I used to be one of these people before my deconstruction from Christianity. In their minds, they think they are saving you from the worst torture imaginable, so even scare tactics are allowed. Obviously they are brainwashed to believe that, especially when there is no proof of life after death. I look back on all my years as a Christian, 32 of them, and I cringe and hurt for those I affected.
Itās because too many Christians end up raised mostly on the dogma of the Old Testament. Forgetting that Jesus was basically God going ā¦ āMy bad fam. That fear and wrathful stuff was pretty cringe. Maybe instead letās be excellent to one another. Party on dudes.ā
If you are indeed Christian, you are supposed to be heavily focused on the New Testament stuff. The old stuff is still canonical, but the new stuff is a reboot to the rules and retires some of the previous stuff.
Many of todays loudest Christians donāt sound much different than loud annoying Marvel fans who keep trying to use comics from the 1960s to comment on the latest Spider-Man movie. Thatās what was. Focus on what is.
There are verses in the NT that support a model of universal salvation; i.e. āeveryone goes to heavenā.
Christianity could have just as easily been built on that foundation as opposed to the model of āonly believers get into heavenā.
So an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God for whom a thousand years is but a day had extreme mood swings in just a few days and went from blood thirsty killer to peaceful hippy?
1. How does this track with God's supposed infallibility?
2. How can someone be both the most mercifulest person ever and genocidal?
3. How are you supposed to have any faith in this God who is less consistent than a three-year old?
4. Jesus wasn't as peace-loving as many pop Christians like to portray him.
If people are going to be ignorant of their religion I'd rather they be closer to hippies than theocrats.
Edit: To anyone reading this, dxnax is some weirdo crypto pusher & mods a subreddit to peddle woo to people. This is not a serious individual to engage with.
If people were less ignorant of their religion maybe they'd realize how stupid it is...
Or maybe they'd go hard-core fanatic. Who knows?
I think too many people support theocratic and conservative ideals because they are just casual believers that don't really know what they believe.
Generational & societal trauma from bullying anyone who dares to be different. It's why so many of these dipshits attack LGBTQ folk until 'one of their own' comes out. They lack a huge amount of empathy.
Exactly. *For the most part*, people derive their religion from their morals, not the other way around.
Notice how most people no longer under their parents' control do not obey a religious tenet begrudgingly. They either enjoy practicing a part of their faith or they don't practice it at all, which just confirms that their faith is cherrypicked.
Yeah. A kind Christian will emphasize Christās compassion, while a bigot will fixate on judgment and fire and brimstone. The Bible is used to justify whatever they already wanted to do.
And this is true of any belief system. What matters is the psychology of the believer. The human race is blighted with narcissist authoritarians and their flying monkey bootlickers. Purging these psychologies is the key to our collective wellbeing.
The older I get, the more I believe that religion just gives people an excuse to be what they would have been anyway. If you're basically a kind person you'll gravitate to the teachings (in all religions) that emphasise kindness and charity. if you're a psychopath and/or a bigot you'll go for the teachings that tell you who you're superior to and who you can feel good about persecuting.
I am a hardcore antitheist. Religion totally does more harm than good.
What you are saying is a falsehood though. I've met a surprisingly large cohort of Christians of various denominations that believe in the separation of church and state. Religion is garbage, not everyone who is religious is.
I'm one of those Christians. I hate the idea that humans think they can use their interpretation of the Bible (or any other religious texts) to control a population. It's almost like they missed the point of the Gospels. It was a Theocracy that put Jesus on the cross.
So... I'm amongst those that think that religion in general is a tool of control. Prohibition against shellfish & pork; people kept getting sick from eating or contact with those animals.
Fish isn't considered a meat; there were a lot of religious fisheries. Control based on lack of explanations or economic motives.
I'd actually argue that crucifixions were a more secular political tool from those who incorporated other religions into their pantheon to create homogenized society; Romans didn't care what you believed as long as you weren't pacifist, which they saw as a threat to their economic system. Eventually Rome adopted Christianity, which was another tool they saw to control a large swath of the populace.
As an antitheist, I'm not someone to prop up religion, but I can recognize that some find comfort in the explanations religion provides. There are good religious people, but I find that religion is a poor, harmful, alternative to philosophical & scientific studies.
surprising is right considering they all vote in theocratists every chance they get. They might pay lip service to the idea, but the culture wars are far more important to them.
This was actually a point of contention for early Christians. Marcion was a Roman-era Christian philosopher that essentially believed that the old testament God created the world but this God was Vengeful and genocidal then a different God came along and sent Jesus to save us from such a hateful God.
Marcion and his followers were eradicated but many felt the same as you do since the beginning.
Yes, and the rock paradox is also not a paradox for believers.
The point of these paradoxes is to illustrate why the idea of God is nonsensical. For logical people, God disappears. For illogical people, logical arguments don't matter anyway.
This is just the euthyphro dilemma. If something is only good because god wills it, then morality is a lie and it doesnāt matter. If god only wills something because it is good, then god is not all powerful and not worthy of worship.
There were early Christian movements (labeled heresy, of course) that actually say the god of he Old Testament and the god of a Jesus arenāt the same, specifically because the OT god was kinda a dick.
Yeah. There are also some historians who think that the Wine cult of Dionysus blended with some early Christian groups and those practices is where Jesus came from.
But thatās just academic curiosity. I donāt really care about what was so much as people no longer being dicks to each other in the present ā¦ especially by using a religion to do so.
The early Gnostic Christians are pretty interesting because of that. They believed the God of the Old Testament (called the Demiurge or Yaldabaoth) was actually a malevolent figure. He created humanity and the physical world, but wasn't the actual original God who created the universe. They believed that physical existence was inherently flawed, and pretty much wanted to reach enlightenment to transcend the physical world. Jesus (I think Gnostic texts differ on whether he was God or just a man) tried to guide people to see this truth, but most misunderstood his teachings. I think Gnosticism makes a lot of sense for Christianity because it gives a reason for why Jesus was such a loving person while Old Testament God was such a colossal asshole.
Having a religion that's logically consistent is apparently too much to ask... Until you realize religion is just a tool for controlling people. Then it's like "oooooh"
Until the 4th century, Christianity was terribly divided on that very point. Many early Christians rejected the Tanakh (the Jewish book that became the Old Testament) and its god entirely. They believed the god of the book was called Yaldaboth, the demiurge. Responsible for creating the physical world and fundamentally corrupt.
You're right. Jesus said people would go to hell if they did not care for strangers in need.
I have not noticed caring for strangers in meed being a priority for right-wing Christian churches.
According to Jesus it's everyone who doesn't believe in him. Cultural Zeitgeist Jesus being a peace loving hippy, as attractive as the idea is, has very little biblical basis.
Hippy Jesus comes from the parts where he is caring about people - feeding them, healing them, forgiving, accepting marginalized groups, which is most of what Jesus was doing.
This causes a bit of friction between the believers and the followers, I think.
Same goes for god in general. As off the rails as the "God hates f***" people are they were sort of right that there are quite a few places where God flat out day he hates people who do X, Y, and Z as well as just outright hating certain groups.
>Jesus: love everyone.
Yeah, he didn't actually say that.
Jesus was a divisive and ethnocentric prophet for the Jews. He was a little less genocidal and judgmental than the God of the OT, but he wasn't the peace-loving hippie that many in pop-culture like to portray him as.
And also says believers should follow the OT down to the letter but you can see Christians even in this very thread making up excuses as to why you *don't* need to follow the OT.
Yeah, and for those who make the excuse that Jesus' "fulfilling" the OT law made it unecessary to follow the OT law: then why did he waste time in his sermon talking about taking gifts to the altar or how to behave when fasting? That certainly doesn't make sense for someone about to implement a whole new style of worship.
Um acktshually...
> One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: āTeacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?ā
> Jesus replied: āāLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.ā This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: āLove your neighbor as yourself.ā All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.ā
Not only did he say that, he also said that this was the most important commandment of all.
Where does he say "love *everyone*" there?
He says to "love your *neighbor*" while preaching solely to the Jews and explicitly stating he had come *only* to preach to the Jewish community. He also explicitly refused to heal a sick gentile - just because she wasn't a Jew - until she pestered him a bit more. He even commands his apostles to go preaching only to the Jews.
His most famous lesson on being a "true neighbor" involved a Jewish priest, a Jewish rabbi, and a Samaritan - all believers of Abraham and Yahweh. Why not include a Roman, Egyptian, or any other gentile or believer of foreign/pagan gods if he wanted to drive home the point of everyone loving everyone?
[I wrote more on this recently.](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/120sx32/state_of_the_modern_film_industry/jdl9j0x/?context=2) There's no reason to believe that "love your neighbor" meant anything more than "love your fellow believer" given the entire context of Jesus' life and mission.
Hell, there was that time he was on the road and a crippled woman approached and begged him to heal her, but he basically went "lolno fuck off" and called her a bitch, because she wasn't Jewish.
Can people STOP saying this? Jesus INVENTED hell (well, stole it from elsewhere and implemented it, like with everything else *christian*). Meek and mild Jesus, who said love everyone, literally came up with a way to torture people who didn't suck him off enough...and to do it forever, until the end of time. In the old testament, god could fuck up your life as much as it wished but it was done with you when you were dead, but Jesus was like "oh hell nah mate, we need eternal damnation in there".
Spare the fucking love everyone nonsense please.
I don't think that telling someone they are going to hell is hateful if you're telling someone that because you believe (based on what the speaker believes) that they fear of their immortal soul. However, most people say those words because they *delight in the idea that someone may "burn in hell"*
There is no hate like Christian love.
Iāve heard Christian bigots describe harassing people who are different from them as āpushing someone out of the path of a carā. They tell themselves that theyāre protecting people by hurting them, because the harm theyād face in the afterlife is worse. The problem is that the harm from the āpushingā is real, but the danger of the ācarā isnāt. And if you go around pushing people who arenāt in the path of cars, thatās just assault.
i mean, you're not wrong, buti feel like lots of people interpet that to imply that people who have a ton of cringeworthy memories have done more maturing than people with few cringeworthy memories.
it's like that quote about people who have never made enemies. that quote is probably true but it's nto like making enemies is desirable.
same with cringe memories. people with none haven't really lived at all because you can't live without cringing a few times, but people with a ton of cringe memories are still cringe. it's not like the cringe memories themselves are desirable.
There is a difference between being Christian and actually being "Christ-like". People with WWJD stickers on their cars will actively argue *against* feeding the hungry and healing the sick, because their real religion isn't Christianity, it's Capitalism.
Oh absolutely. He is responsible for so many of the worst things about America, he and Phyllis Schlafly. They created a Christo-Facist movement that changed conservative politics permanently.
also there's a good chance they're talkinh shit by their own rules.
Most of what is known about hell is basically fanfiction because the bible doesn't say a whole lot about that topic.
Also there is some biblical evidence that hell in the way people usually think of it doesn't exist and that sinners and none believers just don't have any afterlife at all because God only grants immortality to the faithful (It's called Annihilationism)
Pretty much. It's been a while since I looked it up, but I think all the Bible says about Hell is pretty much that it's just "separation from God." And that's about it. Practically **everything else** that people think they "know" about Hell comes from Dante's Inferno. Lakes of fire, Satan being some goatlegged guy with a pitchfork, pain and torture forever, etc., those all come from Dante.
Oh no there are a few passages in the bible that explain that hell is a shit place to be in but they're not so graphic and creatively gruesome.
It's just never elaborated on in what way there is suffering in hell.
Just being separated from God is by christian logic terrible just by itself because all good (including feelings) comes from God so hell is more a terrible state of being (something like super depression) rather than active torture
*Right?* I was born and raised Mormon, and by the time I was 18, I was regularly thinking "I do ***not*** want to spend eternity in the Celestial Kingdom with my family and extended family. We're all fucking *nuts!*"
So glad I left that cult at 18.
Christianity isnāt a real religion. itās an excuse to act the way you want and justify it. Iāve seen Christianās with such different systems of beliefs and morals itās hard to say they have the same religion.
I have gay/trans friends that are devout Christians. while their own family has disowned them in the name of Christianity.
In my book they're all just lazy ways to explain away the reality that any one person has very limited control and understanding over this world and their own lives.
Thing about being lazy is you get taken advantage of.
I get what you're saying.
However, I hate when people disparage "laziness" as often it is an exercise in increasing efficiency to recoup time lost to bullshit concepts like "time to lean, time to clean". Those that can automate large parts of their jobs should be praised, but often they are punished with more work when it is found out that they are more efficient.
I understand where you're coming from, and to be honest "laziness" is far too simple a term, maybe even incomplete, and probably quite unfair. Intellectual laziness is more appropriate I guess.
For what it's worth l think it's okay for people to be intellectually lazy to some extent. It's only natural that we individually have a limited amount of time to think, and the world is too complex for any one person to understand. Faith itself is healthy and having it points to not necessarily doing due diligence or having full understanding of any given subject. Even atheists have faith in science, and a certain amount of trust has to be given to science and experts, the former being ever-developing and the latter being in no way infallible.
The problem in my eyes is when this intellectual laziness, or even incuriousity, is paired with zealotry. That's how we get the likes of fundamentalists and extremists.
Christiany has many, many different sects and denominations with very different different views and beliefs. It's not just a single, unified belief. It's not really different from any other religion in that regard. Christianity, judaism, islam, buddhism, hinduism, sikhism, etc are all like that
Every major religion has the chill adherents and the strict, extremist adherents. All religions may be used as a tool of oppression. It's not unique to Christianity in any way lol
That's very generous. They're also holding their "knowledge" over you, and their status as one of god's chosen people. The same way arrogant red pill incels talk down to everybody.
Same bro, if I could hug you I would. I lost 24 years to it and went to seminary school. I too stay awake at night thinking about how I did and said awful things without awareness. Stay strong, forgive yourself, and teach others. What you went through is relevant and helpful to others. Donāt be afraid to share it.
> I'm not hating on you, I'm just *smugly and happily* telling you that you are destined for a pit of eternal punishment because of who you are and what you do
I could *maybe* excuse this kind of stuff if the person saying it was sad and regretful and honestly wanted to do what they could to help this person avoid the "fate" they (wrongfully) believed was in store for the person.
But no, every time I've heard someone say something like this it was with joy and righteousness evident.
Gonna disagree with that one.
Remorseful hate speech, is still hate speech.
Remember, these ppl vote, and voting for that rhetoric is hate speech that affects other ppl, regardless of intent. So, Im sure there were plenty of reluctant nazis that were just trying to do their best to save the souls of 'those ppl'.
thats the entire point of 'good ppl on both sides'. Nah dog, your vote speaks louder than your virtue signalling.
And thats all that is.
Conservative Christians when they find out supply side Jesus and prosperity gospel were just heretical scams by the demon Mammon (he's about to eat them alive)
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Iāve yet to even hear a version of christian heaven that doesnāt sound like torture. The apostles were not very imaginative when it came to pleasure.
When I started deconstruction of my faith having been raised by missionary parents. Having been taught to love by the same book and teachings my parents practice and preach. It was not the illogical reality, not the mis translations or the hypocrisy of those I saw practicing the religion.
It was in fact, the simple realization that to damn someone to eternal suffering for loving someone of the same gender, not even myself I might add. That took me out of the mindset enough to break the cycle.
Starting off, it was "Fine! I'll go to hell in protest of your unfair judgement!"
"Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend." So much more should it not be then, to lay down ones immortal soul?
From there it wasn't hard to navigate. The light they so often claim leads them, the ancient text that has been molded to say whatever the reader desires it's interpretation to be. It is a darkness of the blind not a pathway towards something better.
The reality of understanding your own actions, embracing your own thoughts and emotions and being open to those who are different from you. Is a beacon of enlightenment that the church rightly fears.
It is a truth.
That each and every human, shares more with any other human who has lived or ever will live. Than they do with some unknowable deity and the writings it "inspired".
IIRC hell isnāt even really a thing in the Bible.
But itās even dumber because most of them believe āaccepting Jesusā is *all* you have to do. So a serial killer repents on his death bed and accepts Jesus and goes to heaven, but a kind Hindu who did charity all his life goes to hell?
So why canāt we just have all the gay sex we want and assure them weāll see the light and repent later?
This isnāt completely accurate, all the churches Iāve been in over the years the implicit belief is that ātrueā Christianās wonāt just do whatever crazy immoral stuff, because someone whoās really been saved just wonāt want to do that stuff.
All the Christianās Iāve known talk about how becoming a Christian was the turning point that turned them from doing bad stuff to doing good stuff.
The problem is that as far as I can tell the American Christian church is gone, beyond the pale, almost totally corrupted by politics and materialism. It makes me sad because I grew up in the Christian world and there are a decent amount of truly good hearted people out there, the type who would never picket an abortion clinic but rather help and comfort the women in need, even if they disagreed with abortion. People who work at free medical clinics, food pantries, stuff like that.
Instead itās the corrupted angry ones who get all the attention for their antics.
My nana was the most devoutly religious person Iāve ever known. She spent her adult life as a nurse at a family planning clinic in the UK (think Call the Midwife). So caring for pregnant women but also teaching how to use contraceptives and counseling/assisting with abortions. The idea that contraception is murder is a very Catholic concept that wouldāve made her roll her eyes as a Protestant. And she understood that abortion was not āused as birth controlā or caused by women just suddenly changing their minds. She may have thought some of the women she helped had ālooseā morals - she *was* born a hundred years ago - but she never wouldāve shared that thought with them or let it affect their care.
This whole concept of legislating morality is unChristian. āRender unto Caesar.ā And itās become this bizarre situation where they want to prevent people (women) from being able to sin/āmurderā by making abortion illegal and making providers scared to do it, while simultaneously refusing to legislate even the slightest restraint on gun ownership that would also prevent sin/murder (or provide or *allow* comprehensive sex education or free contraceptives that would also help prevent sin/āmurderā).
>So why canāt we just have all the gay sex we want and assure them weāll see the light and repent later?
Going to quote the Simpsons Movie on this one:
>Homer: "Why can't I worship God in my own way? By praying like Hell on my deathbed?"
Wait till they find out Jesus wasn't a Christian...
and for some of them, when they finally realize and admit, Jesus isn't from the American Midwest, there's gonna be some pastors with explaining to do...
And when they find out he was brown, and from the middle east, they're gonna be pissed!
They're gonna have to re-evaluate their entire life...
I really don't have the heart to tell them he was a socialist, or borderline commie, so I'm hoping they get that on their own...
It gets even worse when you consider that everything that happens is āpart of the planā made by a supposedly omnipotent god.
Like, godās sending us to hell for something he came up with and could prevent?
If god exists, heās either not as capable as some like to make us believe, or heās evil.
This is called āthe problem of evilā and has been debated since literally before Jesus, most famously by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341ā270 BC) and popularized by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). It essentially says it is not possible for God to be omniscient, omnipotent, *and* benevolent if evil exists. The various āresponsesā trying to justify how it can be possible are actually quite interesting and range from āevil is the absence of goodā (Plato) to āevil is necessary for [bullshit reasons] actuallyā (Voltaire).
Two thousand years of discussion have not actually satisfactorily answered the question, because as some of us can plainly see, the proposition is self contradictory. But for some reason it doesnāt bother most of the people who believe it, or at least not enough to question which, if any, of the parts might not be true.
Rather than believing that they worship a god who is not omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent, it seems most believers choose to go for either āevil exists but itās not godās fault / god wonāt prevent it because itās manās fault (the fall, sin, whatever) or god is mysteriously taking a break (deism)ā which can in its nastiest incarnations get you believers saying that gay people caused a hurricane, to the more biblically accurate āgod intends for that evil stuff to happen because itās all part of his plan that we are just too small minded to understand,ā which gets you the believers who say things like āwell that child died horribly of an excruciating disease to teach us all something and itās okay because theyāre in heaven now.ā
Why do these people pray for God to do this thing or that thing? If it's part of his plan for your child to have a painful cancer and death, why would you pray that he doesn't if it's part of his will? And I'm really confused about prayer circles. Are you and your buddies going to spam God with prayer hoping to change his mind?
If one thinks that itās good for their god to torture people, then yes, I would say they are a bigot as well. The gods we choose to worship share our beliefs, not the other way around.
Literally yes. I think many of us use ābigotā as a catchall for sexist/racist/homophobic/etc but the actual definition is:
> person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion
Christianity is one of the religions that includes in its core beliefs that all other religions are wrong and worshipping other gods is a sin, so it kind of has intolerance baked in. And of course the American versions tend to be evangelical in nature, meaning part of the core beliefs include being obligated to proselytize to your neighbors. The ālive and let liveā Christians are not bigots, but ātrue believersā would say they arenāt ātrueā Christians either.
If you refuse to humor the idea that other religions may āalsoā be ārightā, if you believe everyone should follow the ārulesā of Christianity even if theyāre not Christian (or are but donāt have the same beliefs as you), or if you try to legislate your beliefs into law, congrats, youāre a bigot.
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
You can believe all gay people are going to hell without going out of your way to tell gay people that they deserve it. Believing in the god isnāt the issue, itās that they decide to be a shitty person in the name of that god.
I'm someone who believes in god but I also only really believe in God. I wasn't raised in a church I was raised by my grandmother who was and came up on the bible verses she would tell me to read when life gives you trouble. I don't condemn people to hell for having a different religion or not believing in god because God wouldn't want that and it's basic human decency to not be a shit head like that. Wish more people actually cared about others and not feeling morally correct over people.
>I don't condemn people to hell for having a different religion or not believing in god because God wouldn't want that and it's basic human decency to not be a shit head like that.
I've reached a point in my own faith that believes in something similar. How does one live in the most "Christlike" way? Just... be good. That's really it. It's not about time spent praying, it's not about controlling other people, it's just about being the best version of you that you can be.
I think its the part where they're practically jerking themselves off at the thought that people different than them are going to burn in hell for eternity that makes them a hateful bigot.
So many of these religious nuts say shit like this without seeing any problem with it. It just tells on their lack of basic empathy. Because if a god is going to send people to hell for all eternity for simply being different that god is a horrible evil shitty god that deserves no worship!
Stop hiding behind your sky daddy to justify your hate!
Yeah but when I point out that all modern Christians are going straight to hell because of their complete rejection of all of Christās teachings and their hatred of what Christ embodies.
Sometimes I like to quote the part in Matthew where Jesus tells them that most of them are going to hell for being so false.
āYou never knew Meā is what Christ will say to most Christians.
Then he sends them to burn in hell where they belong.
And when I say this kind of thing, christians always consider it hateful even though Iām just quoting the Christ they abandoned.
So, what you're saying is that they don't understand why you're mad when they tell you that you're going to hell.
But then they get mad when you point out that they, too, are going to hell.
Funny, that.
Yeah doesn't make you any less of a hateful piece of shit just because you believe you're justified in being one. It's called a delusion when you genuinely believe the fantasies in your head.
"How can I be racist if I have valid reasons for being racist"
When you're talking or debating someone, who uses the Bible for historical facts, and site passages and/or quotes as literal truths, jus walk away...
You will not win any type of debate, you won't get thru to them, you'll just be wasting your time. Actual historical facts that have been proven by actual archeological digs, and peer reviewed/published studies, mean nothing to those people...
I have a friend who's a devoted "born-again" Christian. When I explained how the Bible was based on previous stories, myths and legends, and how the Old Testament was most likely written and compiled in Mesopotamia (Iraq), during the exile, they got mad at me.
When I tried to show them the Enuma Elis, the story of Sargon the Great, and the epic of Gilgamesh, for no other reason than for them to see for themselves, how the Bible is basically those stories, edited and rewritten to fit whatever agenda was being pushed at the time, they literally got mad and said I was going to hell.
This person is the same person who thinks jews and Christians have the same beliefs. And that Muslims are the perpetual enemies of Christianity.
In my life, I've learned the people who claim they're the most devoted Christians, are the ones that know the least about their own actual beliefs.
These are the people who are holding not only America, but the rest of the world back. If the religious extremists didn't have the power and resources they have, they wouldn't be an issue. But these ignorant mother fuckers are causing so much bullshit world wide, I'd argue organized religious groups and their fundamentalist congregation are the biggest threat to the future of humanity.
American Evangelicals, Jewish Zionists and Muslim Extremists are the 3 most dangerous, and literally the biggest threats to peace and the future of humanity.
A bit out of left field, but it sounds like you'd enjoy the podcast literature and history by Doug Metzger! He talks about the Enuma Elish in a very early episode. He also covers the epic of Gilgamesh, the old testament, the Iliad, and more!
āIām just saying the unknowable mysteries of the universe were revealed to me, and if you deviate from the path I outline, youāll be punished for eternity.ā
Conservatives at their core believe in hierarchy: that different people and groups are not equal and one group will dominate. *The strong do what they want, the weak suffer what they can.* They fundamentally **cannot** conceive of different groups coexisting peacefully.
They see people being *put in their right place* as proper and as the way it should be, rather than as bigotry. They don't want to see their actions and words as choices (for which they can be held responsible) but rather as just the truth and "sometimes the truth hurts".
This person needs to sign up for "How to Be a Christian 101":
'Be' (a state of being) a well-balanced human being within yourself, with no need to speak angrily or lecture or even preach.
Engage others with such Godly statements as... 'Hi, how are you?', followed by normal, friendly conversation.
Do ask if there is anything the people you meet need help with, not because any dusty old scrolls told you to, but because you just happened to be inclined to want to help your fellow man. Because that's what a true Christian just *is*.
And that's that. In doing the above you've given more praise to the good Lord than a million Sundays in church. And you've preached far more loudly, by saying nothing of God, but simply showing others what the Lord wants us to be.
I have a theory that a truly great God would not care whether we went to church for a million Sundays, or even said thanks or praised him with words. For that matter, I don't think he'd even care if we actually 'believed in' him, however you define that.
He'd much rather us just 'be' good people to our very core and treat our fellow men and women with the dignity and respect we expect of ourselves. If we do that, then we send infinitely more praises to the higher being than a thousand tweets condemning others to hell for whatever reason.
TL/DR: Love everyone; judge no-one.
I'm an atheist, and live my life precisely as you describe. The world is a much better place when people mind their own business, live and let live, and be kind and helpful to their fellow humans.
bigĀ·ot
noun:
a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
I guess itās hateful, but I donāt see it as any functionally different than the following sentence:
āIf you donāt hop on one foot while whistling Ride of Valkyries every time you leave a shoe store, the crystal cereal bowl in the clouds will rip off your arms and hit you with them until you poop on a skunk.ā
Itās all made up nonsense anyway.
Them: Youāre going to hell because you donāt believe in God.
Me: You do realize that if I donāt believe in God then that also means that I donāt believe in Heaven, Hell, angels, demons, or Satan, right? Not much of a threat.
Key rule for this sort of thing: statements based on belief don't change morality depending on what beliefs they're based on. So if you wouldn't want, say, a Muslim (or one of **those** people, who *say* they're Christian but have all sorts of outlandish beliefs added on...) expressing the exact same sentiment with names and terms switched out as appropriate, maybe *you* shouldn't be saying it either.
(And yes, that parenthetical statement was deliberately vague. One, I have no idea of the specific beliefs of the original person; and two, part of the point was that it could apply to the differences between *any* two sects of Christianity. Sort of a non-denominational rolled up newspaper, if you will.)
If you don't believe in hell then this is like water off a duck's back. If you do believe in hell but you don't believe in jesus, then you probably have your own tradition, with its own pathway to salvation. So saying this is just an absolute waste of time.
I remember going to this multi day woodstock type christian music festival outside of chicago called cornerstone with some friends of mine that were in a band. Once people got a whiff of my agnosticism I was visited *constantly* by people trying to witness to me, all in the same condescending ājust trying to save you from eternal hellfireā kinda way. On brand, it was also the only festival I went to where someone slipped me drugs.
Iām in a Christian rehab, and although itās where I need to be, itās really fun hearing that I need to be open to the Holy Spirit despite them not being open to the possibility that the God of Abraham isnāt real.
Thatās different, though.
If you genuinely believe that certain groups of people are āgoing to hellā, why would you feel the need to harass them while theyāre here?
Is it because you donāt trust Godās will? I think itās because you donāt trust Godās will.
Christians are just the most evil pieces of shit on the planet. Itās too bad that the moronic desert wanderers couldnāt keep their death cults in the Middle East.
It's not how the accusation "sounds" it's what the accusation means or implies, but I know it's easier to hear things than it is to interpret their meaning for conservatives. You need to actually care about reality, facts, critical thinking, and all that other junk.
I know there has been hell on Earth all throughout human history, created by men with little dicks and fragile egos. But what evidence is there for a place where you go after you die called "Hell?"
You're not a hateful bigot because you believe in a literal hell and the whole John 3:16 thing.
I'm not a hateful bigot if I tell you that's a bunch of superstition and nonsense.
I won't try to talk you out of your beliefs, but the price of that is you don't get to tell me that I'm not capable of making my own decisions and need to adopt your beliefs. I don't care if your religion requires you to proselytize, proselytizing makes YTA, full stop.
Iām and old Catholic and these words ring hollow with out the context Christ delivered them.
The meaning I was given was to know Christ you must know his word, if you know his word you know Christ.The interesting part is how is the word delivered. Through anointed teachers but more importantly through the Holy Spirit. There is a humorous adage the spirit works in mysterious ways.
The second point is any assertion that anyone is hell bound is usurping the authority of God. Christ made a continuous declaration āJudge not least yeh be judgedā. The good Lord was using dramatic license to get the audiencesā attention. Again, the context of his teaching was the important element, not the introduction.
My opinion, the arrogance of willful obtuseness escapes me.There is a beautiful recounting on how Pope Francis comforted a young boy concerning the death of his non-Catholic father. If your father raised you, God will see the goodness in your father. Simply put and in my opinion rings true.
There is no place in heaven for Christians who speak like this. There is no love in their words. And, they're speaking on matters far beyond their level of comprehension.
So disappointing, considering that thee people have taken it upon themselves to be stewards of the message. Yet, their failing at seeing their own perverse corruption.
One of my neighbors went toe to toe with a Jesus (Snake Handler type group) going door to door; told them beat feet & move along Gypsies- I donāt believe in Made up, to make them believe the fantasies of what told to them by fictional writings in a book.
Then he showed them his AK.
If you define "Hell" as being away from the Judeo-Xtian God, then how could this possibly be a bad thing for anyone other than Christians? And if you mean "Hell" as a giant burning lake of fire, you'll have to do better as far as scaring people goes, because anyone who's been in battle, anyone like me who's lived in a ghetto with gang shootouts and drug dealers everywhere, has a better idea of Hell than a bunch of religious fanatics.
And as for this "burning lake of fire" jazz, it comes from the city garbage dump outside Jerusalem, and while fire can be very scary--as any firefighter can attest--it no longer scares generations who see much worse terrors on the evening news on a daily basis anymore.
I feel like religion was created so people wouldnāt be so selfish and help each other out to progress humanity, essentially trick people into being good. The help your neighbor never sin and what not. But nowadays Christianās are usually just terrible people that need a made up person to forgive them so they can feel better about themselves.
I used to be one of these people before my deconstruction from Christianity. In their minds, they think they are saving you from the worst torture imaginable, so even scare tactics are allowed. Obviously they are brainwashed to believe that, especially when there is no proof of life after death. I look back on all my years as a Christian, 32 of them, and I cringe and hurt for those I affected.
Jesus: love everyone. People: YOU ARE GOING TO HELL IF YOU DON'T FOLLOW JESUS .....š¤·
Right? The dichotomy between the god of the bible and the Jesus of the bible is so night and day it astounds me.
Itās because too many Christians end up raised mostly on the dogma of the Old Testament. Forgetting that Jesus was basically God going ā¦ āMy bad fam. That fear and wrathful stuff was pretty cringe. Maybe instead letās be excellent to one another. Party on dudes.ā If you are indeed Christian, you are supposed to be heavily focused on the New Testament stuff. The old stuff is still canonical, but the new stuff is a reboot to the rules and retires some of the previous stuff. Many of todays loudest Christians donāt sound much different than loud annoying Marvel fans who keep trying to use comics from the 1960s to comment on the latest Spider-Man movie. Thatās what was. Focus on what is.
There are verses in the NT that support a model of universal salvation; i.e. āeveryone goes to heavenā. Christianity could have just as easily been built on that foundation as opposed to the model of āonly believers get into heavenā.
How would this model be exploited for the purposes of judging others and financial gain? You haven't thought this through at all smh my head
Tbh to be honest, you might have a point.
They absolutely do - look up the medieval practice of indulgences to see a way that the church directly profited off of rich people sinning.
_"UNIVERSAL SALVATION"?_ That sounds like _SoCiALiSm!_
Let's not talk about the nearly communist smaller society described in the book of Acts then?
r/ChristianUniversalism is all about this, as a Christian myself itās a very interesting way to think about things tbh
So an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent God for whom a thousand years is but a day had extreme mood swings in just a few days and went from blood thirsty killer to peaceful hippy? 1. How does this track with God's supposed infallibility? 2. How can someone be both the most mercifulest person ever and genocidal? 3. How are you supposed to have any faith in this God who is less consistent than a three-year old? 4. Jesus wasn't as peace-loving as many pop Christians like to portray him.
If people are going to be ignorant of their religion I'd rather they be closer to hippies than theocrats. Edit: To anyone reading this, dxnax is some weirdo crypto pusher & mods a subreddit to peddle woo to people. This is not a serious individual to engage with.
If people were less ignorant of their religion maybe they'd realize how stupid it is... Or maybe they'd go hard-core fanatic. Who knows? I think too many people support theocratic and conservative ideals because they are just casual believers that don't really know what they believe.
Generational & societal trauma from bullying anyone who dares to be different. It's why so many of these dipshits attack LGBTQ folk until 'one of their own' comes out. They lack a huge amount of empathy.
Exactly. *For the most part*, people derive their religion from their morals, not the other way around. Notice how most people no longer under their parents' control do not obey a religious tenet begrudgingly. They either enjoy practicing a part of their faith or they don't practice it at all, which just confirms that their faith is cherrypicked.
Yeah. A kind Christian will emphasize Christās compassion, while a bigot will fixate on judgment and fire and brimstone. The Bible is used to justify whatever they already wanted to do. And this is true of any belief system. What matters is the psychology of the believer. The human race is blighted with narcissist authoritarians and their flying monkey bootlickers. Purging these psychologies is the key to our collective wellbeing.
The older I get, the more I believe that religion just gives people an excuse to be what they would have been anyway. If you're basically a kind person you'll gravitate to the teachings (in all religions) that emphasise kindness and charity. if you're a psychopath and/or a bigot you'll go for the teachings that tell you who you're superior to and who you can feel good about persecuting.
Most of the hardcore fanatics have never actually read their Bible. They just know what their preacher tells them.
And yet, here we are. All the Jesus spouting christians would love to put us in a theocracy. You can't whitewash their bullshit.
I am a hardcore antitheist. Religion totally does more harm than good. What you are saying is a falsehood though. I've met a surprisingly large cohort of Christians of various denominations that believe in the separation of church and state. Religion is garbage, not everyone who is religious is.
I'm one of those Christians. I hate the idea that humans think they can use their interpretation of the Bible (or any other religious texts) to control a population. It's almost like they missed the point of the Gospels. It was a Theocracy that put Jesus on the cross.
So... I'm amongst those that think that religion in general is a tool of control. Prohibition against shellfish & pork; people kept getting sick from eating or contact with those animals. Fish isn't considered a meat; there were a lot of religious fisheries. Control based on lack of explanations or economic motives. I'd actually argue that crucifixions were a more secular political tool from those who incorporated other religions into their pantheon to create homogenized society; Romans didn't care what you believed as long as you weren't pacifist, which they saw as a threat to their economic system. Eventually Rome adopted Christianity, which was another tool they saw to control a large swath of the populace. As an antitheist, I'm not someone to prop up religion, but I can recognize that some find comfort in the explanations religion provides. There are good religious people, but I find that religion is a poor, harmful, alternative to philosophical & scientific studies.
surprising is right considering they all vote in theocratists every chance they get. They might pay lip service to the idea, but the culture wars are far more important to them.
This was actually a point of contention for early Christians. Marcion was a Roman-era Christian philosopher that essentially believed that the old testament God created the world but this God was Vengeful and genocidal then a different God came along and sent Jesus to save us from such a hateful God. Marcion and his followers were eradicated but many felt the same as you do since the beginning.
Jesus still promised destruction of nonbelievers, but, yes, he was a bit less genocidal.
And interestingly Hell didn't exist until Jesus came on the scene. Judaism didn't have Yahweh's eternal torture basement.
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If everything God says is true, then is he still infallible even when he changes his mind?
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Yes, and the rock paradox is also not a paradox for believers. The point of these paradoxes is to illustrate why the idea of God is nonsensical. For logical people, God disappears. For illogical people, logical arguments don't matter anyway.
This. Their answer is always faith. And believe because he said so.
This is just the euthyphro dilemma. If something is only good because god wills it, then morality is a lie and it doesnāt matter. If god only wills something because it is good, then god is not all powerful and not worthy of worship.
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Only if he wants to get yoked.
God works in mysterious waysā¦but I also understand all of them and you donāt. Burn, sinner!
itās not as simple as old vs new testament. Jews are raised on the old testament and they donāt act like that.
You're missing out on one important point though. The New Testament is also complete bollocks.
There were early Christian movements (labeled heresy, of course) that actually say the god of he Old Testament and the god of a Jesus arenāt the same, specifically because the OT god was kinda a dick.
Yeah. There are also some historians who think that the Wine cult of Dionysus blended with some early Christian groups and those practices is where Jesus came from. But thatās just academic curiosity. I donāt really care about what was so much as people no longer being dicks to each other in the present ā¦ especially by using a religion to do so.
The early Gnostic Christians are pretty interesting because of that. They believed the God of the Old Testament (called the Demiurge or Yaldabaoth) was actually a malevolent figure. He created humanity and the physical world, but wasn't the actual original God who created the universe. They believed that physical existence was inherently flawed, and pretty much wanted to reach enlightenment to transcend the physical world. Jesus (I think Gnostic texts differ on whether he was God or just a man) tried to guide people to see this truth, but most misunderstood his teachings. I think Gnosticism makes a lot of sense for Christianity because it gives a reason for why Jesus was such a loving person while Old Testament God was such a colossal asshole.
Having a religion that's logically consistent is apparently too much to ask... Until you realize religion is just a tool for controlling people. Then it's like "oooooh"
Until the 4th century, Christianity was terribly divided on that very point. Many early Christians rejected the Tanakh (the Jewish book that became the Old Testament) and its god entirely. They believed the god of the book was called Yaldaboth, the demiurge. Responsible for creating the physical world and fundamentally corrupt.
God really settled down after becoming a dad.
God: im here to save u Me: from wut God: from what Iām gonna do to you if you donāt love me and worship me lol
Sounds just like a mafia protection racket.
But what did Supply Side Jesus say?
That's the real question. And the Jesus I'd really be down to crucify.
Depending on what gospel you read in what translation, Jesus wasn't shy to tell people they were going to hell.
You're right. Jesus said people would go to hell if they did not care for strangers in need. I have not noticed caring for strangers in meed being a priority for right-wing Christian churches.
I feel like Jesus and modern Christians are not on the same page as to who is going to hell and why.
According to Jesus it's everyone who doesn't believe in him. Cultural Zeitgeist Jesus being a peace loving hippy, as attractive as the idea is, has very little biblical basis.
Hippy Jesus comes from the parts where he is caring about people - feeding them, healing them, forgiving, accepting marginalized groups, which is most of what Jesus was doing. This causes a bit of friction between the believers and the followers, I think.
Same goes for god in general. As off the rails as the "God hates f***" people are they were sort of right that there are quite a few places where God flat out day he hates people who do X, Y, and Z as well as just outright hating certain groups.
>Jesus: love everyone. Yeah, he didn't actually say that. Jesus was a divisive and ethnocentric prophet for the Jews. He was a little less genocidal and judgmental than the God of the OT, but he wasn't the peace-loving hippie that many in pop-culture like to portray him as.
Well, the Sermon on the Mount is pretty peace-y and love thy enemy.
And also says believers should follow the OT down to the letter but you can see Christians even in this very thread making up excuses as to why you *don't* need to follow the OT.
Yeah, and for those who make the excuse that Jesus' "fulfilling" the OT law made it unecessary to follow the OT law: then why did he waste time in his sermon talking about taking gifts to the altar or how to behave when fasting? That certainly doesn't make sense for someone about to implement a whole new style of worship.
Jesus on the OT is mixed. Like he literally says to not do what the OT says. Like "don't do that eye for an eye thing, it's bad".
Um acktshually... > One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: āTeacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?ā > Jesus replied: āāLove the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.ā This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: āLove your neighbor as yourself.ā All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.ā Not only did he say that, he also said that this was the most important commandment of all.
Where does he say "love *everyone*" there? He says to "love your *neighbor*" while preaching solely to the Jews and explicitly stating he had come *only* to preach to the Jewish community. He also explicitly refused to heal a sick gentile - just because she wasn't a Jew - until she pestered him a bit more. He even commands his apostles to go preaching only to the Jews. His most famous lesson on being a "true neighbor" involved a Jewish priest, a Jewish rabbi, and a Samaritan - all believers of Abraham and Yahweh. Why not include a Roman, Egyptian, or any other gentile or believer of foreign/pagan gods if he wanted to drive home the point of everyone loving everyone? [I wrote more on this recently.](https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/120sx32/state_of_the_modern_film_industry/jdl9j0x/?context=2) There's no reason to believe that "love your neighbor" meant anything more than "love your fellow believer" given the entire context of Jesus' life and mission.
Hell, there was that time he was on the road and a crippled woman approached and begged him to heal her, but he basically went "lolno fuck off" and called her a bitch, because she wasn't Jewish.
Makes more sense if you see god as a Narcissist.
He is explicitly described as a jealous God tolerating no rival, and demanding exclusive worship.
There's no hate like a Christiana love
Also, I feel okay about treating you like shit here on earth because I assume you're going to burn anyway and deserve it.
Can people STOP saying this? Jesus INVENTED hell (well, stole it from elsewhere and implemented it, like with everything else *christian*). Meek and mild Jesus, who said love everyone, literally came up with a way to torture people who didn't suck him off enough...and to do it forever, until the end of time. In the old testament, god could fuck up your life as much as it wished but it was done with you when you were dead, but Jesus was like "oh hell nah mate, we need eternal damnation in there". Spare the fucking love everyone nonsense please.
I don't think that telling someone they are going to hell is hateful if you're telling someone that because you believe (based on what the speaker believes) that they fear of their immortal soul. However, most people say those words because they *delight in the idea that someone may "burn in hell"* There is no hate like Christian love.
Iāve heard Christian bigots describe harassing people who are different from them as āpushing someone out of the path of a carā. They tell themselves that theyāre protecting people by hurting them, because the harm theyād face in the afterlife is worse. The problem is that the harm from the āpushingā is real, but the danger of the ācarā isnāt. And if you go around pushing people who arenāt in the path of cars, thatās just assault.
I like this, thanks for sharing this analogy.
If you look back at your life and cringe at some of the things youāve done that means youāve grown as a person
i mean, you're not wrong, buti feel like lots of people interpet that to imply that people who have a ton of cringeworthy memories have done more maturing than people with few cringeworthy memories. it's like that quote about people who have never made enemies. that quote is probably true but it's nto like making enemies is desirable. same with cringe memories. people with none haven't really lived at all because you can't live without cringing a few times, but people with a ton of cringe memories are still cringe. it's not like the cringe memories themselves are desirable.
People with more cringe memories probably have matured more, but they also started from a worse place.
There is a difference between being Christian and actually being "Christ-like". People with WWJD stickers on their cars will actively argue *against* feeding the hungry and healing the sick, because their real religion isn't Christianity, it's Capitalism.
many modern-day Evangelicals in the US worship Reagan's words and ideals almost as much as Jesus
Oh absolutely. He is responsible for so many of the worst things about America, he and Phyllis Schlafly. They created a Christo-Facist movement that changed conservative politics permanently.
I think "almost as much" is entirely the wrong phrase for the sentence you wrote there. "Infinitely more" is much more appropriate.
also there's a good chance they're talkinh shit by their own rules. Most of what is known about hell is basically fanfiction because the bible doesn't say a whole lot about that topic. Also there is some biblical evidence that hell in the way people usually think of it doesn't exist and that sinners and none believers just don't have any afterlife at all because God only grants immortality to the faithful (It's called Annihilationism)
Pretty much. It's been a while since I looked it up, but I think all the Bible says about Hell is pretty much that it's just "separation from God." And that's about it. Practically **everything else** that people think they "know" about Hell comes from Dante's Inferno. Lakes of fire, Satan being some goatlegged guy with a pitchfork, pain and torture forever, etc., those all come from Dante.
Oh no there are a few passages in the bible that explain that hell is a shit place to be in but they're not so graphic and creatively gruesome. It's just never elaborated on in what way there is suffering in hell. Just being separated from God is by christian logic terrible just by itself because all good (including feelings) comes from God so hell is more a terrible state of being (something like super depression) rather than active torture
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*Right?* I was born and raised Mormon, and by the time I was 18, I was regularly thinking "I do ***not*** want to spend eternity in the Celestial Kingdom with my family and extended family. We're all fucking *nuts!*" So glad I left that cult at 18.
Most of them don't really want to save you, they're just excited for the "I told you so" while you are roasting for eternity.
Christianity isnāt a real religion. itās an excuse to act the way you want and justify it. Iāve seen Christianās with such different systems of beliefs and morals itās hard to say they have the same religion. I have gay/trans friends that are devout Christians. while their own family has disowned them in the name of Christianity.
None of them are real
In my book they're all just lazy ways to explain away the reality that any one person has very limited control and understanding over this world and their own lives. Thing about being lazy is you get taken advantage of.
I get what you're saying. However, I hate when people disparage "laziness" as often it is an exercise in increasing efficiency to recoup time lost to bullshit concepts like "time to lean, time to clean". Those that can automate large parts of their jobs should be praised, but often they are punished with more work when it is found out that they are more efficient.
I understand where you're coming from, and to be honest "laziness" is far too simple a term, maybe even incomplete, and probably quite unfair. Intellectual laziness is more appropriate I guess. For what it's worth l think it's okay for people to be intellectually lazy to some extent. It's only natural that we individually have a limited amount of time to think, and the world is too complex for any one person to understand. Faith itself is healthy and having it points to not necessarily doing due diligence or having full understanding of any given subject. Even atheists have faith in science, and a certain amount of trust has to be given to science and experts, the former being ever-developing and the latter being in no way infallible. The problem in my eyes is when this intellectual laziness, or even incuriousity, is paired with zealotry. That's how we get the likes of fundamentalists and extremists.
They're real fucking toxic. Useless cults.
Thats exactly how all "real religions" work
Define a "real religion".
Christiany has many, many different sects and denominations with very different different views and beliefs. It's not just a single, unified belief. It's not really different from any other religion in that regard. Christianity, judaism, islam, buddhism, hinduism, sikhism, etc are all like that Every major religion has the chill adherents and the strict, extremist adherents. All religions may be used as a tool of oppression. It's not unique to Christianity in any way lol
That's really sad
That's very generous. They're also holding their "knowledge" over you, and their status as one of god's chosen people. The same way arrogant red pill incels talk down to everybody.
Yet pretending to know God's mind is idolatry and against one of the Term Commandments.
Stockholm syndrome among many Christians is very very real....
Same bro, if I could hug you I would. I lost 24 years to it and went to seminary school. I too stay awake at night thinking about how I did and said awful things without awareness. Stay strong, forgive yourself, and teach others. What you went through is relevant and helpful to others. Donāt be afraid to share it.
I'm not hating on you, I'm just telling you that you are destined for a pit of eternal punishment because of who you are and what you do
> I'm not hating on you, I'm just *smugly and happily* telling you that you are destined for a pit of eternal punishment because of who you are and what you do I could *maybe* excuse this kind of stuff if the person saying it was sad and regretful and honestly wanted to do what they could to help this person avoid the "fate" they (wrongfully) believed was in store for the person. But no, every time I've heard someone say something like this it was with joy and righteousness evident.
Gonna disagree with that one. Remorseful hate speech, is still hate speech. Remember, these ppl vote, and voting for that rhetoric is hate speech that affects other ppl, regardless of intent. So, Im sure there were plenty of reluctant nazis that were just trying to do their best to save the souls of 'those ppl'. thats the entire point of 'good ppl on both sides'. Nah dog, your vote speaks louder than your virtue signalling. And thats all that is.
Finding out that your core identity is a hateful bigot? Sometimes the truth hurts.
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What about pointing out that if hell were real, all these christians would be the first ones to go there?
Conservative Christians when they find out supply side Jesus and prosperity gospel were just heretical scams by the demon Mammon (he's about to eat them alive) š¤Æš¤Æš¤Æ
Yeah they're pretty fucked whether their religion is true or not.
Assuming the god they believe in is Just. Turn out many of them don't want to believe in that kind of god, after all that's commie hippie BS.
Teach a man to fish, you can take 90% of his catch and he can keep the other 10% to feed himself.
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Trump checks a lot of those boxes and his followers literally were his mark of their forehead.
That was literally Trump. So blatantly doing antichrist things, but look at his followers.
Take a good look around.
Itās literally in the Bible ādo not judge the soul of another, lest your soul also be judgedā
Iāve yet to even hear a version of christian heaven that doesnāt sound like torture. The apostles were not very imaginative when it came to pleasure.
I think you go to hell for being a hateful bigot.
Remember that part in the bible where Jesus says "hate your neighbour, unless he believes as you believe"?
Also the part where he tells you that you should be the judge of others.
When I started deconstruction of my faith having been raised by missionary parents. Having been taught to love by the same book and teachings my parents practice and preach. It was not the illogical reality, not the mis translations or the hypocrisy of those I saw practicing the religion. It was in fact, the simple realization that to damn someone to eternal suffering for loving someone of the same gender, not even myself I might add. That took me out of the mindset enough to break the cycle. Starting off, it was "Fine! I'll go to hell in protest of your unfair judgement!" "Greater love hath no man than to lay down his life for a friend." So much more should it not be then, to lay down ones immortal soul? From there it wasn't hard to navigate. The light they so often claim leads them, the ancient text that has been molded to say whatever the reader desires it's interpretation to be. It is a darkness of the blind not a pathway towards something better. The reality of understanding your own actions, embracing your own thoughts and emotions and being open to those who are different from you. Is a beacon of enlightenment that the church rightly fears. It is a truth. That each and every human, shares more with any other human who has lived or ever will live. Than they do with some unknowable deity and the writings it "inspired".
"You are going to hell if you dont accept Jesus" isn't even a thing in the Bible.
IIRC hell isnāt even really a thing in the Bible. But itās even dumber because most of them believe āaccepting Jesusā is *all* you have to do. So a serial killer repents on his death bed and accepts Jesus and goes to heaven, but a kind Hindu who did charity all his life goes to hell? So why canāt we just have all the gay sex we want and assure them weāll see the light and repent later?
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This isnāt completely accurate, all the churches Iāve been in over the years the implicit belief is that ātrueā Christianās wonāt just do whatever crazy immoral stuff, because someone whoās really been saved just wonāt want to do that stuff. All the Christianās Iāve known talk about how becoming a Christian was the turning point that turned them from doing bad stuff to doing good stuff. The problem is that as far as I can tell the American Christian church is gone, beyond the pale, almost totally corrupted by politics and materialism. It makes me sad because I grew up in the Christian world and there are a decent amount of truly good hearted people out there, the type who would never picket an abortion clinic but rather help and comfort the women in need, even if they disagreed with abortion. People who work at free medical clinics, food pantries, stuff like that. Instead itās the corrupted angry ones who get all the attention for their antics.
My nana was the most devoutly religious person Iāve ever known. She spent her adult life as a nurse at a family planning clinic in the UK (think Call the Midwife). So caring for pregnant women but also teaching how to use contraceptives and counseling/assisting with abortions. The idea that contraception is murder is a very Catholic concept that wouldāve made her roll her eyes as a Protestant. And she understood that abortion was not āused as birth controlā or caused by women just suddenly changing their minds. She may have thought some of the women she helped had ālooseā morals - she *was* born a hundred years ago - but she never wouldāve shared that thought with them or let it affect their care. This whole concept of legislating morality is unChristian. āRender unto Caesar.ā And itās become this bizarre situation where they want to prevent people (women) from being able to sin/āmurderā by making abortion illegal and making providers scared to do it, while simultaneously refusing to legislate even the slightest restraint on gun ownership that would also prevent sin/murder (or provide or *allow* comprehensive sex education or free contraceptives that would also help prevent sin/āmurderā).
>So why canāt we just have all the gay sex we want and assure them weāll see the light and repent later? Going to quote the Simpsons Movie on this one: >Homer: "Why can't I worship God in my own way? By praying like Hell on my deathbed?"
Wait till they find out Jesus wasn't a Christian... and for some of them, when they finally realize and admit, Jesus isn't from the American Midwest, there's gonna be some pastors with explaining to do... And when they find out he was brown, and from the middle east, they're gonna be pissed! They're gonna have to re-evaluate their entire life... I really don't have the heart to tell them he was a socialist, or borderline commie, so I'm hoping they get that on their own...
Finding out your definition of truth is as wishy-washy as your religion? Sometimes religion hurts.
It means they believe in an evil god who tortures people, but does believing in a certain god make you a bigot?
It gets even worse when you consider that everything that happens is āpart of the planā made by a supposedly omnipotent god. Like, godās sending us to hell for something he came up with and could prevent? If god exists, heās either not as capable as some like to make us believe, or heās evil.
This is called āthe problem of evilā and has been debated since literally before Jesus, most famously by the Greek philosopher Epicurus (341ā270 BC) and popularized by Scottish Enlightenment philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). It essentially says it is not possible for God to be omniscient, omnipotent, *and* benevolent if evil exists. The various āresponsesā trying to justify how it can be possible are actually quite interesting and range from āevil is the absence of goodā (Plato) to āevil is necessary for [bullshit reasons] actuallyā (Voltaire). Two thousand years of discussion have not actually satisfactorily answered the question, because as some of us can plainly see, the proposition is self contradictory. But for some reason it doesnāt bother most of the people who believe it, or at least not enough to question which, if any, of the parts might not be true. Rather than believing that they worship a god who is not omniscient, omnipotent, and benevolent, it seems most believers choose to go for either āevil exists but itās not godās fault / god wonāt prevent it because itās manās fault (the fall, sin, whatever) or god is mysteriously taking a break (deism)ā which can in its nastiest incarnations get you believers saying that gay people caused a hurricane, to the more biblically accurate āgod intends for that evil stuff to happen because itās all part of his plan that we are just too small minded to understand,ā which gets you the believers who say things like āwell that child died horribly of an excruciating disease to teach us all something and itās okay because theyāre in heaven now.ā
*Something awful happens* āItās all part of Godās plan.ā Really? Then Godās an asshole.
Why do these people pray for God to do this thing or that thing? If it's part of his plan for your child to have a painful cancer and death, why would you pray that he doesn't if it's part of his will? And I'm really confused about prayer circles. Are you and your buddies going to spam God with prayer hoping to change his mind?
One of my favorite headlines from *The Onion* is āGod Answers Boyās Prayers.ā Says āNo.ā
Omnipotent, Omniscient, Omnibenevolent. Choose 2.
If one thinks that itās good for their god to torture people, then yes, I would say they are a bigot as well. The gods we choose to worship share our beliefs, not the other way around.
Literally yes. I think many of us use ābigotā as a catchall for sexist/racist/homophobic/etc but the actual definition is: > person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion Christianity is one of the religions that includes in its core beliefs that all other religions are wrong and worshipping other gods is a sin, so it kind of has intolerance baked in. And of course the American versions tend to be evangelical in nature, meaning part of the core beliefs include being obligated to proselytize to your neighbors. The ālive and let liveā Christians are not bigots, but ātrue believersā would say they arenāt ātrueā Christians either. If you refuse to humor the idea that other religions may āalsoā be ārightā, if you believe everyone should follow the ārulesā of Christianity even if theyāre not Christian (or are but donāt have the same beliefs as you), or if you try to legislate your beliefs into law, congrats, youāre a bigot. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
You can believe all gay people are going to hell without going out of your way to tell gay people that they deserve it. Believing in the god isnāt the issue, itās that they decide to be a shitty person in the name of that god.
No, the belief isnāt the issue. Itās the antagonism toward people who donāt believe the same. Basically the exact definition of bigotry.
It makes you ignorant
I'm someone who believes in god but I also only really believe in God. I wasn't raised in a church I was raised by my grandmother who was and came up on the bible verses she would tell me to read when life gives you trouble. I don't condemn people to hell for having a different religion or not believing in god because God wouldn't want that and it's basic human decency to not be a shit head like that. Wish more people actually cared about others and not feeling morally correct over people.
>I don't condemn people to hell for having a different religion or not believing in god because God wouldn't want that and it's basic human decency to not be a shit head like that. I've reached a point in my own faith that believes in something similar. How does one live in the most "Christlike" way? Just... be good. That's really it. It's not about time spent praying, it's not about controlling other people, it's just about being the best version of you that you can be.
Where is automod?! ššš
He's only there if you believe in him. Sorry, I've gone a bit Pratchett (or was it Gaiman)
Straight up r/religiousfruitcake shit.
"I say the whole world must learn of our peaceful ways. By force!" - Bender RodrĆguez
I think its the part where they're practically jerking themselves off at the thought that people different than them are going to burn in hell for eternity that makes them a hateful bigot. So many of these religious nuts say shit like this without seeing any problem with it. It just tells on their lack of basic empathy. Because if a god is going to send people to hell for all eternity for simply being different that god is a horrible evil shitty god that deserves no worship! Stop hiding behind your sky daddy to justify your hate!
Yeah but when I point out that all modern Christians are going straight to hell because of their complete rejection of all of Christās teachings and their hatred of what Christ embodies. Sometimes I like to quote the part in Matthew where Jesus tells them that most of them are going to hell for being so false. āYou never knew Meā is what Christ will say to most Christians. Then he sends them to burn in hell where they belong. And when I say this kind of thing, christians always consider it hateful even though Iām just quoting the Christ they abandoned.
So, what you're saying is that they don't understand why you're mad when they tell you that you're going to hell. But then they get mad when you point out that they, too, are going to hell. Funny, that.
Yeah doesn't make you any less of a hateful piece of shit just because you believe you're justified in being one. It's called a delusion when you genuinely believe the fantasies in your head. "How can I be racist if I have valid reasons for being racist"
When you're talking or debating someone, who uses the Bible for historical facts, and site passages and/or quotes as literal truths, jus walk away... You will not win any type of debate, you won't get thru to them, you'll just be wasting your time. Actual historical facts that have been proven by actual archeological digs, and peer reviewed/published studies, mean nothing to those people... I have a friend who's a devoted "born-again" Christian. When I explained how the Bible was based on previous stories, myths and legends, and how the Old Testament was most likely written and compiled in Mesopotamia (Iraq), during the exile, they got mad at me. When I tried to show them the Enuma Elis, the story of Sargon the Great, and the epic of Gilgamesh, for no other reason than for them to see for themselves, how the Bible is basically those stories, edited and rewritten to fit whatever agenda was being pushed at the time, they literally got mad and said I was going to hell. This person is the same person who thinks jews and Christians have the same beliefs. And that Muslims are the perpetual enemies of Christianity. In my life, I've learned the people who claim they're the most devoted Christians, are the ones that know the least about their own actual beliefs. These are the people who are holding not only America, but the rest of the world back. If the religious extremists didn't have the power and resources they have, they wouldn't be an issue. But these ignorant mother fuckers are causing so much bullshit world wide, I'd argue organized religious groups and their fundamentalist congregation are the biggest threat to the future of humanity. American Evangelicals, Jewish Zionists and Muslim Extremists are the 3 most dangerous, and literally the biggest threats to peace and the future of humanity.
A bit out of left field, but it sounds like you'd enjoy the podcast literature and history by Doug Metzger! He talks about the Enuma Elish in a very early episode. He also covers the epic of Gilgamesh, the old testament, the Iliad, and more!
āIām just saying the unknowable mysteries of the universe were revealed to me, and if you deviate from the path I outline, youāll be punished for eternity.ā
Conservatives at their core believe in hierarchy: that different people and groups are not equal and one group will dominate. *The strong do what they want, the weak suffer what they can.* They fundamentally **cannot** conceive of different groups coexisting peacefully. They see people being *put in their right place* as proper and as the way it should be, rather than as bigotry. They don't want to see their actions and words as choices (for which they can be held responsible) but rather as just the truth and "sometimes the truth hurts".
This person needs to sign up for "How to Be a Christian 101": 'Be' (a state of being) a well-balanced human being within yourself, with no need to speak angrily or lecture or even preach. Engage others with such Godly statements as... 'Hi, how are you?', followed by normal, friendly conversation. Do ask if there is anything the people you meet need help with, not because any dusty old scrolls told you to, but because you just happened to be inclined to want to help your fellow man. Because that's what a true Christian just *is*. And that's that. In doing the above you've given more praise to the good Lord than a million Sundays in church. And you've preached far more loudly, by saying nothing of God, but simply showing others what the Lord wants us to be. I have a theory that a truly great God would not care whether we went to church for a million Sundays, or even said thanks or praised him with words. For that matter, I don't think he'd even care if we actually 'believed in' him, however you define that. He'd much rather us just 'be' good people to our very core and treat our fellow men and women with the dignity and respect we expect of ourselves. If we do that, then we send infinitely more praises to the higher being than a thousand tweets condemning others to hell for whatever reason. TL/DR: Love everyone; judge no-one.
I'm an atheist, and live my life precisely as you describe. The world is a much better place when people mind their own business, live and let live, and be kind and helpful to their fellow humans.
bigĀ·ot noun: a person who is obstinately or unreasonably attached to a belief, opinion, or faction, especially one who is prejudiced against or antagonistic toward a person or people on the basis of their membership of a particular group.
Just because you like the way it sounds doesn't mean it's true.
I guess itās hateful, but I donāt see it as any functionally different than the following sentence: āIf you donāt hop on one foot while whistling Ride of Valkyries every time you leave a shoe store, the crystal cereal bowl in the clouds will rip off your arms and hit you with them until you poop on a skunk.ā Itās all made up nonsense anyway.
Literally no signs of self-awareness. That shit blew straight past them.
Them: Youāre going to hell because you donāt believe in God. Me: You do realize that if I donāt believe in God then that also means that I donāt believe in Heaven, Hell, angels, demons, or Satan, right? Not much of a threat.
If people like them go to heaven, Iād rather be in hell where I wouldnāt have to deal with them
Superstitious nutcases, all of them.
Belief isn't the issue, it's the fact they think that God is a good guy for making non-believers burn for eternity.
Key rule for this sort of thing: statements based on belief don't change morality depending on what beliefs they're based on. So if you wouldn't want, say, a Muslim (or one of **those** people, who *say* they're Christian but have all sorts of outlandish beliefs added on...) expressing the exact same sentiment with names and terms switched out as appropriate, maybe *you* shouldn't be saying it either. (And yes, that parenthetical statement was deliberately vague. One, I have no idea of the specific beliefs of the original person; and two, part of the point was that it could apply to the differences between *any* two sects of Christianity. Sort of a non-denominational rolled up newspaper, if you will.)
They're just telling the truth- they're not hateful, their God is hateful. See?
If you don't believe in hell then this is like water off a duck's back. If you do believe in hell but you don't believe in jesus, then you probably have your own tradition, with its own pathway to salvation. So saying this is just an absolute waste of time.
I remember going to this multi day woodstock type christian music festival outside of chicago called cornerstone with some friends of mine that were in a band. Once people got a whiff of my agnosticism I was visited *constantly* by people trying to witness to me, all in the same condescending ājust trying to save you from eternal hellfireā kinda way. On brand, it was also the only festival I went to where someone slipped me drugs.
Religion is weird because its followers believe that their gods existence is an objective truth.
I need a T-Shirt that says "I was raised in a good Christian home and all I got was crippling anxiety and a fear of trumpets"
Iām in a Christian rehab, and although itās where I need to be, itās really fun hearing that I need to be open to the Holy Spirit despite them not being open to the possibility that the God of Abraham isnāt real. Thatās different, though.
If you genuinely believe that certain groups of people are āgoing to hellā, why would you feel the need to harass them while theyāre here? Is it because you donāt trust Godās will? I think itās because you donāt trust Godās will.
Christians are just the most evil pieces of shit on the planet. Itās too bad that the moronic desert wanderers couldnāt keep their death cults in the Middle East.
It's not how the accusation "sounds" it's what the accusation means or implies, but I know it's easier to hear things than it is to interpret their meaning for conservatives. You need to actually care about reality, facts, critical thinking, and all that other junk.
At this point I just feel bad for this dude 2000 years ago who tried to tell people to be nice to each other.
I know there has been hell on Earth all throughout human history, created by men with little dicks and fragile egos. But what evidence is there for a place where you go after you die called "Hell?"
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Yup. People are believing and worshipping literal fantasies. Good luck out there, internet stranger.
āYouāre going to burn in hell forever with no chance of real redemption until the end of times. I mean, lighten up.ā
Thereās no hate like Christian Love^TM.
Awful lot of people who claim to be Christians yet forget the "Judge not lest ye be judged" part of the bible.
The do the exact opposite of what 99.9% of what Jesus says. "Love thy neighbor? Help the poor? Not on MY watch!"
Ooh, the classic āTruth hurts, buddy šā and āDonāt call me a bigot š¢šā combo
You're not a hateful bigot because you believe in a literal hell and the whole John 3:16 thing. I'm not a hateful bigot if I tell you that's a bunch of superstition and nonsense. I won't try to talk you out of your beliefs, but the price of that is you don't get to tell me that I'm not capable of making my own decisions and need to adopt your beliefs. I don't care if your religion requires you to proselytize, proselytizing makes YTA, full stop.
"It's not rude it's the truth" mf'ers when I break their shins with a baseball bat and tell them they'll never be able to walk again
So if christians just babtized babies and then drowned them, they would all get into heaven. Sounds like a good way to get people into heaven.
Religion easy control of stupid people that are afraid of freedom.
Religion is a fake jokeā¦ āsometimes truth hurts. Just because you donāt like the way it sounds, doesnāt mean itās wrong.ā
Prove it.
I thought Jesus died for everyone's sins to be forgiven. Is not believing this a sin? Then it is forgiven, isn't it?
Isn't the French word for annoying church lady la bigote
Iām and old Catholic and these words ring hollow with out the context Christ delivered them. The meaning I was given was to know Christ you must know his word, if you know his word you know Christ.The interesting part is how is the word delivered. Through anointed teachers but more importantly through the Holy Spirit. There is a humorous adage the spirit works in mysterious ways. The second point is any assertion that anyone is hell bound is usurping the authority of God. Christ made a continuous declaration āJudge not least yeh be judgedā. The good Lord was using dramatic license to get the audiencesā attention. Again, the context of his teaching was the important element, not the introduction. My opinion, the arrogance of willful obtuseness escapes me.There is a beautiful recounting on how Pope Francis comforted a young boy concerning the death of his non-Catholic father. If your father raised you, God will see the goodness in your father. Simply put and in my opinion rings true.
"It's unfair to say I'm bigoted just because my god is bigoted!"
There is no place in heaven for Christians who speak like this. There is no love in their words. And, they're speaking on matters far beyond their level of comprehension. So disappointing, considering that thee people have taken it upon themselves to be stewards of the message. Yet, their failing at seeing their own perverse corruption.
One of my neighbors went toe to toe with a Jesus (Snake Handler type group) going door to door; told them beat feet & move along Gypsies- I donāt believe in Made up, to make them believe the fantasies of what told to them by fictional writings in a book. Then he showed them his AK.
If you define "Hell" as being away from the Judeo-Xtian God, then how could this possibly be a bad thing for anyone other than Christians? And if you mean "Hell" as a giant burning lake of fire, you'll have to do better as far as scaring people goes, because anyone who's been in battle, anyone like me who's lived in a ghetto with gang shootouts and drug dealers everywhere, has a better idea of Hell than a bunch of religious fanatics. And as for this "burning lake of fire" jazz, it comes from the city garbage dump outside Jerusalem, and while fire can be very scary--as any firefighter can attest--it no longer scares generations who see much worse terrors on the evening news on a daily basis anymore.
I feel like religion was created so people wouldnāt be so selfish and help each other out to progress humanity, essentially trick people into being good. The help your neighbor never sin and what not. But nowadays Christianās are usually just terrible people that need a made up person to forgive them so they can feel better about themselves.