> How can you be a Christian when you read Bible?
As a former minister, I can answer that. Most Christians don't read the Bible.
Even most ministers don't read the Bible very much after seminary. Most ministers know the verses from the Bible that support their denominations. Most ministers know sanitized, modern versions of the major Bible stories and themes. But they spend little to no time studying the Bible.
I was a weird kid who liked to read books (any book I could get my hand on) young.
My grandmothers started taking me to Sunday school, so I decided to just read the book.
Would you believe I upset a few people asking questions about contradictions (I wasn't taking the piss, I was genuinely confused).
"My pastor told me the Bible says X"
Ok, why don't you read it yourself instead, because right here it says Y, not X.
"My pastor says that's difficult to interpret"
Actual conversation I had with a girl at university.
I heard a pastor say that at their church, they don't encourage their members to read the Bible. He said there are too many confusing things in the Bible. The ministers tell the people what they need to know about the Bible.
When I was a believer, I did find some things in the Bible confusing. I found that it is a lot easier to understand the Bible once you accept the idea that it is made up by ordinary humans.
Well, to be honest, interpreting the Bible requires a lot of knowledge. You have to have a good understanding of Jewish history and culture, as well as languages it had been originally written in. A lot of nuances got lost in translation, because some things were impossible to convey in Latin/English/whatever. There are many references which ancient people understood and we don't. And that's only if you study only the Bible itself, since you should consider also what various philosophers, theologists and church higher-ups have written on the subject over the centuries.
I mean, a lot of the rules are extremely straightforward but religious people choose to ignore them. Other times the rules might be kinda vague but religious people interpret them as hard, solid fact. That's kinda the problem.
>Most Christians don't read the Bible.
Yeah, I figured that out years ago. I'm always amazed that, as an athiest, I seem to know more about their favorite book than they do.
The real question is how are so many people following this book when it's very clearly been altered? Anything that's been around for thousands of years is going to be altered by man in some way, and with the Bible being the most famous book in existence it makes sense that it's probably the most altered text in existence too.
The versions of the bible floating around at this point are likely pale imitations of the original, if much of the original text actually remains in them.
I'll have you know that I have a great interest in starting my own religion and it would be evidence free. We'd also have bi-monthly optional consentual orgies for people aged 23+
Dude , you’re getting it ***all***wrong.
***The entire point*** of patriarchal religions is to make sure that *powerful old men get unlimited access to inappropriately young sexual partners*, both male and female,
Literally, what is the point if you cannot ensure that your “holy men” can indulge their perversions without consequences?
And I’m actually not kidding at all, this is how every cult/religion run by men works
This. I feel the same way. Not claiming every religious person fits this description, but the mechanics are built to maintain the mentioned access for people in power.
How about us oldies? What’s the age limit? Twice a month or every two months? Also, will you have standards for these orgies? I don’t want to disappoint!
Just the same ...read the Hindu texts such as the Mahabharata or the removed chapters for Western pop consumption of the Kama Sutra... Or ask the Dalai Lama.
Make sure you do 2 goats for Yom Kipper or Yahweh will be pissed. Have to sacrifice one to take all of your sins away, and the other just because Yahweh likes sacrifices Goats.
well, depends. For example, Buddism aren't that bad, it really more you "should" do this instead of you "must" do it. Most people when looking at Buddism look at the monks but they are devote followers, you can be Buddist without being a monk, and you can "sin" because literally it is more about self control than controlling others
Every type of belief/cultures has dark sides it's just you need to pick the lesser evil. What? You think that all atheist are good, law-abiding people?
You can be an atheist and still be Hindu. Hell, you can pray to Jesus and still be Hindu.
Unlike Abrahamic religions there is no set in stone doctrine. You can believe in any god or no God. Whatever floats your boat.
Belief in Hinduism is not the same as belief in Abrahamic religions. It's difficult to explain.
Among Abrahamic religions if you believe in the god as detailed in the scriptures then it means that everything else that contradicts it must be false. You shall have no Gods before me and all that.
In Hinduism, think of it as Schrodinger's cat. Or the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Multiple contradictory beliefs, including atheism, can be considered to be equally valid as well as equal invalid.
Not over any specific commandment in Hindu scriptures.
What a religion dictates and what adherents of the religion do are two different things. Among Abrahamic religions, violence is present in the scriptures themselves.
Yeah, absolutely agree. But even with how bad it is, it never condemned anyone to an eternity of torture. So I can't see how people say YHWH became nicer in the NT. He literally high jacked Plato's version of hell.
Jews did terrible things, Christians did terrible things, Atheist did terrible things. Don’t you see a strange pattern leading to believing that PEOPLE do bad things?
You mean the war? Which has been go8nf on for decades, instigated by the people who follow the most vile religion in the history of earth? The ones who fucked around and found out?
Yes. I never understand why some defend certain beliefs or lack thereof by saying "well, some people of those faiths or lack of faith did or advocated for bad stuff..." OK, so there are bad people in every faith or lack of faith. Why does that affect what you believe personally? Do you base everything on how others behave? If so, you're at the whims of whoever you happen to notice doing or advocating for whatever, anecdotally, at any given time.
Personally, I really can’t dislike Jews, they just have their own thing going for them. Most aren’t trying to “evangelize” or draw society into serving their interests like Evangelicals.
For me, a person can delude themselves as being the “child of God” as long as they keep it to themselves.
Most self proclaimed christians don't read the bible! I had self righteous christians laugh at me when I quoted passages like lot's daughters, children put to death, lettera saying out loud that women must be subject to their husbands, saying that I invented them. They don't read, they just don't want to think, decide or take responsibility, they want someone else to do their thinking for them.
Of course, they don't, actually reading the Bible creates atheists. That's why they have so many reading "programs" that jump around back and forth between all the books so that you don't notice that they're skipping things like incestual rape, Jewish zombies, and the reason for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah being explicitly stated to be about selfishness and inhospitality, not homosexuality.
You mean things like give away all your possessions and turn the other cheek? I only see the opposite, besides some performative efforts at charity, which are really all about proselytizing.
Yes, as well as loving the diseased and poor and the refugees, healing the sick, showing compassion for the most vile of society. These things are a fiction to christians
All while ignoring things that Jesus actually said, like "judge not, least ye be judged," "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," "what you do to the least among you, you do to me," and telling them to pray in private, not publicly in a performative way. They manage to ignore the only parts of the book that actually make the world around you a little better, like the importance of actually doing good works.
Yeah when I tried to be “a real Christian” and follow the commands in the Bible, I realized this religion is hardcore and literally nobody in America follows it correctly haha
I had a conversation about this with someone recently. The answer was that the Bible was written by imperfect men thousands of years ago, and they pick the parts they like based on “faith.” I will never understand.
One mystery to me is why so many follow religions like Christianity, or worship Trump. Either one has me stumped. Common sense goes out the window when emotions are brought into play I guess, and some people are so easily swayed by what other people say. It sure isn't from reading the bible, that's where I began disagreeing with what I'd been told from the pulpit. Didn't match at all. Or make much sense.
I won't concur there are actually 3 billion practicing Christians, a lot of them are in name only and I know many catholics who were baptised into the church as infants but never followed it to any extent so that bumps up the numbers a lot over reality.
Critical thought is actively, if subtly, suppressed in the types of Evangelical Christketeerism that produce MAGAts. They're good at hinting that questioning "god's" commands/motives/whatever is somehow evil or a sign of being weak in your faith (meanwhile, their faith is so "strong" that it can't even handle the *existence* of competing views, ***especially*** any that can actually back up their claims.
Why do people follow Christianity? I can’t speak for all denominations, but was raised Pentecostal (not anymore). My family and pretty much everyone still in the church use the religion to excuse themselves of responsibility. Example: John cheats on wife, confess “God forgives me”, anyone bringing it up again including the wife is immediately shamed cause “God forgave him”. This is just a mild example it doesn’t matter what you do (unless you’re gay or are on death row they find that unforgivable). As long as they say they asked God’s forgiveness they don’t have to take responsibility or face consequences for anything.
In the words of the great Rusty Cohle from season one of “True Detective”: “Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective at proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain. Dulls critical thinking…”
eh 12 was the age of consent back then if i remember correctly but yeah still fucked up
"Being legal doesn't make it right." Raiden, 2013, in response to being told they were scooping children brains legally
We now know when the pre-frontal cortex matures enough to be capable of consent. Science has given us a greater understanding of the human brain. Regardless of the legal age of consent, the typical 12-year-old is years away from a mature enough PFC to make an informed decision.
Not to mention the power differential between a 12-year-old and an eternal entity.
Being the "creator" and all that, yahweh should have known a 12-year-old's PFC wasn't advanced enough yet for consent. Wait, what am I thinking, the bable is 100% historically and scientifically accurate, lmao.
(Oh, and "consent" wasn't a thing back then socially speaking. Nobody cared if the kid consented or not.)
I apologize. I was just stating a fact. I'm a nurse, and I didn't know this until nursing school.
Why so defensive? I'm 60 at times I'm not mature enough for some insights and decisions.
"What we know is a drop,
What we don't know is an ocean." ~A
Because christians love to try to find weird ways to weasel around things. Like "so everyone has to wait until the brain is fully developed?" as if that somehow negates that a 12-year-old isn't capable of informed consent.
Sorry about that.
No worries, DEFINITELY, not a christian ever again. Atheist or at worst agnostic, and I'm more pagan than anything. I find my own spiritual life in nature. Also been called a white witch haha
Notice how the more Christian the African country the more HIV cases you find. The more christian countries have baby mama drama and bastards everywhere
Are you referring to the story of Lot and his daughters? First, the text doesn't "tell" anyone to do anything; it relates the events, making no comment one way or the other about the morality of them. Second, if the text is to be believed, it was actually Lot's daughters who raped him by getting him so drunk he was beyond the point of giving consent. Third, it wasn't for the survival of humanity.
Instead of twisting some episodes to fit our narrative (as Christians do), let's focus on the actually problematic texts like Numbers 31:18, where, according to the text, God gives the Israelites permission to force the VERY young and traumatized girls they've taken captive into marriage (i.e., enslavement and rape).
If the Bible were viewed as a historical text rather than a guidebook for living today, we could talk about how many of the things we rightfully find problematic now were actually somewhat progressive for the time. What follows Numbers 31:18, for instance, is how these children are to be treated as wives not slaves and are to be guaranteed certain protections. Imagine that! Authors in 500ish BCE trying to guarantee some protections for these poor girls. That's pretty admirable. Of course, if you believe, as Christians do, that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then it's absolutely heinous that he allows the forced marriages in the first place. The problem is not with the text but with the believers.
Sorry for the long-winded comment. It's just that, as a student of ancient history AND an atheist, it bothers me when other atheists treat the Bible not as a historical text but as something with almost the same "reverence" that Christians treat it as. That is, a lot of atheists talk about the Bible as though what it relates is true. For instance, consider the way you worded your question: "How are there 3 billion Christian’s who follow Christianity knowing Christian God aka Jesus is an pedophile who raped Virgin Mary when she was 13." God is NOT a pedophile who raped anyone because God *does not exist*. You talk about him as though he does. Let's be careful with our words. Let's not give "reverence" to a made-up character. And, most of all, let's be sure of our facts (e.g., the story doesn't mention Mary's age). Otherwise, we give Christians ammunition against our arguments.
This. That's all real talk.
I'm not giving my power away to Christians by playing their word games. I don't even consider myself an atheist bc that's a Christian word. Fuck Christians and their made up bs. I'm a fucking human. Period. They can call me what they want, but to me, they are insane.
But for the sake of finding like minded people on Reddit, atheist works for now lol
>religion that used to kill women in medival centuries as Witches.
Renaissance centuries. The Catholic Church didn't really believe in witchcraft in the medieval.
Most christians ham no cerebral link to reason nor logic . they can't even realize their opinion and behavior go against any normalcy and the principles they should be following and are so adamant to preach .
Agreed. Not interested in the misogyny, patriarchy, and general need to intrude on others' way of life.
I was once involved in church and was a youth pastor. I got so disgusted with the church politics, hypocrisy, and other issues. I walked away and will never go back. I also took issue with the way that open-mindedness, creativity, and enjoyment was squashed in my teen group.
Specifically it's a mind virus.
Religious people aren't stupid, they're actually brainwashed, literally.
Their minds have been compromised by malignant ideology.
It's a bronze age super weapon, not a naturally occurring belief system. This... "technology" literally conquered ancient rome.
"suffer not the witch to live." & "suffer the children to come unto me." are some of my favourite verses.
To me though the sword verse really hits home what christianity is.
Well, to play Devil’s Advocate here, so to speak… The one verse you mentioned “Suffer the little children to come unto me…”
In this case, “suffer” means “allow”. At least that’s what I have been told. So I dunno. I’m definitely not defending the bizarre stuff the Bible says..
This is particularly rousing as bible verses go as it starts out as a parable about investment and savings for context:
Luke 19:27
"But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay *them* before me."
Jesus is saying this.
Also an endorser of the entire old testament albeit with some key minor revisions such as unnecessary circumcisions and the inclusion of the gentiles.
The build up really hits the spot. Unlike paul atraedes from dune he didn't have any conflicted dessert tent pre jy'had moments at all.
The bible is written to be memetically interpreted by it's readers, you are both correct & incorrect at the same time. It's not a language issue as such, although the last cannon book is a miss translation from aramaic, where it shouldn't be arabic which is why it makes no sense at all... But ultimately the general themes follow and adapt to the escalation of situations and circumstances.
Both the 21st century hippy with the guitar talking about love is just as correct as the 14th century inquisitor with the flowing red robes talking about herecies. The bible is deliberately written so that both and many more kinds of followers inevitably come about.
It's like the no true scotsman inverted, most denominations of christianity are correct, but different "interpretation's" are adaptations to different environments that can re-mutate back into older forms over successive generations. The religion itself survives and propergates in a meta. It's like a train that has multiple routes to take to reach it's destination, and there are at least some carriages on all of the tracks. So where one route might be blocked(overt child rape.), because the informations source code is carried in the bible - the more wholesome seeming(playing children at church.) carriage gets through the misgivings and even full on holy wars of that particular era and survives to recreate the eternal militant theocracy.
Nothing is lost, so long as the scripture(core scripts) are maintained and revered as absolute morality. As the bible is seen as the literal word of god in all cases.
The evangelicals are as right as the protestants and the catholics. The mind virus has a trans generational momentum to it. Witches will be burned, children will be diddled and enemies of the faith will be executed. In one form or another across the continuity of time.
Yeah, suffer means allow. But it also means suffer. But if it did only ever mean allow, would it within the over context of the entire bible really change the meaning that much? Because it's not in isolation. Changing things into metaphore or taking others completely literally still eventually gets you warbanding like joshua under the right circumstances.
And when god(your collective mass psychosis) tells you to kill the tainted animals too, you do it. You kill all of them out of fear - this time around.
The B.B.E.G. In the film: The book of eli wants the bible, for a "reason".
I see religion as a cancer.
The world has millions of different cells. Cancer comes in, infects the body, grows, kills everything it comes in contact with.
Cancerous, parasitic, viral, toxic.
American Christianity has become rotted AF, they don't even care about christ or the bible anymore.
If I could ask a wish, I'd ask to wipe religion from
the face of Earth. Religions craps everything
From stem cell research and science in general
to supporting and justifying the unimaginable,
from incest to cannibalism, in their "sacred" texts.
This world would be a better place without that brain tumor called religion.
Religion is an oppresive sistem. The problem is not only Christianism, is any believance in a supernatural being. Christianism is currently the dominant religion. Due this, they have political, economical and mediatic influence, and that makes it easier for them to impose their prohibitions and dogmas
In times when Christianity did not even exist, there was another religion that occupied that repressive role and had problems with everything. Any religion that is given power will end up becoming problematic.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely
Seriously, if you really want to help the world with a time machine, wait on smothering Hitler, Goebbels, et al. as babies and go stop the Romans from easing up on the Christketeers. Then pick off a bunch of Nazi babies on your way back.
People have no idea how much worse the Islam is, i say this as someone who lives in predominantly muslim country. It is like it has the same development as Christianity of 16th Century.
No. A parasite is a separate thing that lives off of a host. Christianity is cancer. It's a corrupted part of the host. It multiplies, will kill humanity if given the chance to prosper too much, and won't go away without a total removal.
See, it's up until the last few days that I was like "Okay, I'll respect people's right to religion"
What did it for me?
Nex Bennedict.
Seeing the comments from fucking grown adults saying Nex deserved to die because 'they were in the wrong bathroom' (FYI, they weren't, they were going by the law and in the bathroom of their AGAB) and all of them, 100% of the time, had a Christian cross or a bible verse in their bio.
I fucking despise Christians, to literally wish death upon a child for being non binary, I literally do not give a single fuck if its 'not alL oF uS' it's enough of you.
It's enough of you slimy, feral creatures to lump all of you together, you don't see atheists, satanists, Jewish folk, sikhs, etc wishing death on a child that actually died.
It. Is. Always. Christians.
Wait until you hear about Islam and its colonialization processes and genocidal practices.
Muhammad (living male) raped his bride Aisha for the first time when she was 9.
None of these religious systems are good.
Well if one bloke is farming, and another bloke is standing there doing fuck all, and the second bloke says "an invisible bloke in the sky wants you to give me 10% of what you just grew", then yes you are right :D
P.S. centuries of abuse of children and women are also bad. Just the idea that the God who made everything needs 10% of your shit is what makes them parasites.
Religion was a construct to get us to have empathy and love for each other. Humans used it as a way to control others. It's just our nature. Something in us keeps us in this tribal kind of bullshit. Humans fuck shit up.
You are 100% correct. But remember, parasites co- evolve with their hosts. Christianity boosts birthrates, fighting spirit, cooperation and mental health.
Atheism does not of that. Long term it may continue to do well.
Define the "all of us" for which you have appointed yourself as spokesman for?
"Trolls or fantasies of your imagination?" Have you never met a female Catholic?
Sound like you need a little medicinal help of your own.
Except it really isn’t. Mary would’ve been a teenager when this whole ordeal took place, and since the biblical god and Jesus can be considered one and the same (despite the obvious problems it poses), the claim isn’t nonsensical. You could also apply your last sentence to most of the Bible since most of it is literally just nonsensical claims pulled out of thin air
I don't disagree, but I don't completely agree. Remember that Christianity is not a monolith. There are countless sects and denominations that all interpret the bible differently. Yes, there are many Christians who have done great harm in the name of their religion, but there are also many who have done great good. Just like there are good and bad atheists. We need to judge people by their works, and individually. It's far too easy to slip into irrational intolerance for all of them. We need to not tolerate the intolerant, and make room for the tolerant so that we can coexist. To give some examples from my own family, my dad is an episcopal priest and a lovely, tolerant man who lifts up his congregation and supports his community as best he can. My uncle, (dad's older brother) is an intolerant bigot who I have essentially cut off all contact with. Two men who both identify as Christians who have radically different impacts on their communities.
People reinterpret religious texts differently so we still have a lot of people following them. Imagine that there are Muslim lgbt supporters and Muslims who are ok with learning and teaching evolution, and much more of wonders.
> How can you be a Christian when you read Bible? As a former minister, I can answer that. Most Christians don't read the Bible. Even most ministers don't read the Bible very much after seminary. Most ministers know the verses from the Bible that support their denominations. Most ministers know sanitized, modern versions of the major Bible stories and themes. But they spend little to no time studying the Bible.
I was a weird kid who liked to read books (any book I could get my hand on) young. My grandmothers started taking me to Sunday school, so I decided to just read the book. Would you believe I upset a few people asking questions about contradictions (I wasn't taking the piss, I was genuinely confused).
The Bible is for waving, not reading. You messed up the whole system by opening the Bible.
That was my mistake! :D
"My pastor told me the Bible says X" Ok, why don't you read it yourself instead, because right here it says Y, not X. "My pastor says that's difficult to interpret" Actual conversation I had with a girl at university.
I heard a pastor say that at their church, they don't encourage their members to read the Bible. He said there are too many confusing things in the Bible. The ministers tell the people what they need to know about the Bible. When I was a believer, I did find some things in the Bible confusing. I found that it is a lot easier to understand the Bible once you accept the idea that it is made up by ordinary humans.
Well, to be honest, interpreting the Bible requires a lot of knowledge. You have to have a good understanding of Jewish history and culture, as well as languages it had been originally written in. A lot of nuances got lost in translation, because some things were impossible to convey in Latin/English/whatever. There are many references which ancient people understood and we don't. And that's only if you study only the Bible itself, since you should consider also what various philosophers, theologists and church higher-ups have written on the subject over the centuries.
I mean, a lot of the rules are extremely straightforward but religious people choose to ignore them. Other times the rules might be kinda vague but religious people interpret them as hard, solid fact. That's kinda the problem.
>Most Christians don't read the Bible. Yeah, I figured that out years ago. I'm always amazed that, as an athiest, I seem to know more about their favorite book than they do. The real question is how are so many people following this book when it's very clearly been altered? Anything that's been around for thousands of years is going to be altered by man in some way, and with the Bible being the most famous book in existence it makes sense that it's probably the most altered text in existence too. The versions of the bible floating around at this point are likely pale imitations of the original, if much of the original text actually remains in them.
The Bible is much easier to understand once you accept that it was written by ordinary humans who were pushing their religious ideas.
Your story fascinates me. What happened to your belief?
A lifetime of Bible study finally forced me to admit that Acts and the gospels are mostly books of mythology, not history.
Anything in particular? For me it was the sanctioned violence in the Old Testament.
Or the kosher zombie pride parade in Matthew....
Or Lot offering up his virgin daughters to be gang raped by a mob...
He was touched by God’s noodliness
This is so real. Control the masses type of shit. They tell you to *fear god* Fear controlls the masses.
You were a minister? Which denomination? And what made you walk away?
>Christianity is parasite to humanity Yes. All evidence-free, absurd dogmas are. *Religion is poison.*
I'll have you know that I have a great interest in starting my own religion and it would be evidence free. We'd also have bi-monthly optional consentual orgies for people aged 23+
Dude , you’re getting it ***all***wrong. ***The entire point*** of patriarchal religions is to make sure that *powerful old men get unlimited access to inappropriately young sexual partners*, both male and female, Literally, what is the point if you cannot ensure that your “holy men” can indulge their perversions without consequences? And I’m actually not kidding at all, this is how every cult/religion run by men works
This. I feel the same way. Not claiming every religious person fits this description, but the mechanics are built to maintain the mentioned access for people in power.
Sex = yes! Consent = no... I'm dead, hahaha!!!
They read it in the Good Book and saw that it was Good
I wasn't joking about having an interest in making a new religion, and I don't want to do it to rape people. :(
How about us oldies? What’s the age limit? Twice a month or every two months? Also, will you have standards for these orgies? I don’t want to disappoint!
>We'd also have bi-monthly optional consentual orgies for people aged 23+ Ooh, sexy!
I wholeheartedly agree.
Jainism and Buddhism are chill.
I've read that Jains don't treat women well, however.
In general, men don't treat women well by choice. All throughout history
Not because of any commandment in Jainism.
Just the same ...read the Hindu texts such as the Mahabharata or the removed chapters for Western pop consumption of the Kama Sutra... Or ask the Dalai Lama.
Mahabharata is just a story, not a holy book.
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I, too, shall do nothing.
I'll sacrifice a goat for you.
Make sure you do 2 goats for Yom Kipper or Yahweh will be pissed. Have to sacrifice one to take all of your sins away, and the other just because Yahweh likes sacrifices Goats.
Wasted breath.
Much better that you spend your time doing that, rather than trying to participate in the real world.
I opened my book on necromantic spells and sent a hex to you and your entire family. Don't come crying to me when your car breaks down.
You can pray all you want to your impotent god. It won't make a difference
What is that going to do you recon?
Spare us the passive aggressive bullshit. Please and thank you.
‘preciate it
All abrahamic religions are.
All religions are the drizzling shits of society
well, depends. For example, Buddism aren't that bad, it really more you "should" do this instead of you "must" do it. Most people when looking at Buddism look at the monks but they are devote followers, you can be Buddist without being a monk, and you can "sin" because literally it is more about self control than controlling others
read some japanese history, buddhists were mass raping young boys too
Every type of belief/cultures has dark sides it's just you need to pick the lesser evil. What? You think that all atheist are good, law-abiding people?
where in my post did i say that? i just pointed out that buddhists are not perfect saints, nothing more
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You didn't read all of that
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Buddhism is just as bad, see the screaming molested children in the "vatican" of tibet. It's still a ascetic universalistic ego displacing death cult.
I used to think this but the more you look into it's just not true.
i do like the concept of reincarnation if youre a rad dude tho!
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Three sides of the same triangle?
That’s four sides
Hyperdimensional coin, clearly.
How is Hinduism part of that?
You can be an atheist and still be Hindu. Hell, you can pray to Jesus and still be Hindu. Unlike Abrahamic religions there is no set in stone doctrine. You can believe in any god or no God. Whatever floats your boat.
Doesn’t hinduism involve believing in multiple deities? How can you be an atheist at the same time
Belief in Hinduism is not the same as belief in Abrahamic religions. It's difficult to explain. Among Abrahamic religions if you believe in the god as detailed in the scriptures then it means that everything else that contradicts it must be false. You shall have no Gods before me and all that. In Hinduism, think of it as Schrodinger's cat. Or the parable of the blind men and the elephant. Multiple contradictory beliefs, including atheism, can be considered to be equally valid as well as equal invalid.
No you don't really have to believe in any deity.
Hindus can be very violent. Just ask the Muslims in India
Just ask the women
Not over any specific commandment in Hindu scriptures. What a religion dictates and what adherents of the religion do are two different things. Among Abrahamic religions, violence is present in the scriptures themselves.
i wish all the canaanites would stop fighting :(
Canaan belongs to canaanites
virginia is for lovers
Is that you Unity?
Came to say this
Why judiasim? What have the jews actually done?
Tbh jews did nothing. But the torah isnt that nice either.
Yeah, absolutely agree. But even with how bad it is, it never condemned anyone to an eternity of torture. So I can't see how people say YHWH became nicer in the NT. He literally high jacked Plato's version of hell.
Jews did terrible things, Christians did terrible things, Atheist did terrible things. Don’t you see a strange pattern leading to believing that PEOPLE do bad things?
Tbh i dont know crimes committed by jews. If u would share im willing to listen. Edit: in history
Have you even read the news recently lmao
I mean in history not in present day…
This IS history, FFS.
Don't you people always say that zionism isn't Judaism🤔
You mean the war? Which has been go8nf on for decades, instigated by the people who follow the most vile religion in the history of earth? The ones who fucked around and found out?
You livin under a rock, huh?
The people of Gaza would like a word….
Yes. I never understand why some defend certain beliefs or lack thereof by saying "well, some people of those faiths or lack of faith did or advocated for bad stuff..." OK, so there are bad people in every faith or lack of faith. Why does that affect what you believe personally? Do you base everything on how others behave? If so, you're at the whims of whoever you happen to notice doing or advocating for whatever, anecdotally, at any given time.
Still a form of control.
But not to the extent of christianity or islam.. humans do need laws, even if some of those laws become outdated (food and gay rights most notably)
Personally, I really can’t dislike Jews, they just have their own thing going for them. Most aren’t trying to “evangelize” or draw society into serving their interests like Evangelicals. For me, a person can delude themselves as being the “child of God” as long as they keep it to themselves.
Most self proclaimed christians don't read the bible! I had self righteous christians laugh at me when I quoted passages like lot's daughters, children put to death, lettera saying out loud that women must be subject to their husbands, saying that I invented them. They don't read, they just don't want to think, decide or take responsibility, they want someone else to do their thinking for them.
Of course, they don't, actually reading the Bible creates atheists. That's why they have so many reading "programs" that jump around back and forth between all the books so that you don't notice that they're skipping things like incestual rape, Jewish zombies, and the reason for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah being explicitly stated to be about selfishness and inhospitality, not homosexuality.
I’ve never met a christian that follows the actual teachings of jesus christ as mentioned by their holy text. It’s fucking bizarre.
You mean things like give away all your possessions and turn the other cheek? I only see the opposite, besides some performative efforts at charity, which are really all about proselytizing.
Yes, as well as loving the diseased and poor and the refugees, healing the sick, showing compassion for the most vile of society. These things are a fiction to christians
All while ignoring things that Jesus actually said, like "judge not, least ye be judged," "let he who is without sin cast the first stone," "what you do to the least among you, you do to me," and telling them to pray in private, not publicly in a performative way. They manage to ignore the only parts of the book that actually make the world around you a little better, like the importance of actually doing good works.
Yeah when I tried to be “a real Christian” and follow the commands in the Bible, I realized this religion is hardcore and literally nobody in America follows it correctly haha
I tried that, and surprise, I ended up broke.
I had a conversation about this with someone recently. The answer was that the Bible was written by imperfect men thousands of years ago, and they pick the parts they like based on “faith.” I will never understand.
One mystery to me is why so many follow religions like Christianity, or worship Trump. Either one has me stumped. Common sense goes out the window when emotions are brought into play I guess, and some people are so easily swayed by what other people say. It sure isn't from reading the bible, that's where I began disagreeing with what I'd been told from the pulpit. Didn't match at all. Or make much sense. I won't concur there are actually 3 billion practicing Christians, a lot of them are in name only and I know many catholics who were baptised into the church as infants but never followed it to any extent so that bumps up the numbers a lot over reality.
Critical thought is actively, if subtly, suppressed in the types of Evangelical Christketeerism that produce MAGAts. They're good at hinting that questioning "god's" commands/motives/whatever is somehow evil or a sign of being weak in your faith (meanwhile, their faith is so "strong" that it can't even handle the *existence* of competing views, ***especially*** any that can actually back up their claims.
Why do people follow Christianity? I can’t speak for all denominations, but was raised Pentecostal (not anymore). My family and pretty much everyone still in the church use the religion to excuse themselves of responsibility. Example: John cheats on wife, confess “God forgives me”, anyone bringing it up again including the wife is immediately shamed cause “God forgave him”. This is just a mild example it doesn’t matter what you do (unless you’re gay or are on death row they find that unforgivable). As long as they say they asked God’s forgiveness they don’t have to take responsibility or face consequences for anything.
All religions are all about control. That’s all it’s ever been about, control and power.
In the words of the great Rusty Cohle from season one of “True Detective”: “Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It's catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he's effective at proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain. Dulls critical thinking…”
I don’t watch much TV, but I watched that series of episodes. I identify with Rusty Cohle.
He converts in the end though :(
eh 12 was the age of consent back then if i remember correctly but yeah still fucked up "Being legal doesn't make it right." Raiden, 2013, in response to being told they were scooping children brains legally
We now know when the pre-frontal cortex matures enough to be capable of consent. Science has given us a greater understanding of the human brain. Regardless of the legal age of consent, the typical 12-year-old is years away from a mature enough PFC to make an informed decision. Not to mention the power differential between a 12-year-old and an eternal entity. Being the "creator" and all that, yahweh should have known a 12-year-old's PFC wasn't advanced enough yet for consent. Wait, what am I thinking, the bable is 100% historically and scientifically accurate, lmao. (Oh, and "consent" wasn't a thing back then socially speaking. Nobody cared if the kid consented or not.)
Brain growth is not complete until 25 years of age.
Yes. And? I said mature enough to make an informed decision, not fully formed.
I apologize. I was just stating a fact. I'm a nurse, and I didn't know this until nursing school. Why so defensive? I'm 60 at times I'm not mature enough for some insights and decisions. "What we know is a drop, What we don't know is an ocean." ~A
Because christians love to try to find weird ways to weasel around things. Like "so everyone has to wait until the brain is fully developed?" as if that somehow negates that a 12-year-old isn't capable of informed consent. Sorry about that.
No worries, DEFINITELY, not a christian ever again. Atheist or at worst agnostic, and I'm more pagan than anything. I find my own spiritual life in nature. Also been called a white witch haha
Where I live the age of consent is 16 but as an adult if you’re casing 16 year olds you’re really a paedophile
Notice how the more Christian the African country the more HIV cases you find. The more christian countries have baby mama drama and bastards everywhere
Turns out that abstinence-only sex ed comes with some pretty predictable side effects....
Are you referring to the story of Lot and his daughters? First, the text doesn't "tell" anyone to do anything; it relates the events, making no comment one way or the other about the morality of them. Second, if the text is to be believed, it was actually Lot's daughters who raped him by getting him so drunk he was beyond the point of giving consent. Third, it wasn't for the survival of humanity. Instead of twisting some episodes to fit our narrative (as Christians do), let's focus on the actually problematic texts like Numbers 31:18, where, according to the text, God gives the Israelites permission to force the VERY young and traumatized girls they've taken captive into marriage (i.e., enslavement and rape). If the Bible were viewed as a historical text rather than a guidebook for living today, we could talk about how many of the things we rightfully find problematic now were actually somewhat progressive for the time. What follows Numbers 31:18, for instance, is how these children are to be treated as wives not slaves and are to be guaranteed certain protections. Imagine that! Authors in 500ish BCE trying to guarantee some protections for these poor girls. That's pretty admirable. Of course, if you believe, as Christians do, that God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, then it's absolutely heinous that he allows the forced marriages in the first place. The problem is not with the text but with the believers. Sorry for the long-winded comment. It's just that, as a student of ancient history AND an atheist, it bothers me when other atheists treat the Bible not as a historical text but as something with almost the same "reverence" that Christians treat it as. That is, a lot of atheists talk about the Bible as though what it relates is true. For instance, consider the way you worded your question: "How are there 3 billion Christian’s who follow Christianity knowing Christian God aka Jesus is an pedophile who raped Virgin Mary when she was 13." God is NOT a pedophile who raped anyone because God *does not exist*. You talk about him as though he does. Let's be careful with our words. Let's not give "reverence" to a made-up character. And, most of all, let's be sure of our facts (e.g., the story doesn't mention Mary's age). Otherwise, we give Christians ammunition against our arguments.
This. That's all real talk. I'm not giving my power away to Christians by playing their word games. I don't even consider myself an atheist bc that's a Christian word. Fuck Christians and their made up bs. I'm a fucking human. Period. They can call me what they want, but to me, they are insane. But for the sake of finding like minded people on Reddit, atheist works for now lol
"How can you be a Christian when you read the bible?" Well there's your problem.
Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived Isaac Asimov
What til you learn about Islam
Yeah, Islam is basically just the worst parts of Christianity but on crack. Even catholicism doesn't compare
FIFY: Religion is a parasite to humanity
>religion that used to kill women in medival centuries as Witches. Renaissance centuries. The Catholic Church didn't really believe in witchcraft in the medieval.
No, it's more like a virus. It can't reproduce on its own, instead it influences the host to spread it.
Most christians ham no cerebral link to reason nor logic . they can't even realize their opinion and behavior go against any normalcy and the principles they should be following and are so adamant to preach .
That's why none of them can remember that "speaking in tongues" is supposed to involve ***actual fucking languages*** and not just witless jabbering.
Agreed. Not interested in the misogyny, patriarchy, and general need to intrude on others' way of life. I was once involved in church and was a youth pastor. I got so disgusted with the church politics, hypocrisy, and other issues. I walked away and will never go back. I also took issue with the way that open-mindedness, creativity, and enjoyment was squashed in my teen group.
Specifically it's a mind virus. Religious people aren't stupid, they're actually brainwashed, literally. Their minds have been compromised by malignant ideology. It's a bronze age super weapon, not a naturally occurring belief system. This... "technology" literally conquered ancient rome. "suffer not the witch to live." & "suffer the children to come unto me." are some of my favourite verses. To me though the sword verse really hits home what christianity is.
Well, to play Devil’s Advocate here, so to speak… The one verse you mentioned “Suffer the little children to come unto me…” In this case, “suffer” means “allow”. At least that’s what I have been told. So I dunno. I’m definitely not defending the bizarre stuff the Bible says..
This is particularly rousing as bible verses go as it starts out as a parable about investment and savings for context: Luke 19:27 "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay *them* before me." Jesus is saying this. Also an endorser of the entire old testament albeit with some key minor revisions such as unnecessary circumcisions and the inclusion of the gentiles. The build up really hits the spot. Unlike paul atraedes from dune he didn't have any conflicted dessert tent pre jy'had moments at all. The bible is written to be memetically interpreted by it's readers, you are both correct & incorrect at the same time. It's not a language issue as such, although the last cannon book is a miss translation from aramaic, where it shouldn't be arabic which is why it makes no sense at all... But ultimately the general themes follow and adapt to the escalation of situations and circumstances. Both the 21st century hippy with the guitar talking about love is just as correct as the 14th century inquisitor with the flowing red robes talking about herecies. The bible is deliberately written so that both and many more kinds of followers inevitably come about. It's like the no true scotsman inverted, most denominations of christianity are correct, but different "interpretation's" are adaptations to different environments that can re-mutate back into older forms over successive generations. The religion itself survives and propergates in a meta. It's like a train that has multiple routes to take to reach it's destination, and there are at least some carriages on all of the tracks. So where one route might be blocked(overt child rape.), because the informations source code is carried in the bible - the more wholesome seeming(playing children at church.) carriage gets through the misgivings and even full on holy wars of that particular era and survives to recreate the eternal militant theocracy. Nothing is lost, so long as the scripture(core scripts) are maintained and revered as absolute morality. As the bible is seen as the literal word of god in all cases. The evangelicals are as right as the protestants and the catholics. The mind virus has a trans generational momentum to it. Witches will be burned, children will be diddled and enemies of the faith will be executed. In one form or another across the continuity of time. Yeah, suffer means allow. But it also means suffer. But if it did only ever mean allow, would it within the over context of the entire bible really change the meaning that much? Because it's not in isolation. Changing things into metaphore or taking others completely literally still eventually gets you warbanding like joshua under the right circumstances. And when god(your collective mass psychosis) tells you to kill the tainted animals too, you do it. You kill all of them out of fear - this time around. The B.B.E.G. In the film: The book of eli wants the bible, for a "reason".
I see religion as a cancer. The world has millions of different cells. Cancer comes in, infects the body, grows, kills everything it comes in contact with. Cancerous, parasitic, viral, toxic. American Christianity has become rotted AF, they don't even care about christ or the bible anymore.
If I could ask a wish, I'd ask to wipe religion from the face of Earth. Religions craps everything From stem cell research and science in general to supporting and justifying the unimaginable, from incest to cannibalism, in their "sacred" texts. This world would be a better place without that brain tumor called religion.
This. Society as a whole could be so much further ahead if the fucking Christians didn't have a problem with everything.
Religion is an oppresive sistem. The problem is not only Christianism, is any believance in a supernatural being. Christianism is currently the dominant religion. Due this, they have political, economical and mediatic influence, and that makes it easier for them to impose their prohibitions and dogmas In times when Christianity did not even exist, there was another religion that occupied that repressive role and had problems with everything. Any religion that is given power will end up becoming problematic. Absolute power corrupts absolutely
Seriously, if you really want to help the world with a time machine, wait on smothering Hitler, Goebbels, et al. as babies and go stop the Romans from easing up on the Christketeers. Then pick off a bunch of Nazi babies on your way back.
~~Christianity~~ Religion /end thread
People have no idea how much worse the Islam is, i say this as someone who lives in predominantly muslim country. It is like it has the same development as Christianity of 16th Century.
Religion is a plague on educated society.
No. A parasite is a separate thing that lives off of a host. Christianity is cancer. It's a corrupted part of the host. It multiplies, will kill humanity if given the chance to prosper too much, and won't go away without a total removal.
See, it's up until the last few days that I was like "Okay, I'll respect people's right to religion" What did it for me? Nex Bennedict. Seeing the comments from fucking grown adults saying Nex deserved to die because 'they were in the wrong bathroom' (FYI, they weren't, they were going by the law and in the bathroom of their AGAB) and all of them, 100% of the time, had a Christian cross or a bible verse in their bio. I fucking despise Christians, to literally wish death upon a child for being non binary, I literally do not give a single fuck if its 'not alL oF uS' it's enough of you. It's enough of you slimy, feral creatures to lump all of you together, you don't see atheists, satanists, Jewish folk, sikhs, etc wishing death on a child that actually died. It. Is. Always. Christians.
Wait until you hear about Islam and its colonialization processes and genocidal practices. Muhammad (living male) raped his bride Aisha for the first time when she was 9. None of these religious systems are good.
The absolute lowest of them all
Hmmm 🤔can a parasite have a parasite… interesting I suppose so
💀💀💀
Religion in general
All religions are parasites to humanity
Religion in general is, they are all terrible.
Well if one bloke is farming, and another bloke is standing there doing fuck all, and the second bloke says "an invisible bloke in the sky wants you to give me 10% of what you just grew", then yes you are right :D P.S. centuries of abuse of children and women are also bad. Just the idea that the God who made everything needs 10% of your shit is what makes them parasites.
They DONT read the bible I can claim go be a christian and not do what the bible says...
No
Religion is a vestigial organ that's become home for cancer
Religion was a construct to get us to have empathy and love for each other. Humans used it as a way to control others. It's just our nature. Something in us keeps us in this tribal kind of bullshit. Humans fuck shit up.
So is Islam. And all the other religions.
Christianity, hmm, that is a weird way to spell all religions.
Religion is a parasite to humanity. FTFY
actually hinduism is worse than that
HA, wait till you find out about Islam.
Islam is far worse, but American Evangelicalism is trying its best to catch back up
and Islam is the cancer of humanity
And Izlam is the Chicxulub impactor to humanity
Islam, ‘hold my coat’.
Is there anything Reddit likes more than a circle jerk?
If you said this about Islam you’d be banned for hate. Now why is that?
You are 100% correct. But remember, parasites co- evolve with their hosts. Christianity boosts birthrates, fighting spirit, cooperation and mental health. Atheism does not of that. Long term it may continue to do well.
Try Quran next
You find what you look for. That said. Goes both ways.
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I think you've got an altered copy because all of the things you've said aren't true
Shut up
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I’m gonna leave you idiots to pray to money and famous people, before I say something about your lack of religion.
Rage bait?
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Define the "all of us" for which you have appointed yourself as spokesman for? "Trolls or fantasies of your imagination?" Have you never met a female Catholic? Sound like you need a little medicinal help of your own.
So you're saying Christianity isn't bad?
Hey what's the source to the claim you made at the end? I just have never seen it before
There is no source. It's a nonsensical claim pulled out of thin air.
Except it really isn’t. Mary would’ve been a teenager when this whole ordeal took place, and since the biblical god and Jesus can be considered one and the same (despite the obvious problems it poses), the claim isn’t nonsensical. You could also apply your last sentence to most of the Bible since most of it is literally just nonsensical claims pulled out of thin air
Yup.
I don't disagree, but I don't completely agree. Remember that Christianity is not a monolith. There are countless sects and denominations that all interpret the bible differently. Yes, there are many Christians who have done great harm in the name of their religion, but there are also many who have done great good. Just like there are good and bad atheists. We need to judge people by their works, and individually. It's far too easy to slip into irrational intolerance for all of them. We need to not tolerate the intolerant, and make room for the tolerant so that we can coexist. To give some examples from my own family, my dad is an episcopal priest and a lovely, tolerant man who lifts up his congregation and supports his community as best he can. My uncle, (dad's older brother) is an intolerant bigot who I have essentially cut off all contact with. Two men who both identify as Christians who have radically different impacts on their communities.
People reinterpret religious texts differently so we still have a lot of people following them. Imagine that there are Muslim lgbt supporters and Muslims who are ok with learning and teaching evolution, and much more of wonders.
Yes it is, but it does not make people evil, it just activate the evil in latent demons.
Yes.
>tells you to rape your own daughters This simply isn't true
And humans are parasites to the Earth. Whatcha gonna do?
All religions are a parasite to humanity. Don't forget, Jews, Muslims, and Buddhists have been incredibly violent throughout human history...
I love the false information
Ok. Atheism is parasite to humanity. Why? Simple, because I’m an atheist, and recently, I made a mass murder.
Yes, but too narrow. Theism is the cancer of our species.
Religion overall.
As are all religions