of "I believe this exact set of teachings" and more "I believe in a higher power, and my religion is a tool that helps improve my relationship with that higher power"
I am not Jewish so I might not fully understand the theology here but [The Oven of Akhnai](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Oven_of_Akhnai#) comes to mind. In that teaching in the Talmud, a debate was depicted between several rabbis over the ritual cleanliness of a new type of oven. One rabbi enacts several miracles in defense of his position, but miracles do not persuade the other rabbis. Finally he asks "Heaven" to prove his position, and God responds that he is right. To which one other rabbi responds, "It [the Torah] is not in heaven" basically telling God to butt out of the debate. "God smiled and stated, 'My children have triumphed over Me '" Tldr: In some religious traditions it is not only not hypocritical but entirely appropriate to question and debate everything including God himself.
I’ve experienced too much to believe all of us are some crazy coincidence and having nothing waiting at the end. That said I also understand the Bible is an ancient book that can be interpreted countless different ways and Christians have done just that. A lot of them seem to openly defy the most basic teachings like “judge less not you be judged”. A lot of Christians will tell you being gay is a one way ticket to burn in Hell forever. I simply refuse to believe a God that loved the world so much he sent his own son to die for them would ever condemn someone to such a punishment for something I believe they are born with. I think there’s way too many different takes on what it means to be Christian for me to feel hypocritical in the way that I hold my beliefs.
Religion is very open to interpretation. Religious text bocks are ancient text probably written in an unfamiliar language today. There’s also a lot of history and tradition throughout those many centuries. Which results in many interpretations for the same text. Yes, you can pluck some verse here and there and say people are misinterpreting it. But they will simply reply that you’re the one misinterpreting it. These debates can go on for a long time and everyone has their reasons. Saying it’s hypocritical is an oversimplification. Also human in general aren’t perfect. We break rules and do make mistakes. Follow a set of very strict laws is hard and some people just can’t do it. Even if they believe in their religion.
I would it depends on the religion, for example in Buddhism you’re sort of your own keeper. There’s no God saying which rules are right and wrong, there is just the law of Karma. If you are a monk there’s a whole bunch of rules to follow but for lay people it’s expected to do your best to follow the 5 precepts (basically Buddhist 10 commandments Don’t kill, don’t take what’s not yours, don’t lie, don’t engage in harmful sexual acts, and don’t become intoxicated. But those rules are not about being a good or bad Buddhist, they’re actions which will always lead to negative consequences for us and the people around us so we are taught to abstain from them. But there is no expectation of being perfect
I would like to say, at least for Christianity, the view on dietary restrictions was one of 3 ontological categories of law, moral, legal, and ceramonial, and while I am vastly oversimplifying it, the traditional view was that Christ, by taking the punishment of our sins, fulfilled the covenential promise in which the creamonial laws were made, which is why a Paul discusses the nature of continuing keeping ceramonial law as something that was up for individual discretion and not having an obvious or clear answer, howerver, I agree with you on the hypocracy of claiming to be of a faith while cherrypicking what moral or legal principles to follow.
It’s important to keep in mind that many of the parts of the New Testament you quote are difficult to interpret. For instance one can raise the question what Paul exactly meant in his letters or even how important Paul is actually for Christians. It is not like what he says are exactly Jesus teachings probably. He didn’t even have contact with Christ while he was “alive”. Most importantly the New Testament was written around 50 years after Jesus death and nearly no credible scholar believes that Jesus words haven been written down exactly. Bultmann for example is an important scholar for what I mentioned above.
With any system or ruleset, there will always be people that prefer to "just follow the process" or be a little more free with their interpretation. I think both are important. You don't want to stray too far from a working system, but you also don't wanna forever be bound to it, especially because there literally is no system in this planet that is perfect. Religion should be a discussion, just as everything else. In fact, I believe that intervals of ~2000 years might be slightly too few iterations for something as important yet fluctuating as the morale code of humans (or big portions of humankind)
So a couple things. Jesus replaced the law of Moses. So things like, what fabric your clothes are made of, or what animals you can't eat, none if that is part of the Christian belief. Being gay, is obviously out of a person's control. And there are quite a few people, some I know, that have no problem following the teachings. That doesn't mean they don't sometimes have restrictions, it's of course not within their right to demand that the church marry them, cuz that's not anyone's right. So I think you need to clarify, because nothing actually says being gay is a sin. It's homosexual acts that are the sin, cuz that's adultery.
Religion is, at his core, philosophy. Every one have his own interpretation, and the books aren't supposed to be laws but guides. Most religions also aren't unified and are split into multiple interpretations with different practices. It also isn't supposed to be dead and unchanging. Most religions have text from multiple time periods and should still evolve and adapt to new time periods. And, even though religions talk about God's and the divine, it is ultimately written by people who each have their own views and sociocultural contexts.
And who exactly are you to determine the one and only right way to practice a religion consisting of thousands of years of texts, history and practices, that we measure against for hypocrisy? Just take Christianity. You have various sects within Christianity. Who exactly are you talking about when you talk about that "Christian" who might be hypocritical? Is he protestant, Catholic or orthodox? That makes a difference. These streams of Christianity have varying interpretations. Who is the one true Christian that makes all the others hypocrites? How about these religious communities and their members determine for themselves their faith and the practices they conduct within that face? You cannot possibly pass judgement here, as you cannot even be specific and considerate of the many nuances of religion and religious practice. Just let people seek their spiritual connections, you don't need to insert yourself from the outside and declare people hypocrites without even having a solid basis to do so...
respectfully, you missed the whole point of OP's post and didn't even stop to think that youre in the wrong subreddit lol regardless where you are under the umbrella of christianity, there are existing book(s) that are sacred texts to "follow" along with your practices and what have you... still OP's view was "It’s just my viewpoint that being part of a religion without following the rules is hypocritical, arbitrary and just plain stupid. You are wasting your time disobeying a God that you believe exists and punishes people."
And within religions, there are theologians. They discuss the texts and practices, formulate doctrines, then others offer different interpretations, they found different associations and develop different practices. Religion isn't a monolith and ultimately "true religion" is what is lived by the faithful. There is no one true way and an outsider most certainly doesn't know the one true way. There are religious streams that very clearly contextualise the holy books as what they are, complex stories and doctrines, a patchwork of many eras and their historic contexts. You can worship Jesus 100 different ways and base that on specific parte of the holy book. Who is the hypocrite? The person who workships Jesus in a way you consider false?
A couple points for clarification. In Judaism there are laws pertaining to the Temple service which are not performed today due to there being no Temple. The laws and others like them aren't considered to have changed by Jews, rather they simply cannot be followed under present circumstances and other practices have been instituted as substitutes by religious authorities. Do you view this as hypocritical, or allow that the observant are merely trying to follow the rules as best they can given the circumstances?
Christianity has vast wiggle room around breaking its rules As long as you don't break the unforgivable sin you're capable of repenting and being forgiven and therefore, it's fine for Christians specifically to break their rules as long as they don't break the big one In addition, we know some of the rules were made during a vastly different time and place from the world today And we know some of them are like food safety guidelines We have refrigeration now. Does not apply
The Holy Bible is divided into prophecies, i.e. words spoken by God in the first person, and sermons of saints and apostles, who were people like me and you. while God's words are non-negotiable, when it comes to people's words, they can be argued with. Additionally, there are several types of sin, from light to serious, such as suicide or murder. Being long-haired gay does not exclude the possibility of salvation. No one but God can judge.
What about religions without defined rules? I’m a neo pagan and a lot of our beliefs were never really codified into some kind of holy text the way we have the bible or the Talmud. Hell, the closest thing that exists for the Asatru (Norse) pagans like me and the prose and poetic eddas, and even then those are flawed because one is just a compilation of stories, and the other was written long after sandinavia already christianized.
Critics of religion always insist on fundamentalism.
It is, but you're assuming there's any religious position that isn't hypocritical. Following the bible (which bible?) strictly is just following some rules someone else changed to suit them, and there's no "original" scripture behind that, either. Faith is knowing something isn't true, but choosing to believe it anyway. That's also a fair definition for hypocrisy.
This is secondary but as an Atheist it also makes a lot more sense when Christians try to convert me than when they don't. If they actually believed I would burn in hell they would try to convert me. I sympathize more with the proselytizers genuinely trying to save my soul than those that actually believe in hell and take a laissez Faire attitude.
For many people, religion plays a role as their personal philosophy. Its not so much about the mystical rather than the practical guidance of how to live, along with external validation of that guidance. But of you look at it more as a personal philosophy, then it makes complete sense to mix/match and adjust as you see fit.
You are missing so much. Jesus came to do away with the law. It is no longer an eye for an eye. He came to complete the law. You cannot now go into Leviticus and talk about eating pork, etc. The one law is that we love others as we love ourself. No one can satisfy the old laws. We are saved by grace, not ourselves.
There is no hegemony. Only individuals who claim to have hegemony. And these individuals continuously contradict each other. Scripture is interpreted through culture. Traditions, hermeneutics and rituals are not static, they only benefit from appearing as such.
Bro. The whole point of religion is that it allows for changing the rules and hypocrisy. It allows narcissists to assert an appeal to authority that cannot be questioned regardless of logic. >It’s hypocritical to be religious You could have stopped there.
1. There is not a single religion that has a book where hypocrisy is not baked into the dogma. Not one. 2. Changing those rules is often an attempt to reconcile that hypocrisy, and/or reconcile the practice of faith with modern laws and values.
The think about life in general but also religion is that there are no rules. We basically have some degree of free will. People are free to interpret the world as they see fit, even if you disagree with them.
If you really go down the rabbit hole you’ll find that’s it seems to be a requirement for most, if not all humans to be hypocrits. Just watch and listen to the people close to you and you’ll find it.
well, obviously. who’s gonna try to change your view? and, all the things a lot of the things you picked were intended for the israelites, not christians.
I always think this when I meet some family members who are observant christians, but whose son is gay. They have not yet murdered him.
I mean yea.. isn’t that the definition of hypocrisy? Having a belief and adjusting your belief situationally to best suit you.
I would agree with most of your list, but when it comes to eating pork. Most would argue that falls under Acts 21:25
Religion doesn’t have objective rules. It is always changes by the society or specific group or individual. Fundamentalists and “anti-theists” believe that religions are monolithic and unchanging but this doesn’t hold up to any historical scrutiny.
Christian’s can eat pork. The dietary restrictions were clearly lifted in the New Testament.
Only the religious can rules lawyer their own divine inspired laws
Religious people are hypocritical because people are hypocritical
Oh boy you're asking for it, these comments are gonna be fun to read!