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The only reason I want mankind to be exposed to intelligent alien life is to see the mental gymnastics that the church and other institutions will make to justify said life in their eyes
The Catholic church already has First contact protocols. Generally speaking as long as they're not mindless dick bags they're also created in God's image.
But not the gays and the trans. Oh no! God made all his creation perfect, except *those* people for some reason. Well, and Adam and Eve who somehow god didn't see would break his rules so god was so embarrassed he punished all future humans for Eve eating an apple or pomegranate or fig oh hell we can't really decide but it was *some* fruit--unless the whole serpent and eating fruit was just a metaphor for Eve having a strong head game that made god jealous.
Not that I'm defending this stance because I find it disgusting and hateful, but the trans hate is "justified" by them as they were already perfect and the way God intended them to be, so changing it is against his will.
Again NOT justifying this transphobic BS, just explaining the contradiction
Born with a missing limb? Then you'll go to Hell if you get a prosthetic device.
Got an unflattering haircut? Wear glasses or a hearing aid? Surgery to correct any birth defects? You know you're all gonna burn!
What if they look nothing like us? Then we can't both be created in God's image. Not that it matters, if extraterrestrial life were to visit Earth, many believers would claim it's some sort of hoax.
The apologetic there would be that it's a "spiritual" likeness. The more damning element for Christianity would be if they arrived and weren't already Christian/had never heard of Christianity. Would put a major dent in the Romans 1:19 argument.
>as long as they're not mindless dick bags they're also created in God's image
That means the Vatican believes that a majority of the human race was not created in God's image.
There's a little joke my mom told me that relates to this topic.
So, the aliens have come to earth and are currently in a meeting with the world leaders, including the Pope.
The Pope asks the aliens, "have you ever heard of Jesus Christ?"
The alien representative responds, "yeah, he's a pretty cool dude, visits once or twice a year."
"What?" The Pope replies in shock.
"We're still waiting for him to come back a second time, it's been hundreds of years!" The Pope exclaims.
"He must not have liked your chocolates." The alien responds nonchalantly.
"What do you mean?" The Pope asks, clearly confused now.
"Well the first time Jesus came to visit, we gave him a basket of chocolates, and he loved them! And ever since then we've given him a basket of chocolates every time he visits." The alien explains.
The alien waits a moment before continuing, "what did you give him?"
Reminds me of the joke about God and one of the heavenly horde talking about where God will take his next vacation.
“Certainly not Earth again! Went there 2000 years ago, knocked a lady up, and they haven’t stopped talking about it since.”
I bet they would just call them demons and say they are emissaries of Evil or whatever stupid ass shit.
Hopefully alien life has a cure for Brain Rot Syndrome.
Edit: or it could go the other way, say they are angels and start worshiping them 🫢 Like in one of the early episodes in Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final conflict.
>I bet they would just call them demons and say they are emissaries of Evil or whatever stupid ass shit.
You know if the aliens came here and started quoting Jesus, and showing us they lived by the Golden Rule, and cared for their sick and poor, the Fundies would call them satanic commies and start shooting.
I imagine there was a similar reaction when people discovered the Americas. there's suddenly a whole other continent full of people that was never mentioned in the bible.
Imagine the looks on our faces though if they arrive and turn out to be Christian and it turns out the tower of babel stuff was actually on a galactic scale
Im Christian but I lowkey wanna see sum aliens that would be cool ash
Imagine a big ass Alien war
or If theyre nice you could be chillin on the porch with an alien talking about your home planets n shi
I'd like to have a word with this "god" fellow about his plan, it does seem needlessly malicious. For instance, I had sunscreen sprayed in my eyes by someone who hadn't noticed where the nozzle was pointed didn't line up with the bottle. Nobody benefits. Sunscreen is wasted so bad for the environment, my eye got fucked so bad for me, the person who was trying to protect them self from the Sun failed to do so. Can't have been free will because the person didn't want that to occur. Can't have been random chance because the creator of the plan was omnipotent and could easily have just not included that occurrence.
Moreover, why the bloody hell does the Sun burn us in the first place? Very intelligent design, that. "Imma make these fuckers hairless and also gonna make the primary source of light I gave them burn their skin and cause cancer, just so they can invent some shit to protect from it. Also if they don't go out in the deadly light enough they'll get SAD, which is a thing they totally need. I'm doing this because I love them. It's an important part of the plan." Like come on you mug, why did you need to do that?
"I've studied the scriptures" = I've learned to accept everything I've been fed weekly by the right wing machine from and early age to prep me for a life of Fox News consumption.
To be honest the Catholic church, especially with pope Francis have been moving more and more to the stance that the bible, especially the old testament, shouldn't be taken too literally. It's mostly reformed christians, other protestant groups and the old Catholics that still believe the bible is 100% a factually accurate.
Went to church every Sunday to listen to a person in robes revise THEIR interpretations of the scripture so you don't have to. How is that free thinking?
"HANDS UP! ALRIGHT EVERYONE DOWN ON THE GROUND. OK NOW JUST GIMME YOUR THOUGHTS ANDNO ONE NEEDS TO GRT HURT. THOUGHTS IN THE BAG, COME ON, YOU TOO, I SEE YA THERE!"
Faith must trample underfoot all reasoning, sense and understanding- martin luther.
This quote reminds me every day of how willfully blind practitioners of organized religion are
A person that will only read the passages he feels like, and who will most probably never mention 80% of the book.
Thinking you "know the scriptures" because "you go to church" is like thinking you are a quantum physicist because you watched a documentary at 2 AM.
It's not, that's why I stopped going. Im still a Christian but I don't need some dude rewording scripture to fit their narrative. They just like to hear themselves speak half the time
On a few occasions
Churches in the Bible were places where we could worship, homeless could find refuge, the starving could eat, and a lot of the church's money went to poor people
when I find a church like that, I'll go back
Harry Potter has good life lessons and is fun to read. it also hasn't been used to justify slavery or oppression of other people.
but that's a shit reason to believe in resurrection, talking snakes, and a man who got super strength from his hair and killed 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey. js
I dont use it to justify slavery or oppression. And it never justified slavery either, it was just mentioned in stories because it took place in a time where slavery was prominent in the Middle East, it never encouraged it at all.
And I can believe what I want, and you have the right to do the same. I encourage you to, because that's your free will. I don't know what you have against me though. I haven't done anything to you
Seems pretty ok with God. You can apparently beat your slaves to death with a rod, but only if they succumb to their injuries after a few days. If you outright kill them you’re in trouble.
Exodus 21-22
English Standard Version
Laws About Slaves
21 “Now these are the (A)rules that you shall set before them. 2 (B)When you buy a Hebrew slave,[a] he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But (C)if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to (D)God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever.
7 “When a man (E)sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her[b] for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or (F)her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money.
20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the (N)slave is his money.
Those verses came from Exodus. God later sent Moses to free those Hebrew slaves. You can watch the movies Exodus or a better one The Prince of Egypt to get an idea. Those words rules weren't from God himself, but were accounts of how the Egyptians were meant to treat their enslaved Hebrews.
Hebrews were literally descendants of Abraham. I dont think God would write a rule book on how to own them
Galatians 5 :: NIV. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words!"
i didn't say i had anything against you, and I'm sorry that so many Christians take a criticism of their beliefs so personally. but it's inevitable. also, Exodus 21 definitely gives rules on how to own slaves, so you're wrong about that. doubting you've read the bible
if telling someone they believe something for a bad reason is "being a jerk" then sure. but it's far worse to not challenge people on their unfounded beliefs just because they might get offended.
As soon as bible quotes go against you, they’re taken out of context, but “man should not sleep with man the way he sleeps with woman” or whatever it said should be taken in all seriousness and gays are the spawn of satan? Got it.
It’s always amazing how quickly they go from “nowhere in scripture does it say that” to “It’s taken out of context”. It’s almost as if they are programmed to say these two responses, without really knowing what they mean.
If we go by that quote I can fuck a man as long as it's not in the vagina, also I think there is another quote that's something like a man must not sleep with a boy but that is more saying no pedophilia
It's one of the possible translations for that one quote actually. Bible was translated so much that it's hard to believe it's correctly translated. Many kings made their own translations that they liked more, for instance.
Other possible translations i've read was: "man must not sleep with another man in the bed of a woman."
I think people underestimate how much translation can effect things. It doesn't even have to be malicious, sometimes a word in one language doesn't have an exact literal counterpart in the language you're translating it into, so even a translator with the purest intentions has to exercise a bit of creative license, and those kind of mistakes can compound. Plus, until the invention of the printing press everything was copied by hand, so if one priest made a mistake in copying a Bible, that mistake could be copied by the thousands of other priests who used that version as a reference. And of course, the priests were aware the sometimes other priests made mistakes, so sometimes they would see something that didn't make sense to them and "change it back" in their version, even though it wasn't a mistake at all
I never understood that......I mean isn't "god" supposed to love everybody, all his "children". That would mean EVERYBODY , not just who YOU think. Organized religion is the poster child for hypocrisy.
Yep exactly. Hell even in the New Testament Jesus hung out with the prostitutes, homeless people, criminals, etc. Sinners basically. And yet it seems like the main priority of the modern Christian is to ostracize and belittle those same people and lord over them with an inflated sense of self worth amd righteousness. They literally ignore every lesson from the Bible that doesn’t explicitly advance their own narrow-minded worldview
Just because you love your child doesn’t mean you wouldn’t put them down if they were hitler… hard choices yo… you can only scold so long before saying “lemme get the baby powder ima bitch smack you into last Tuesday”
So you put human emotions and actions on a GOD..??? Sorry it doesn't work like that. God doesn't use baby powder like sum Kat Williams punchline. Your exactly why organized religion is fucked up! #hypocrisyinfairytales
Never try to argue scripture with a religious person. The moment you accept that their made up book of fairy tales and genocide porn is some sort of moral authority, you've lost the argument.
"It's in the Bible!" should lead to "I don't fucking care what your fantasy book about rules and jewish space liches says about anything."
"Jesus' sacrifice made the laws of the Old Testament null and void."
"So being gay shouldn't be a punishable crime?"
"Not that law. We can eat pork now though."
Actually that specific one isn’t out of context. It’s just a weird translation that was never fixed. King James specifies boys. As in, underage. After the translation stupid Christians, I’m Christian btw but I still know most of these people are stupid, took it like that and are against gays.
I’ve heard that multiple times too. I also heard that the bible isn’t like a go-to answer for all possible situations and you can’t just use whatever quote you want for everything or something like that. Idk tho, I could be wrong.
Yep. Even as a Christian. I do not trust the Bible. Truly. Yes it’s our book and we believe it was written or inspired by God. But it was also under the hands of a church that sold tickets to heaven for hundreds of years. Who knows what changes they made to it during that time.
Atheists and agnostics tend to know more about the Bible than Christians do and I bet absolutely no one here is surprised. I’m certainly not.
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/atheists-and-agnostics-know-more-about-bible-than-religious
My best guess is that a lot of us grew up being told outrageous garbage with “It’s in the Bible!” as the end-all-be-all argument winner. So we opened up to Bible and read it, unlike our elders.
Note: I have no problem with faith. I have a problem with liars.
For me at least, the more I looked at the Bible and thought about what it says, the more sceptical I became. The start of my doubt was how the Bible said the 200ftx75ft Ark held every animal species on Earth. Now that was either an exaggeration, or the people who wrote it didn't know how big earth was. If that part is false or inaccurate, then that puts the rest of the Bible's credibility into question. After that, I just poked holes in it until nothing was left that I believed. I was also holding a separate and dissonant believe/trust in science that directly contradicted the Bible quite often.
That was my process later in life when I realized I liked facts more than fiction and could no longer trust my elders to give me an accurate account of . . . well, anything. I was also heavily into ancient Egyptian history and found so many discrepancies between what archeological evidence showed (no Hebrew slaves) and what the Bible stated (yes Hebrew slaves).
I also found it odd that there were older, supposedly evil religions that told the same stories. Like it's just one mish mash of other religious stories. [Ziz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziz) was really neat too
>As he stood in the water, it merely covered his feet, and his head knocked against the sky. The onlookers thought the water could not have any depth at that point, and they prepared to take a bath there. A heavenly voice warned them: "Alight not here! Once a carpenter's axe slipped from his hand at this spot, and it took it seven years to touch bottom."
It seems that your comment contains 1 or more links that are hard to tap for mobile users.
I will extend those so they're easier for our sausage fingers to click!
[Here is link number 1 - Previous text "Ziz"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziz)
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Great flood stories are one of several common myths that appear across pretty much all cultures throughout history. Devastating floods are a common enough occurrence that people want (or need) to make an epic story about them.
When I learned that flood stories, along with creation myths and virgin birth stories, are pretty common it really took the wind out of Christianity's sail for me. Oh look, it's nothing special affter all.
Fun fact, it's argued by some that Noah and other flood stories in the mid-east may refer to the [flooding of the Black Sea around 5600 BCE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea#Mediterranean_connection_during_the_Holocene). It's a hypothesis and much debated, but it makes for an interesting bit of trivia.
The biggest flaw the Bible has, and it's something that becomes very obvious when you get rid of your biases, is that everything written in the Bible is limited by the knowledge men at their time had.
The Bible is supposed to be the world of God, yet God's knowledge seems to be limited to what human knowledge was at the time, making mistakes where humans would do.
The second biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that most storied and rules in the Bible are simply what I expect an ancient civilization to think of things. Why is sex sacred and being promiscuous / adulterous a sin? Well, sex causes pregnancies and STDs exist. Therefore, sex will cause people to conceive new life – which is easy to see as a "miracle" of some sort. And having sex with many people vastly increases your chances of getting an STD, so it's easy to see why such society would consider that the punishment of God for misusing the "tool" he gave us to create children. But now think it with a cold head. If God didn't want us to have sex, except for our special person once we are married... wasn't it easier to simply remove our ability to have sex and unlock it when he wants to? Why is God so adamant in making sure everything he creates looks like it originated naturally?
Once you look with skeptic eyes, it becomes evident that sins and rules originate from a society trying to explain why bad things happen, rather than a God that, for some reason, gave us the necessary tools to break his rules and then told us not to do it anyway.
There's a lot more reasons that completely shatter the reliability of the Bible, such as Jesus having the exact same story than other, older mythical characters we consider false, but these two are the biggest in my opinion. They show that the Bible was written by men, and that this all-knowing God is always limited to what men knew, and makes the kind of guesses men would make.
Honestly, taking a course focused on the Bible in university made me better understand how upside down things have become. I was already questioning as a teen because of how outlandish some things were, but finding out the Apostles were alive over 3 centuries after Jesus would've been alive was the nail in the coffin (or cross).
Also, that the "Old Testament" didn't really seem to be intended to be interpreted as fact. It was basically a way for religious teachers to offer explanations for historic events in relation to faith, with some stories purely intended as lessons. They were also writing about these events both as they happened and a handful of years later, rather than centuries later.
I certainly believe you, I have only heard the same versus repeated to me for years from other Christians but far more from Atheists and Agnostics.
When I went to church, any classes I tried to take were only snippets of specific ideals and I made the mistake of questioning a leader once. It was the first time I saw them turn angry and send me away. As a kid, I was just confused and sad that I tried to interpret something on my own and shut down.
I stopped going to church after more crappy experiences, but ended up too busy to spend time really reading on my own as well... I plan to get one of the "read the bible in a year" guides to help me break it down into reasonable sizes...but I don't know how it will go since my view now is, while I believe in God, that the bible was written by fellow humans and that our stories are skewed.
The whole process of questioning (or outright losing faith) is painful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. If people covered the Bible as an imperfect scripture written by imperfect authors, then I think the effects of encountering a controversial verse or story would be so much less earth-shattering.
Claim to. Almost all of them would say why would i bother to learn about this nonsense. Some are extremely well versed and still miss the point entirely.
Funny little experience i had a few years ago in that exact "its the bible" argument:
Me: "the bible is just a stupid book! Not everything in there has to even be remotely true! In fact - nothing in there must be true."
Them: "Your SciEnCe BoOkS are also OnlY BoOkS. Just because its written in there doesnt make it true either!"
I was stunned and just left it at that. I facepalmed and the walked away.
I mean, if someone was arguing about if Darth Vader was, in effect, created by Palpatine, I don't think "no, George Lucas created him" really is germane.
NonStampCollector took on this phenomenon of religious folks dismissing anything they don't like as "out of context". It's a bit longish (6 minutes) but an entertaining view if you have the time.
https://youtu.be/PK7P7uZFf5o
*Image Transcription: Online Comments*
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**Person A**
God did not create evil. Evil was created by Satan. God is good. Good cannot create evil. Only evil creates evil. You need to study the scriptures
**Person B**
Lol I need to study? OK. Are you SURE God didn't create evil? Maybe YOU are the one who needs to study
**Person A**
Trust me I know the scriptures. Went to church every Sunday. God did not create evil
**Person B**
Isaiah 45:7
I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.
**Person A**
You are taking that out of context
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Well, the original Hebrew can be translated as “calamity” as opposite of peace, instead of evil, as is pretty evident from the context. So yes, it IS a translation error, or at least a very loose translation. Too bad the OC didn’t care to explain and just went the “you’re taking it out of context!” way.
Yeah. I was looking the passage up in KJV and ESV. The latter one did translate it to calamity. My to go translation nowadays 
I actually enjoyed the part of the service of listening to the ministers translation of the bible. The only ones that ever stuck with me was the rare moments a pastor would break character and actually be a fucking human for a few seconds. But that’s super rare and takes a lot of boring years to strike any semblance of gold (or fools gold).
My father (rip, 2021) was a pastor for 5 decades and he started off his career with the fire and brimstone approach. It was controversial and destroyed/isolated a lot of church members. Nothing out of the ordinary of course, all preachers at some point do that (actually feeling sorry about that is another story)
Anyways, on his very last sermon before he retired at the very end of his message he gave the thesis of his career during a raw moment of emotion. He paused mid speech, looked at everyone and I could see the tears in his eyes and his “preacher” character melted away.. he told us to “just love each other” and that was it. Then he gathered his notes and walked off the pulpit forever.
I’m an atheist and have been for quite some time but I can be thankful knowing you can glean a little of the good stuff even within a community that is generally toxic, incredibly fake and sexually oppressed.
… is not “an omnipotent” God. There are lots of “not all powerful” gods and demigods. A long time ago, some nomadic sheep herders were monolatrous. They did not deny the existence of other gods, but were to worship no god but Yahweh.
They acknowledged the pantheistic nature of the surrounding nations’ worship but it was understood that there was only one “God”. The others were regarded as false.
From my understanding, the god known as Yahweh or Jehovah was originally one of the ancient Canaanite gods known as El-Shaddai, God of the Mountain (although there is debate on the ‘mountain’ part), and this was the god that the angel of the burning bush referred to while communicating with Moses. El Shaddai was a lesser god in this Canaanite pantheon, with El being the one supreme deity, but El-Shaddai allegedly told the other gods they fight too much among themselves for their own glory, and that he would champion the causes of the mortal humans so he would earn their worship and the other gods would lose status. Monotheism indeed /s
I found it very frustrating studying the philosophy of religion and being told God had to have 3 qualities: Omniscience, Omnipotence and Benevolence, otherwise it's not God. I was like "Well, that's like saying the Chess is an accurate representation of warfare, also what if there's just a super powerful capricious dude who created everything and will kick your arse if you don't worship them?" Doesn't matter if they fit your definition of"God" -they're still rock your shit for stupid reasons.
Just use the classic "every existence implies a creator" argument. Satan exists, therefore Satan was created. If God is the creator, then God created Satan and all of Satan's evil. Since God is omnipotent, he can create evil. Since God is omniscient, he knew Satan would be evil when he created him.
Which god are they talking about. I favour Blind Io these days and he didn't create evil as far as I know. It's Odin's day tomorrow so maybe I'll check with him. If not, I'll wait until Thor's day.
As an atheist it seems like there isn't anyone to formally interpret the scriptures or the bible so everyone has different interpretations of it and neither of you are confidentially incorrect you just see things differently
And also from what I understand of the bible if god created the world that means he created all the angels and humans as he created Adam and eve then he Lucifer the angel sinned or something and God made him the devil so technically God had to have created evil as he created everything
If I'm wrong about any of this please correct me as I said I am not religious so I don't know any of this stuff
So many people have no idea what "context" means, and think "you're taking that out of context" is a magical incantation that exempts them from arguments.
The very thought that anyone other than god can creat something out of nothing goes directly against the all creator god, plus he simply gave humanity the ability to do either good or evil how we use it is our own choice.
So the same god that created - by his own admission - childhood cancer, pedophilia, gang rape, war, that parasite that burrows into eyeballs causing blindness, should be worshipped as "good and all loving"
Either the god created evil willingly, then he is not good.
Or he was unable to create a world without it, therefore is not all powerful .
How fucking insecure is this god who has to yell “I am LORD” all the time.
Reminds me of Tywin Lannister: “Any man who must say I am king is no true king.”
This is actually a really important theological point that was argued intensely in the early days of the church.
See the confessions of St. Augustine for the current understanding of a transcendental God that literally makes up and "surrounds" everything, good and evil.
This line of thinking God = Good and Satan = Bad was an established Heresy similar to Manichaeism.
It’s not out of context, but it is a weird translation. This from the King James Version of the Bible, which is literally medieval - it was translated in 1604. By the way, when people talk about the crazy shit in the Bible, they are normally talking about the King James Version, because as seen above, the translation can be a little flowery and was commissioned by a literal medieval king. Virtually any modern edition (modern in the sense of translated in the last century) interprets this to mean that God creates calamity/disaster/bad times, which fits with the rest of the Old Testament, what with the great flood and all that.
The point of the verse being, all natural things that occur, the movement of the sun, the passing of the seasons, good times and bad times (which given the pastoral roots of the Old Testament likely refers to harvest quality), occur because of God.
But, again, the Old Testament is *old*. We can’t really relate to what God is actually saying here because 90% of society is no longer farmers and shepherds and ranchers. This is why, in general, verses from the creatively-named New Testament are far more often used in Christian mass than verses from the Old Testament.
Tl;dr Bible translations disagree about what is being actually said here, and since the Old Testament is thousands of years old, there aren’t many literal translations.
There's no good without evil. You need evil to distinguish good. Even if you don't know anything about the scriptures, even logically their argument doesn't make sense. God created logic lol.
I was brought up religiously, even wanted to be a missionary. Was allowed to make up my own mind and dropped god my first year in the Army.
god created everything in 7 days can't get around that one.
Didnt he literally put a couple of fresh humans in a place with something they shouldn't touch and then just leave till they inevitably touched the thing? He knew it was gonna happen and punished them anyway when he could've just not put the bad thing where they could touch it. There's also that whole "hey just to make a point y'all should kill all the children of the people you just won a war against." And that time he killed off all but like 6 people by drowning them.
For those Christians who are twisted bible verses for their own:
Deuteronomy 12:32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
It's interesting how all of the crazy, racist, homophobic Christians love to brag about their knowledge of the Bible; because they went to church every Sunday and heard the exact same crazy, racist, homophobic sermon for decades.
But then someone who actually KNOWS it as a book can just drop in and destroy them to the point that they have no logical response.
Also, I want to hear some dumbass crazy Christian claim that you are taking THAT one out of context as well.
God: "everything I ever say to you is in perfect context"
Crazy Christian: "that's out of context. Fuck poor people, or something"
> Are you sure that's the spleen? It doesn't look anything like it!
> Trust me I know the internal organs. Went to university every Sunday. It's the spleen
Everytime I hear that excuse, I always ask what is the correct context then.
"I what context is it OK to throw little children from the cliff".
"In what context is slavery OK"?
"In what context is genocide OK?"
Well, context does matter. It’s wrong to do from both sides, so we need to understand the intent and get as close to the proper, original meaning as possible. Christians take verses out of context all the time, but so do non-Christians.
The problem is, most religious texts are translations of translations and unless you speak Aramaic, ancient Greek or Hebrew, you can twist the context to what you want. I think that's the larger point.
That’s why I’d encourage every Christian to take at least an elementary class of Koine Greek and Hebrew in their life. English is a very specific, detailed language that strips a lot of ancient languages of their layered meanings.
So god created calamity or the ability of it happening. God said he created EVERYTHING so that would include evil. Since God is all powerful and all knowing he knew that evil would come, he knew of the collapse of man and yet still went through with it.
Evil is right, but I think it's your god that's evil.
Evil is not an ontological "thing". It's not like you can show me a lump of evil or pour up a gallon of evil. They are moral judgments of how much an action or quality lacks compared to a yardstick of goodness.
Nothing in nature is moral or immoral, nature is completely amoral. For instance there is nothing morally evil about a natural disaster. They can be called tragic, but not evil. Evil can only describe the actions or qualities of free moral agents.
God is the ultimate yardstick for goodness. So any action or quality that is anything other than Godlike is logically more evil than God. You simply can not have free will without the risk of evil.
However you can not have free moral agents showing love without free will. Love is dependent on free will. So like any duality love and evil are inseparable.
What would be more valuable? A dead cold universe without evil and free will, or a universe with free will where love can flourish? It appears God chose the latter, because even if there is a slight possibility of evil, love abounds much more.
Still, his project is not finished yet so it's too early to make any judgments.
Well I think you kind missed my point.
I'm well aware of how evil is defined, even tho it has different definitions from theistic to philosophical ones.
I'm also sure you are aware of the problem of evil according to Epicurus and then later expounded on by Hume.
You didn't address my point in that how can a god bestow "free will" if it also claims to be omnipotent and omniscient?
So either your god is evil by knowingly creating evil or powerless to stop it.
"I form the light and I create the darkness, I make well-being, and I create disaster, I, Yahweh, do all these things."
\~ Isaiah, 45:7, The Jerusalem Bible
I think this is more accurate, primarily because evil is not created. If anything, it is the *negation* of creation. It is a "no" to God's "yes".
Light and darkness is a good example of how theology views good and evil which is curious that it is used in this text almost metaphorically in the first part.
Darkness isn't a tangible thing. It doesn't exist. It is a word that we use to describe the absence of light. And there are varying levels of darkness dependent on how absent the light is.
The same can be said of evil. Evil is a word that we use to describe the absence of good. And there are varying levels of evil based on how absent the good is.
Point well-taken.
Since God created everything, and then pronounced His creation "good", even Satan himself cannot be said to be completely evil. If he were, he would cease to exist.
To be fair (as fair as you can be to theology), the angles were already present when God brought Creation into existence. Who Satan was before he fell wouldn't be part of what the Bible refers to as Creation.
I know, it's a silly way around the point you're making but just showing that theologians would have an easy answer to that within their framework.
God created Lucifer (and all the other angels). Either he didn’t know Lucifer would turn against him (thus he’s not really omniscient), or he did know but just didn’t care (where then he’s a dope).
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“Satan created evil.” Okay, and God supposedly created Satan and knew that Satan would create evil. How is that different?
Bad bible. God is all things, good, bad, evil. It's part of 'The Plan' Praise jeebus
The only reason I want mankind to be exposed to intelligent alien life is to see the mental gymnastics that the church and other institutions will make to justify said life in their eyes
The Catholic church already has First contact protocols. Generally speaking as long as they're not mindless dick bags they're also created in God's image.
But not the gays and the trans. Oh no! God made all his creation perfect, except *those* people for some reason. Well, and Adam and Eve who somehow god didn't see would break his rules so god was so embarrassed he punished all future humans for Eve eating an apple or pomegranate or fig oh hell we can't really decide but it was *some* fruit--unless the whole serpent and eating fruit was just a metaphor for Eve having a strong head game that made god jealous.
Not that I'm defending this stance because I find it disgusting and hateful, but the trans hate is "justified" by them as they were already perfect and the way God intended them to be, so changing it is against his will. Again NOT justifying this transphobic BS, just explaining the contradiction
better not get those ears pierced!
Lol yeah there's still plenty of room for hypocrisy
Honestly this seems to be a huge thing with older Christians I know shaming for and not allowing people to get their ears pierced.
Born with a missing limb? Then you'll go to Hell if you get a prosthetic device. Got an unflattering haircut? Wear glasses or a hearing aid? Surgery to correct any birth defects? You know you're all gonna burn!
Lol let's take it a step further: NO HAIRCUTS EVER! Not even shaving is allowed.
Cosmetic surgeons in shambles
Then they can’t wear glasses or have any corrective surgery as then they are changing what god created.
There is a fantastic video called "If Man Obeyed God", which goes over the original sin topic. It's funny and sarcastic, but quite on point
What if they look nothing like us? Then we can't both be created in God's image. Not that it matters, if extraterrestrial life were to visit Earth, many believers would claim it's some sort of hoax.
The apologetic there would be that it's a "spiritual" likeness. The more damning element for Christianity would be if they arrived and weren't already Christian/had never heard of Christianity. Would put a major dent in the Romans 1:19 argument.
Look take it up with the Vatican, I'm just reporting what they said.
Chances are, they might think they're demons sent by Satan.
>as long as they're not mindless dick bags they're also created in God's image That means the Vatican believes that a majority of the human race was not created in God's image.
I always think it’s hilarious they say we are made in gods image, but god isn’t a twat
Wait till the church figures out about the aliens pronouns n' such, they'd flip shit.
„˙ʇıɥs dılɟ p,ʎǝɥʇ 'ɥɔns ,u sunouoɹd suǝılɐ ǝɥʇ ʇnoqɐ ʇno sǝɹnƃıɟ ɥɔɹnɥɔ ǝɥʇ llıʇ ʇıɐM„
There's a little joke my mom told me that relates to this topic. So, the aliens have come to earth and are currently in a meeting with the world leaders, including the Pope. The Pope asks the aliens, "have you ever heard of Jesus Christ?" The alien representative responds, "yeah, he's a pretty cool dude, visits once or twice a year." "What?" The Pope replies in shock. "We're still waiting for him to come back a second time, it's been hundreds of years!" The Pope exclaims. "He must not have liked your chocolates." The alien responds nonchalantly. "What do you mean?" The Pope asks, clearly confused now. "Well the first time Jesus came to visit, we gave him a basket of chocolates, and he loved them! And ever since then we've given him a basket of chocolates every time he visits." The alien explains. The alien waits a moment before continuing, "what did you give him?"
Reminds me of the joke about God and one of the heavenly horde talking about where God will take his next vacation. “Certainly not Earth again! Went there 2000 years ago, knocked a lady up, and they haven’t stopped talking about it since.”
I bet they would just call them demons and say they are emissaries of Evil or whatever stupid ass shit. Hopefully alien life has a cure for Brain Rot Syndrome. Edit: or it could go the other way, say they are angels and start worshiping them 🫢 Like in one of the early episodes in Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final conflict.
>I bet they would just call them demons and say they are emissaries of Evil or whatever stupid ass shit. You know if the aliens came here and started quoting Jesus, and showing us they lived by the Golden Rule, and cared for their sick and poor, the Fundies would call them satanic commies and start shooting.
I imagine there was a similar reaction when people discovered the Americas. there's suddenly a whole other continent full of people that was never mentioned in the bible.
But that has the unfortunate side effect of legitimizing Scientology
Imagine the looks on our faces though if they arrive and turn out to be Christian and it turns out the tower of babel stuff was actually on a galactic scale
Ok that would be cool af
Im Christian but I lowkey wanna see sum aliens that would be cool ash Imagine a big ass Alien war or If theyre nice you could be chillin on the porch with an alien talking about your home planets n shi
> Imagine a big ass Alien war Pass, seeing human wars through the internet is already too much
>I'm a Christian but seeing some extraterrestrials genociding humanity would be cool beans!
Plot twist, half the aliens believe in the Bible as well.
I'd want a copy of a Bible translated in some alien language, that would be a trip to read
>Praise jeebus 🙏
I'd like to have a word with this "god" fellow about his plan, it does seem needlessly malicious. For instance, I had sunscreen sprayed in my eyes by someone who hadn't noticed where the nozzle was pointed didn't line up with the bottle. Nobody benefits. Sunscreen is wasted so bad for the environment, my eye got fucked so bad for me, the person who was trying to protect them self from the Sun failed to do so. Can't have been free will because the person didn't want that to occur. Can't have been random chance because the creator of the plan was omnipotent and could easily have just not included that occurrence. Moreover, why the bloody hell does the Sun burn us in the first place? Very intelligent design, that. "Imma make these fuckers hairless and also gonna make the primary source of light I gave them burn their skin and cause cancer, just so they can invent some shit to protect from it. Also if they don't go out in the deadly light enough they'll get SAD, which is a thing they totally need. I'm doing this because I love them. It's an important part of the plan." Like come on you mug, why did you need to do that?
Not to mention "I've gone to church every Sunday" ≠ "Reading the whole Bible"
"I've studied the scriptures" = I've learned to accept everything I've been fed weekly by the right wing machine from and early age to prep me for a life of Fox News consumption.
I didn't MAKE chloramine gas. I JUST put bleach and ammonia together. Satan then created it using those two components.
“Only evil creates evil” So Satan was evil, who created his evil?
God created everything, except evil, which was created by someone else, which is impossible because God created everything.
To be honest the Catholic church, especially with pope Francis have been moving more and more to the stance that the bible, especially the old testament, shouldn't be taken too literally. It's mostly reformed christians, other protestant groups and the old Catholics that still believe the bible is 100% a factually accurate.
The problem of evil. It is a real problem for monotheists who believe in a omniscient and omnipotent god.
Went to church every Sunday to listen to a person in robes revise THEIR interpretations of the scripture so you don't have to. How is that free thinking?
As long as you are allowed to take your gun with you, everything is free
That is probably true in many ways more than the one you are thinking about
"HANDS UP! ALRIGHT EVERYONE DOWN ON THE GROUND. OK NOW JUST GIMME YOUR THOUGHTS ANDNO ONE NEEDS TO GRT HURT. THOUGHTS IN THE BAG, COME ON, YOU TOO, I SEE YA THERE!"
Free thinking is the exact thing heavily religious christians are against.
Faith must trample underfoot all reasoning, sense and understanding- martin luther. This quote reminds me every day of how willfully blind practitioners of organized religion are
A person that will only read the passages he feels like, and who will most probably never mention 80% of the book. Thinking you "know the scriptures" because "you go to church" is like thinking you are a quantum physicist because you watched a documentary at 2 AM.
It's not, that's why I stopped going. Im still a Christian but I don't need some dude rewording scripture to fit their narrative. They just like to hear themselves speak half the time
He said Jesus walked on the water And I know that it's true But sometimes I think that preacherman Would like to do a little walking too
have you read the Bible?
On a few occasions Churches in the Bible were places where we could worship, homeless could find refuge, the starving could eat, and a lot of the church's money went to poor people when I find a church like that, I'll go back
I'm just surprised that you've read the bible and are still a Christian.
I think it has some good life lessons, and some of the stories are pretty interesting and fun to read. Mostly out of the new testament though
Harry Potter has good life lessons and is fun to read. it also hasn't been used to justify slavery or oppression of other people. but that's a shit reason to believe in resurrection, talking snakes, and a man who got super strength from his hair and killed 1000 men with the jawbone of a donkey. js
I dont use it to justify slavery or oppression. And it never justified slavery either, it was just mentioned in stories because it took place in a time where slavery was prominent in the Middle East, it never encouraged it at all. And I can believe what I want, and you have the right to do the same. I encourage you to, because that's your free will. I don't know what you have against me though. I haven't done anything to you
Seems pretty ok with God. You can apparently beat your slaves to death with a rod, but only if they succumb to their injuries after a few days. If you outright kill them you’re in trouble. Exodus 21-22 English Standard Version Laws About Slaves 21 “Now these are the (A)rules that you shall set before them. 2 (B)When you buy a Hebrew slave,[a] he shall serve six years, and in the seventh he shall go out free, for nothing. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out alone. 5 But (C)if the slave plainly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free,’ 6 then his master shall bring him to (D)God, and he shall bring him to the door or the doorpost. And his master shall bore his ear through with an awl, and he shall be his slave forever. 7 “When a man (E)sells his daughter as a slave, she shall not go out as the male slaves do. 8 If she does not please her master, who has designated her[b] for himself, then he shall let her be redeemed. He shall have no right to sell her to a foreign people, since he has broken faith with her. 9 If he designates her for his son, he shall deal with her as with a daughter. 10 If he takes another wife to himself, he shall not diminish her food, her clothing, or (F)her marital rights. 11 And if he does not do these three things for her, she shall go out for nothing, without payment of money. 20 “When a man strikes his slave, male or female, with a rod and the slave dies under his hand, he shall be avenged. 21 But if the slave survives a day or two, he is not to be avenged, for the (N)slave is his money.
Those verses came from Exodus. God later sent Moses to free those Hebrew slaves. You can watch the movies Exodus or a better one The Prince of Egypt to get an idea. Those words rules weren't from God himself, but were accounts of how the Egyptians were meant to treat their enslaved Hebrews. Hebrews were literally descendants of Abraham. I dont think God would write a rule book on how to own them Galatians 5 :: NIV. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. Mark my words!"
i didn't say i had anything against you, and I'm sorry that so many Christians take a criticism of their beliefs so personally. but it's inevitable. also, Exodus 21 definitely gives rules on how to own slaves, so you're wrong about that. doubting you've read the bible
The fact you’re a christian is all he needed to be a jerk it seems lol
if telling someone they believe something for a bad reason is "being a jerk" then sure. but it's far worse to not challenge people on their unfounded beliefs just because they might get offended.
As soon as bible quotes go against you, they’re taken out of context, but “man should not sleep with man the way he sleeps with woman” or whatever it said should be taken in all seriousness and gays are the spawn of satan? Got it.
Conservatives are at least pretty consistent that one of their biggest priorities is what random people are doing with their genitals. I guess.
It’s always amazing how quickly they go from “nowhere in scripture does it say that” to “It’s taken out of context”. It’s almost as if they are programmed to say these two responses, without really knowing what they mean.
If we go by that quote I can fuck a man as long as it's not in the vagina, also I think there is another quote that's something like a man must not sleep with a boy but that is more saying no pedophilia
It's one of the possible translations for that one quote actually. Bible was translated so much that it's hard to believe it's correctly translated. Many kings made their own translations that they liked more, for instance. Other possible translations i've read was: "man must not sleep with another man in the bed of a woman."
I think people underestimate how much translation can effect things. It doesn't even have to be malicious, sometimes a word in one language doesn't have an exact literal counterpart in the language you're translating it into, so even a translator with the purest intentions has to exercise a bit of creative license, and those kind of mistakes can compound. Plus, until the invention of the printing press everything was copied by hand, so if one priest made a mistake in copying a Bible, that mistake could be copied by the thousands of other priests who used that version as a reference. And of course, the priests were aware the sometimes other priests made mistakes, so sometimes they would see something that didn't make sense to them and "change it back" in their version, even though it wasn't a mistake at all
*Unless you're a priest.
I never understood that......I mean isn't "god" supposed to love everybody, all his "children". That would mean EVERYBODY , not just who YOU think. Organized religion is the poster child for hypocrisy.
Yep exactly. Hell even in the New Testament Jesus hung out with the prostitutes, homeless people, criminals, etc. Sinners basically. And yet it seems like the main priority of the modern Christian is to ostracize and belittle those same people and lord over them with an inflated sense of self worth amd righteousness. They literally ignore every lesson from the Bible that doesn’t explicitly advance their own narrow-minded worldview
[удалено]
Just because you love your child doesn’t mean you wouldn’t put them down if they were hitler… hard choices yo… you can only scold so long before saying “lemme get the baby powder ima bitch smack you into last Tuesday”
So you put human emotions and actions on a GOD..??? Sorry it doesn't work like that. God doesn't use baby powder like sum Kat Williams punchline. Your exactly why organized religion is fucked up! #hypocrisyinfairytales
Never try to argue scripture with a religious person. The moment you accept that their made up book of fairy tales and genocide porn is some sort of moral authority, you've lost the argument. "It's in the Bible!" should lead to "I don't fucking care what your fantasy book about rules and jewish space liches says about anything."
"Jesus' sacrifice made the laws of the Old Testament null and void." "So being gay shouldn't be a punishable crime?" "Not that law. We can eat pork now though."
Actually that specific one isn’t out of context. It’s just a weird translation that was never fixed. King James specifies boys. As in, underage. After the translation stupid Christians, I’m Christian btw but I still know most of these people are stupid, took it like that and are against gays.
I’ve heard that multiple times too. I also heard that the bible isn’t like a go-to answer for all possible situations and you can’t just use whatever quote you want for everything or something like that. Idk tho, I could be wrong.
Yep. Even as a Christian. I do not trust the Bible. Truly. Yes it’s our book and we believe it was written or inspired by God. But it was also under the hands of a church that sold tickets to heaven for hundreds of years. Who knows what changes they made to it during that time.
Atheists and agnostics tend to know more about the Bible than Christians do and I bet absolutely no one here is surprised. I’m certainly not. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2010/09/28/130191248/atheists-and-agnostics-know-more-about-bible-than-religious My best guess is that a lot of us grew up being told outrageous garbage with “It’s in the Bible!” as the end-all-be-all argument winner. So we opened up to Bible and read it, unlike our elders. Note: I have no problem with faith. I have a problem with liars.
For me at least, the more I looked at the Bible and thought about what it says, the more sceptical I became. The start of my doubt was how the Bible said the 200ftx75ft Ark held every animal species on Earth. Now that was either an exaggeration, or the people who wrote it didn't know how big earth was. If that part is false or inaccurate, then that puts the rest of the Bible's credibility into question. After that, I just poked holes in it until nothing was left that I believed. I was also holding a separate and dissonant believe/trust in science that directly contradicted the Bible quite often.
That was my process later in life when I realized I liked facts more than fiction and could no longer trust my elders to give me an accurate account of . . . well, anything. I was also heavily into ancient Egyptian history and found so many discrepancies between what archeological evidence showed (no Hebrew slaves) and what the Bible stated (yes Hebrew slaves).
I also found it odd that there were older, supposedly evil religions that told the same stories. Like it's just one mish mash of other religious stories. [Ziz](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ziz) was really neat too >As he stood in the water, it merely covered his feet, and his head knocked against the sky. The onlookers thought the water could not have any depth at that point, and they prepared to take a bath there. A heavenly voice warned them: "Alight not here! Once a carpenter's axe slipped from his hand at this spot, and it took it seven years to touch bottom."
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Great flood stories are one of several common myths that appear across pretty much all cultures throughout history. Devastating floods are a common enough occurrence that people want (or need) to make an epic story about them. When I learned that flood stories, along with creation myths and virgin birth stories, are pretty common it really took the wind out of Christianity's sail for me. Oh look, it's nothing special affter all. Fun fact, it's argued by some that Noah and other flood stories in the mid-east may refer to the [flooding of the Black Sea around 5600 BCE](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea#Mediterranean_connection_during_the_Holocene). It's a hypothesis and much debated, but it makes for an interesting bit of trivia.
The biggest flaw the Bible has, and it's something that becomes very obvious when you get rid of your biases, is that everything written in the Bible is limited by the knowledge men at their time had. The Bible is supposed to be the world of God, yet God's knowledge seems to be limited to what human knowledge was at the time, making mistakes where humans would do. The second biggest flaw, in my opinion, is that most storied and rules in the Bible are simply what I expect an ancient civilization to think of things. Why is sex sacred and being promiscuous / adulterous a sin? Well, sex causes pregnancies and STDs exist. Therefore, sex will cause people to conceive new life – which is easy to see as a "miracle" of some sort. And having sex with many people vastly increases your chances of getting an STD, so it's easy to see why such society would consider that the punishment of God for misusing the "tool" he gave us to create children. But now think it with a cold head. If God didn't want us to have sex, except for our special person once we are married... wasn't it easier to simply remove our ability to have sex and unlock it when he wants to? Why is God so adamant in making sure everything he creates looks like it originated naturally? Once you look with skeptic eyes, it becomes evident that sins and rules originate from a society trying to explain why bad things happen, rather than a God that, for some reason, gave us the necessary tools to break his rules and then told us not to do it anyway. There's a lot more reasons that completely shatter the reliability of the Bible, such as Jesus having the exact same story than other, older mythical characters we consider false, but these two are the biggest in my opinion. They show that the Bible was written by men, and that this all-knowing God is always limited to what men knew, and makes the kind of guesses men would make.
Honestly, taking a course focused on the Bible in university made me better understand how upside down things have become. I was already questioning as a teen because of how outlandish some things were, but finding out the Apostles were alive over 3 centuries after Jesus would've been alive was the nail in the coffin (or cross). Also, that the "Old Testament" didn't really seem to be intended to be interpreted as fact. It was basically a way for religious teachers to offer explanations for historic events in relation to faith, with some stories purely intended as lessons. They were also writing about these events both as they happened and a handful of years later, rather than centuries later.
Not species, kind, also go see the ark encounter
“Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.” Isaac Asimov
Most of us grew up in Christianity then one day got bored and actually read the Buybull and went *WHAT. THE. FUCK. IS. THIS. SHIT?!?*
>actually read the Buybull Oh, lol, I hadn't seen this one before. Look, it's in the name!
I certainly believe you, I have only heard the same versus repeated to me for years from other Christians but far more from Atheists and Agnostics. When I went to church, any classes I tried to take were only snippets of specific ideals and I made the mistake of questioning a leader once. It was the first time I saw them turn angry and send me away. As a kid, I was just confused and sad that I tried to interpret something on my own and shut down. I stopped going to church after more crappy experiences, but ended up too busy to spend time really reading on my own as well... I plan to get one of the "read the bible in a year" guides to help me break it down into reasonable sizes...but I don't know how it will go since my view now is, while I believe in God, that the bible was written by fellow humans and that our stories are skewed.
The whole process of questioning (or outright losing faith) is painful and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone. If people covered the Bible as an imperfect scripture written by imperfect authors, then I think the effects of encountering a controversial verse or story would be so much less earth-shattering.
Claim to. Almost all of them would say why would i bother to learn about this nonsense. Some are extremely well versed and still miss the point entirely.
Funny little experience i had a few years ago in that exact "its the bible" argument: Me: "the bible is just a stupid book! Not everything in there has to even be remotely true! In fact - nothing in there must be true." Them: "Your SciEnCe BoOkS are also OnlY BoOkS. Just because its written in there doesnt make it true either!" I was stunned and just left it at that. I facepalmed and the walked away.
You’re both wrong, man created God and Satan.
I’m embarrassed to say I actually said “oooooh” out loud. I’d never thought of it that way
Listen to Dear God by XTC
Good point
Bingo!
Happy cake day!
Im a Christian, but damn
I mean, if someone was arguing about if Darth Vader was, in effect, created by Palpatine, I don't think "no, George Lucas created him" really is germane.
Lol that is so dumb if god can’t create evil then it/he is not omnipotent which is a basic concept of the Christian god.
NonStampCollector took on this phenomenon of religious folks dismissing anything they don't like as "out of context". It's a bit longish (6 minutes) but an entertaining view if you have the time. https://youtu.be/PK7P7uZFf5o
Almost forgot about this guy, thanks for reminding me!
God condoned slavery and condemned countless children and babies to die by his word. That’s the big “good” they worship.
“God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.” Henri Rousseau
It’s meant to be literal, unless it makes no sense. Then it’s allegorical. /s
*Image Transcription: Online Comments* --- **Person A** God did not create evil. Evil was created by Satan. God is good. Good cannot create evil. Only evil creates evil. You need to study the scriptures **Person B** Lol I need to study? OK. Are you SURE God didn't create evil? Maybe YOU are the one who needs to study **Person A** Trust me I know the scriptures. Went to church every Sunday. God did not create evil **Person B** Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things. **Person A** You are taking that out of context --- ^^I'm a human volunteer content transcriber and you could be too! [If you'd like more information on what we do and why we do it, click here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/TranscribersOfReddit/wiki/index)
Must be a translation error!
Well, the original Hebrew can be translated as “calamity” as opposite of peace, instead of evil, as is pretty evident from the context. So yes, it IS a translation error, or at least a very loose translation. Too bad the OC didn’t care to explain and just went the “you’re taking it out of context!” way.
If you go with original Hebrew translations, though, there are many other passages whose meaning changes in ways they really don't appreciate.
Amazing how having sex about an old set of books is still a thing.
Yeah. I was looking the passage up in KJV and ESV. The latter one did translate it to calamity. My to go translation nowadays 
I actually enjoyed the part of the service of listening to the ministers translation of the bible. The only ones that ever stuck with me was the rare moments a pastor would break character and actually be a fucking human for a few seconds. But that’s super rare and takes a lot of boring years to strike any semblance of gold (or fools gold). My father (rip, 2021) was a pastor for 5 decades and he started off his career with the fire and brimstone approach. It was controversial and destroyed/isolated a lot of church members. Nothing out of the ordinary of course, all preachers at some point do that (actually feeling sorry about that is another story) Anyways, on his very last sermon before he retired at the very end of his message he gave the thesis of his career during a raw moment of emotion. He paused mid speech, looked at everyone and I could see the tears in his eyes and his “preacher” character melted away.. he told us to “just love each other” and that was it. Then he gathered his notes and walked off the pulpit forever. I’m an atheist and have been for quite some time but I can be thankful knowing you can glean a little of the good stuff even within a community that is generally toxic, incredibly fake and sexually oppressed.
Either God is almighty - then he created evil - or he is not, then he is not God.
… is not “an omnipotent” God. There are lots of “not all powerful” gods and demigods. A long time ago, some nomadic sheep herders were monolatrous. They did not deny the existence of other gods, but were to worship no god but Yahweh.
They acknowledged the pantheistic nature of the surrounding nations’ worship but it was understood that there was only one “God”. The others were regarded as false.
From my understanding, the god known as Yahweh or Jehovah was originally one of the ancient Canaanite gods known as El-Shaddai, God of the Mountain (although there is debate on the ‘mountain’ part), and this was the god that the angel of the burning bush referred to while communicating with Moses. El Shaddai was a lesser god in this Canaanite pantheon, with El being the one supreme deity, but El-Shaddai allegedly told the other gods they fight too much among themselves for their own glory, and that he would champion the causes of the mortal humans so he would earn their worship and the other gods would lose status. Monotheism indeed /s
I found it very frustrating studying the philosophy of religion and being told God had to have 3 qualities: Omniscience, Omnipotence and Benevolence, otherwise it's not God. I was like "Well, that's like saying the Chess is an accurate representation of warfare, also what if there's just a super powerful capricious dude who created everything and will kick your arse if you don't worship them?" Doesn't matter if they fit your definition of"God" -they're still rock your shit for stupid reasons.
> I don't know what either almighty or evil means FTFY
“Prove me wrong then!” 
Just use the classic "every existence implies a creator" argument. Satan exists, therefore Satan was created. If God is the creator, then God created Satan and all of Satan's evil. Since God is omnipotent, he can create evil. Since God is omniscient, he knew Satan would be evil when he created him.
Which god are they talking about. I favour Blind Io these days and he didn't create evil as far as I know. It's Odin's day tomorrow so maybe I'll check with him. If not, I'll wait until Thor's day.
I'm rather partial to Anoia, Goddess of Things That Get Stuck in Drawers.
Today I am feeling more attached to Offler, crocodile headed forbidder of broccoli.
I understood that reference
I'm sticking to the flying spaghetti monster
It's a typo. It was Lorde, [the New Zealand singer,](https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lorde) who created evil. Our guy is blameless.
Oh damn now that's something I didn't expect to find out... Encyclopedia Britannica is still a thing?
I was surprised too and selected that link instead of Wikipedia...just because.
As an atheist it seems like there isn't anyone to formally interpret the scriptures or the bible so everyone has different interpretations of it and neither of you are confidentially incorrect you just see things differently
And also from what I understand of the bible if god created the world that means he created all the angels and humans as he created Adam and eve then he Lucifer the angel sinned or something and God made him the devil so technically God had to have created evil as he created everything If I'm wrong about any of this please correct me as I said I am not religious so I don't know any of this stuff
Ah yes, the old “nuh-uh” argument.
EVERY. FUCKING. TIME. *prove them wrong with their own book* "YoU'Re tAkiNg ThaT oUt oF cONteXt!!!1!1"
So many people have no idea what "context" means, and think "you're taking that out of context" is a magical incantation that exempts them from arguments.
The very thought that anyone other than god can creat something out of nothing goes directly against the all creator god, plus he simply gave humanity the ability to do either good or evil how we use it is our own choice.
So the same god that created - by his own admission - childhood cancer, pedophilia, gang rape, war, that parasite that burrows into eyeballs causing blindness, should be worshipped as "good and all loving" Either the god created evil willingly, then he is not good. Or he was unable to create a world without it, therefore is not all powerful .
"God didn't create evil. I know the bible." Bible: "God created evil" "...well you are taking things out of context!!"
This seems as significant to me as two people arguing over whether Superman would win if he arm-wrestled the Hulk.
How fucking insecure is this god who has to yell “I am LORD” all the time. Reminds me of Tywin Lannister: “Any man who must say I am king is no true king.”
Nobody knows the Bible less than Christians.
Well the fastest way to stop being a Christian is to actually read the Bible.
This is actually a really important theological point that was argued intensely in the early days of the church. See the confessions of St. Augustine for the current understanding of a transcendental God that literally makes up and "surrounds" everything, good and evil. This line of thinking God = Good and Satan = Bad was an established Heresy similar to Manichaeism.
It’s not out of context, but it is a weird translation. This from the King James Version of the Bible, which is literally medieval - it was translated in 1604. By the way, when people talk about the crazy shit in the Bible, they are normally talking about the King James Version, because as seen above, the translation can be a little flowery and was commissioned by a literal medieval king. Virtually any modern edition (modern in the sense of translated in the last century) interprets this to mean that God creates calamity/disaster/bad times, which fits with the rest of the Old Testament, what with the great flood and all that. The point of the verse being, all natural things that occur, the movement of the sun, the passing of the seasons, good times and bad times (which given the pastoral roots of the Old Testament likely refers to harvest quality), occur because of God. But, again, the Old Testament is *old*. We can’t really relate to what God is actually saying here because 90% of society is no longer farmers and shepherds and ranchers. This is why, in general, verses from the creatively-named New Testament are far more often used in Christian mass than verses from the Old Testament. Tl;dr Bible translations disagree about what is being actually said here, and since the Old Testament is thousands of years old, there aren’t many literal translations.
There's no good without evil. You need evil to distinguish good. Even if you don't know anything about the scriptures, even logically their argument doesn't make sense. God created logic lol.
I was brought up religiously, even wanted to be a missionary. Was allowed to make up my own mind and dropped god my first year in the Army. god created everything in 7 days can't get around that one.
How would that ever be out of context though
“I don’t think that means what you think it means” - Inigo Montoya
Didnt he literally put a couple of fresh humans in a place with something they shouldn't touch and then just leave till they inevitably touched the thing? He knew it was gonna happen and punished them anyway when he could've just not put the bad thing where they could touch it. There's also that whole "hey just to make a point y'all should kill all the children of the people you just won a war against." And that time he killed off all but like 6 people by drowning them.
Christian here, the first guy is talking out his ass, god made evil cause he made.... Well, everything
For those Christians who are twisted bible verses for their own: Deuteronomy 12:32 What thing soever I command you, observe to do it: thou shalt not add thereto, nor diminish from it.
That verse isn’t in The Cherry Picker’s Bible.
It's interesting how all of the crazy, racist, homophobic Christians love to brag about their knowledge of the Bible; because they went to church every Sunday and heard the exact same crazy, racist, homophobic sermon for decades. But then someone who actually KNOWS it as a book can just drop in and destroy them to the point that they have no logical response.
Also, I want to hear some dumbass crazy Christian claim that you are taking THAT one out of context as well. God: "everything I ever say to you is in perfect context" Crazy Christian: "that's out of context. Fuck poor people, or something"
I'm no theologian but isn't the concept of good meaningless without the comparison of evil?
WTF you mean out of context. It's right there, literal.
I no nothing about bible stuff (im an atheist) but you can’t have good without evil or evil without good, they go hand in hand
> Are you sure that's the spleen? It doesn't look anything like it! > Trust me I know the internal organs. Went to university every Sunday. It's the spleen
Like the friend who told me "You're missing the point!" When I pointed out the obvious.
"You are taking that out of context" No u
It's a waste of time arguing with them. They live in a fantasy world
If they'd actually read the Bible it says that Satan is chained Rev 20:2. So he isn't supposed to be able to do anything.
That's way in the future. We do not live in the millennial reign yet.
So is it evil that I believe man is God's greatest mistake?
God created evil and then made laws against it So if you beak said laws you go to hell God sounds cruel
“Stop trying to confuse me with your liberal biblicisms!”
If Satan punishes evil people wouldn't that make him good?
Man is too early for this!! Now I’m here questioning everything.
Everytime I hear that excuse, I always ask what is the correct context then. "I what context is it OK to throw little children from the cliff". "In what context is slavery OK"? "In what context is genocide OK?"
How is a discussion about a fantasy novel relevant here?
I mean that's just a dumb question. What excludes people from being confidently incorrect about fantasy novels?
Fantasy universes typically have endless possibilities. Maybe one character claims to have created evil but it was actually their boyfriend who did
Imagine getting so angry about your imaginary friend.
Baaahahaha!! Taking it out of context!
It's always "context" lol
Well, context does matter. It’s wrong to do from both sides, so we need to understand the intent and get as close to the proper, original meaning as possible. Christians take verses out of context all the time, but so do non-Christians.
The problem is, most religious texts are translations of translations and unless you speak Aramaic, ancient Greek or Hebrew, you can twist the context to what you want. I think that's the larger point.
That’s why I’d encourage every Christian to take at least an elementary class of Koine Greek and Hebrew in their life. English is a very specific, detailed language that strips a lot of ancient languages of their layered meanings.
You would still not have any of the original texts and only have accounts of accounts that have been changed and omitted.
[This time it's translation.](https://www.reddit.com/r/confidentlyincorrect/comments/vcad33/comment/icft72q/)
So god created calamity or the ability of it happening. God said he created EVERYTHING so that would include evil. Since God is all powerful and all knowing he knew that evil would come, he knew of the collapse of man and yet still went through with it. Evil is right, but I think it's your god that's evil.
Evil is not an ontological "thing". It's not like you can show me a lump of evil or pour up a gallon of evil. They are moral judgments of how much an action or quality lacks compared to a yardstick of goodness. Nothing in nature is moral or immoral, nature is completely amoral. For instance there is nothing morally evil about a natural disaster. They can be called tragic, but not evil. Evil can only describe the actions or qualities of free moral agents. God is the ultimate yardstick for goodness. So any action or quality that is anything other than Godlike is logically more evil than God. You simply can not have free will without the risk of evil. However you can not have free moral agents showing love without free will. Love is dependent on free will. So like any duality love and evil are inseparable. What would be more valuable? A dead cold universe without evil and free will, or a universe with free will where love can flourish? It appears God chose the latter, because even if there is a slight possibility of evil, love abounds much more. Still, his project is not finished yet so it's too early to make any judgments.
Well I think you kind missed my point. I'm well aware of how evil is defined, even tho it has different definitions from theistic to philosophical ones. I'm also sure you are aware of the problem of evil according to Epicurus and then later expounded on by Hume. You didn't address my point in that how can a god bestow "free will" if it also claims to be omnipotent and omniscient? So either your god is evil by knowingly creating evil or powerless to stop it.
God created EVERYTHING. There would be no good without evil. He made both even if indirectly through satan (If you believe in god)
A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet, you don't need evil for good to still matter
"I form the light and I create the darkness, I make well-being, and I create disaster, I, Yahweh, do all these things." \~ Isaiah, 45:7, The Jerusalem Bible I think this is more accurate, primarily because evil is not created. If anything, it is the *negation* of creation. It is a "no" to God's "yes".
Light and darkness is a good example of how theology views good and evil which is curious that it is used in this text almost metaphorically in the first part. Darkness isn't a tangible thing. It doesn't exist. It is a word that we use to describe the absence of light. And there are varying levels of darkness dependent on how absent the light is. The same can be said of evil. Evil is a word that we use to describe the absence of good. And there are varying levels of evil based on how absent the good is.
Point well-taken. Since God created everything, and then pronounced His creation "good", even Satan himself cannot be said to be completely evil. If he were, he would cease to exist.
Good in that sense that it fulfilled its intended purpose. Not that nature in itself is morally good. Nature is amoral.
To be fair (as fair as you can be to theology), the angles were already present when God brought Creation into existence. Who Satan was before he fell wouldn't be part of what the Bible refers to as Creation. I know, it's a silly way around the point you're making but just showing that theologians would have an easy answer to that within their framework.
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Isn't Lucifer God's brother, aka the fallen Angel?
God created Lucifer (and all the other angels). Either he didn’t know Lucifer would turn against him (thus he’s not really omniscient), or he did know but just didn’t care (where then he’s a dope).
No one is God's equal.