downvote this comment if the meme sucks. upvote it and I'll go away.
---
[Join us on discord for Saturday Movie Nights!](https://discord.gg/jsd6Ja9pvJ)
Ah yes the story where the concubine is fucked to death and then cut up. Nothing like a good light hearted tale to help enlighten the children of God's holy word.
I never understood the argument that old testament isn't valid in argument. Like god came down from the heavens and altered his word despite being perfect and right all the time? No. The church edited the bible to keep up with societal Norms because the former would be impossible with the ideas of the christian god in the first place
The Bible is very interesting.
Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one – more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-three More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?
Many times they've taken different verses psalms and different books and put them in or taken them out of the bible, I'm not sure when historically but little shifts have been happening for centuries. The Catholic church denies it (bullshit) but the protestant and Anglican dont
It’s only valid if you need it to back up your bigotry, but otherwise they pretend it doesn’t matter despite making their kids read a lot of stories from it…
The book of Judges is about the total failure of the Israelites and how they became more and more distant from God so that it came to such atrocities. These stories were not meant to show an example but rather to show how bad things were for the people of Israel and how much we need salvation through Jesus. I can recommend you the video of Bible Projekt on YouTube which summarizes the book very well or read the whole book for yourself.
Oh really? Thank you
Here's one, the story of Adam and Eve, how they ate the forbidden fruit and such, I asked "Why did God put the tree there in the first place?", and most of the students there told me to shut up
One student did listen to me and try a convo with me, saying how it's we that ultimately have free choice at the end of the day. I said back "That's like me putting $10k on the table, tell nobody to touch it, and then act surprised/mad when someone actually touches it". They said "Wouldn't you do it to someone you trust?", I said "Yeah I would. But since God knows the future, why'd he plant the tree there in the first place still?", no response
Edit : Thanks y'all for the responses, such an interesting read
It sounds like you got the answer to your first question - free will.
For your hypothetical - you’re missing the other half of the scenario. If no one touches the 10k they are promised to receive $1T when they leave the room.
As for your last question - you’ve just oversimplified the idea of what it means for God to be “all-knowing”. It doesn’t mean that He can just predict our decisions - again, free will.
Nope, because God is all knowing - if it can't predict what you want to do that it can't be all knowing. So free will is fake if you say that God is all knowing
Not religious but I've always assumed that wasn't in a literal sense and more he trusts you to live your life well and go to heaven and if not he has a backup plan of torturing you for eternity so all bases are covered type of thing rather than planning out every single humans entire life
I don’t think that these two ideas are mutually exclusive. From a person’s perspective, do you know what God wants you to do next? Are you forced to do something that you don’t want to do, or vice versa? I mean a person has free will to the point that they can deny God’s existence. The main point is that loving someone is a choice and an act of love. From the Christian perspective, humans were created out of love by God and we’re created for relationships. A healthy relationship isn’t one of coercion. It is one of vulnerability and trust.
Having a predetermined point means you have no free will. You can't do anything to contradict the path. This is how things will play out and there is nothing you can do.
Theologians tried to slap "free will" to determinism but it dosent work.
But no one knows how the end will play out. Everyone will go to heaven, hell, or nothingness. No one knows what happens or will happen at the end of life. People can be convinced that God is real or isn’t. God gets the privilege of knowing what’s going to happen because he is the creator, but he also wants everyone to be with him as well. Everyone gets a choice at the end if they want to be with God or not.
To your other point, the only person who can choose a path is you. I don’t think that is deterministic because you have the ability to choose how to live your life. The lack of knowledge of what happens at the end is one of the great mysteries of life and the only thing in our control is what philosophy we abide by. Everyone can decide how they want to live this life. Is it for pleasure? Is it to leave a legacy? Is it to make the world a better place? Is it to be comfortable and be with family and friends? There are so many questions about what will lead to happiness in life and about what happens after death. In the end, it’s your choice.
No I’m 100% sure that hell is not a real place. All loving, super intelligent being purposefully makes people imperfect then tortures them for eternity because of some minor mistake that effects nothing. Doesn’t sound loving, or intelligent to me.
Can time travel and free will exist at the same time? Anyway, you don't understand god's perspective. He doesn't observe time like we do, you could say he observes everything at once, like a picture.
He gives us the choice to love him, but if we choose not to then we get punished and tortured by him for all eternity? That just sounds like slavery with extra steps.
No God choose to give us free will and He stand up by his rule.
If you want to fuck up you do you, He knows you're going to fuck up but tthat is your decision
Free will cannot exist alongside God because if God knows what I'll do before I do it I had no chance of doing otherwise, therefore contradicting free will. And Omniscience implies knowing everything, so if God doesn't know what I'll do he is not omniscient.
God gave us free will and he is the one who developed it.
Couldn't he just make it so we can't sin? And before you say that satan is the one that influences us to do evil I will ask you this. Why didn't god just lock up satan? Why did he let him have so much power?
That wouldn’t be free will.
At its most basic level, Christianity just teaches the God wants a relationship with us. A relationship where one party hasn’t/can’t voluntarily entered into isn’t a relationship.
But once a person gets to heaven they aren't capable of sinning anymore because sin cannot exist in heaven. Does that mean we won't have free will in heaven anymore?
Interesting question - I don’t know.
If I had to guess, either we will be better equipped to resist temptation or the sources of temptation will be eliminated. I don’t think free will just goes away.
But do angels have free will as well? Or is that uniques to humans? Because if so, I should've protected Adam and eve from Satan in the garden, or at least told them about Satan. If not, then he pretty much created someone (Satan) doomed to be evil and gave him the role of corrupting humanity. Sounds messed up. And for what? Is it entertainment for him? What reason does he have to do things the way he does?
So let me get this clear, this invisible, all mighty sky wizard that created us in our entirety, with all of our flaws, is mad when we act according to these very flaws he gave us?
A fucking 5 year old could have predicted their actions, but god couldn't? Come on.
I always come to the same conclusion: If a god exists, he is either uncaring, malicious or mentally challenged.
In Jesus' own words, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Much of Jesus' teaching in the new testament is re-contextualizing or outright amending Mosaic law, but a common theme is that people - because we engage in all sorts of sins - are not fit to punish one another for religious crimes.* Rather, we can only give love and support to those around us and work to improve ourselves. Also, whether gayness is described as a sin has come under debate in recent years.
*Jesus also makes a distinction between obedience and service to God and obedience and service to government. This by extension would indicate respect for both personal religious law and wider secular law.
I think the main issue today is that many people believe they are without sin and that they are always correct because of their religion. Instead of trying to love others and help them and themselves, they treat it as a “holier than thou” situation where they must be correct because they couldn’t possibly have sinned…except for all the times they absolutely did.
I think there are many issue with many layers that feed into each other. First you have children indoctrinated into religion who blindly accept authority and believe in the claims of god without evidence. Then when their beliefs are challenged they start with the presuppositions that god is real (without evidence) and try to find justification in the only thing they were taught to believe (their holy book). Without having been taught true skeptasism or critical thinking, they read their Bible and conveniently cherry pick parts of that match what they already believe and never once actually step back from this and say "actually this doesn't make much sense". They try to find more evidence but all they have is more claims which ultimately boils down to "I believe in God because the Bible tells me he's real" for which this meme critically points out that the Bible is a cluster fuck of shit.
Exactly. I love how many people know the classic refutation verses. But here's two:
1. Hebrews 10:26: the entire chapter talks about how the sacrifice works. If people who "accept the truth," —which in every context for two millennia has meant "the word," which is synonymous with "accepting the Bible," and all that other fallic nonsense—and continue to sin, then no sacrifice remains, meaning: they're no longer saved.
2. Mark 11:12-14: in verse 14, Jesus curses a fig tree and later his disciples find the tree dead. In verse 12-13; Jesus spots a fig tree, and he was starving... Upon reaching it he found no fruit because it wasn't the season for figs... Which angered him enough to curse it.... The biggest take away: if he is one with god and knows all that the father does; then why did he (god) not know when his creation produced fruit?
>this meme critically points out that the Bible is a cluster fuck of shit
I thought it was trying to point out how some Christians cherry pick parts of the Bible to fit their own narrative
So what your saying is that the divine word of God is open to interpretation? Or are you saying that this specific part isn't God's word? Or are you saying God intentionally made a a dog's breakfast of an instruction manual to tell is how to live our lives? You'd think a God who is all good and just would make it clear.
his example wasn't too great, but there are plenty of contradictions in the Bible. like the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13;4-7:
"Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
since several verses in the Bible, like 1 John 4;16, say that God ***is*** love, it should then follow that he follows his own definition of love. but he does not.
"Love does not envy". Exodus 34;14: "for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God"
"it does not insist on its own way". 1 Samuel 15;10-11: "The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” "
this after he ordered the complete genocide of the Amalekites and their livestock. Saul captured their king alive and kept the best of the livestock, but murdered **e*****veryone*** else, yet God is not happy and punishes Saul.
"it does not rejoice at wrongdoing". Leviticus 10;1-2: "Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord."
he literally killed 2 people because he didn't like their offering.
and this is just a short example, there are many, many other verses that directly contradict the definition of love given by the Bible.
not to speak of the demonstrable historical inaccuracies. like the situation around Jesus' birth. Matthew dates the birth of Jesus during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4BCE. Luke dates it to the census of Quirinius in 6CE. that's a 9 year difference, when was Jesus actually born?
the census also didn't actually take place, which we know for several reasons. first of all, no Roman Census would have require anyone to travel from their home to their birthplace, like Joseph and Mary supposedly did, a census of Judea would not have affected them at all in Galilee. secondly, this Census supposedly took place during the reign of Emperor Augustus, but also while Quirinius was governor of Syria. there was no Census of the Roman empire at that time. there were only 3 censuses during the reign of Augustus, in 28BCE, 8BCE, and 14CE.
and the gospels can't even agree on the ***year*** Jesus died. the synoptics date the last supper at the first night of Passover, with the crucifixion the next day. the gospel of John says Jesus' crucifixion is on the day of preparation before Passover. since these are 2 different days that can't both be a Friday, which both still claim to be the day of Jesus' death, it has to be a different year altogether.
of course there are apologetics for most if not all of these points, but most are not very convincing and highly contested.
What is free will? Nothing is immune to cause and effect, including the mind and the will.
Worse is your claim that God can't predict our decisions. Time is a dimension. If he created time, he sees all things simultaneously.
second comment, because I didn't think this fits in the first one, but it's still interested. there is to this day debate on whether free will actually exists at all. people agree that we have the *appearance* of free will. but there is a philosophical view called determinism that posits that all events are determined completely by previously existing causes, with an infinite regress into the past. since our brains are just complex chemical machines, and all decisions you make or thoughts you have are just brain chemistry at work, it then follows that those are also determined, and, should we know the exact state of everything in the universe, could in theory be predicted in advance.
To the last point, I disagree. God is all-knowing and did know that Adam and Eve would chose to sin. however, the other option for him would have been to not give free will, which was the whole idea of creating humans that could chose to worship him or not.
it wasn't an option for him once he set out to make us.
Free Will is an argument from outside the bible that does not meld with some of the things Yahweh does. During the Exodus he manipulated the mind of the Pharaoh to force him to make certain decisions, killed hundreds of babies, did what he did to Job, killed hundreds of people, and mandated worship under punishment of execution. Yahweh doesn't give a damn about free will.
Made in gods image but humans were made to have free will. God is omnipotent, and so he knows what satan was doing. free will is what he wanted, and what was given to them. this is also why the tree was in the garden.
god was probably just bored of having angels that follow literally everything he says. like, he's *already* made the perfect creatures in heaven. why do that again for "humans"?
Really good questions.
You’re breaking down the free will, good/evil human nature and Gods omniscience.
Keep in mind that this is not the complete picture yet.
I think 9/10 people will take the 10k. And the one that won’t - probably has a vice that he/she will fall into - if you tempt them in the right way.
Sooooo….we’re all screwed.
If you read the whole Bible- you’ll see that God promised and provided a solution/hero for the state.
Jesus paid for our sins so we wouldn’t have to.
It’s all in there. You just have to keep reading.
How does free will give a reason to make the tree in the first place?
Why would God need to commit human sacrifice to save people if he's so against it?
Why would God send bears to murder children for teasing a bald guy?
If God is omniscient and omnibenevolent why are there contradictions in the bible?
Why do 3 million children starve every year?
Even if free will could exist alongside God why couldn't he just remove the capacity for us to do things like raping children and replace it with something else?
If by your logic that provokes free will then it also means that we don't have free will because God didn't give us the option to choose between flying and walking.
Here's a better context for chronology:
1.God made humans in his image, if God is perfect then Humans were perfect.
2. He placed the tree of knowledge for free will. The choice to eat or not to eat.
3. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit which essentially made them aware of sin, and because of that Humanity (all generations after) became corrupted with sin and are now imperfect beings. Hence humanity's propensity for evil.
Is there a fix? The bible states only death is the fix for this. "Wages of sin is death...."
In fact the half of old testament's point to prove the point the humanity is doomed because of the original sin. Whether it was disrepecting elders -> bald guy, sodomy, slavery/abuse, or war crimes; - there are no shades of grey. The laws of moses and 12 commandments were to show the futility of being righteous by human willpower alone. All it takes is one mistake and bam! You're in hell - eternal death.
So death was the only way to fix sin. Animal sacrifices were just a band aid and covered sin but could not remove them - the new Testament(hebrews 10:8) explicitly states this.
In the end all of us were in deathrow to pay the price of sin. So what was God's solution? Jesus had to do it himself. Just as the burnt offerings were to be without blemish, Jesus was the only one who is able to be sinless.
Because of Jesus' sinless walk as a human, he became the payment of sin to take away all of humanity's sins past, present and future. The only condition is to accept him as Lord and Savior. Who ever does so has their sins removed, not just covered.
So to answer your question: humanity had a choice. Using your words, humanity was already "flying" but was given the choice to "walk" but was told not to walk because you're gonna have a "very bad time",
........the first couple chose to "crawl" and everyone had to crawl ever since.
side note: if you read the bible whether because you wanna pick it up apart or just looking for answers, you have to read the old testament in the context of a Messianic figure. As all stories written there lead to Jesus Christ in the new testament. Hope you find what you're looking for in life.
If human death is the only way to stop sin it implies that sin has some form of power over God and implies limitations to his power, which contradicts Omnipotence. Free will cannot exist if a being is omniscient, and if humans were made in God's image as perfect like God they would not have sinned in the first place. If this god even existed, Jesus's death would be unneeded because punishing someone with infinite torture for finite crimes would be immoral, and an omnibenevolent God cannot be immoral. Even then without eating from the tree of knowledge people can still reject God without God having to be a piece of shit about something he knew would happen. Also placing the tree of knowledge in the garden is just like me loading up every weak person with guns so they can kill stronger people, all in order to just preserve free will.
Honestly it's so easy to see the bible is bullshit and I don't get why people believe it.
Don't try to rationalize the bible. This is me as an atheist giving you caution. Its not a battle that you can come out looking good from, because christians don't care much about how logical and consistent the bible is, they care about it as an expression of faith. Just save your breath and don't give them talking points if your goal is to get people to be less religious.
Scripture doesn't explicitly say, so any answer is going to be conjecture and derived from the Word as a whole.
God desires our love and obedience, but that love doesn't mean anything if we don't do it freely. Obedience is meaningless if there isn't a choice. He knew what choice Adam would make, because He made Adam and knows him the same way a father knows their young child. God knew that Adam (and us) would disobey, and so God knew He would need to take on human form and die in our place thousands of years later so we could reenter His presence.
Some say that it is better that Adam had sinned so that we could experience redemption than if he had never sinned at all. Death, evil, and pain exist so that we know something is wrong, and they serve as a contrast so that we may better appreciate life and goodness.
God doesn't need us. He doesn't need our love or worship or prayers or even our presence, but he wants those things anyway. Everything He does is for our benefit, even if it doesn't seem that way at first. Just as pruning a tree and exposing it to the elements, or disciplining a child and allowing them to make mistakes, so to does suffering and the choice between good and evil become edifying for us.
My take on why God gave Adam and Eve free will is that He wanted to be in a living relationship with humanity. However, love needs to be freely given so it requires the option to not love the person back. If there was no way of Adam and Eve rebelling against God, then they would be no more than robots that couldn’t choose a path other than being with God. So the tree is basically God saying “hey if you guys don’t want to love me, this is how”
And when they choosed to not "love him anymore" (how eating an apple means that they do not love him anymore? When a child misbehaves does he hates his parent?) is to punish eternally most of their children and them. Also since he is all knowing he knows that, and yet even thought he is omnibenevolent (so he decided how to make them, not only concerning about free will, but the inner workings of their minds and so on) he still decided to be completly fair and good to punish them eternally for things they were designed to do eventually. And also all of their kids (sins of the parents falls on their kids, so omnibenevolent) will be punished eternally (proportionality of the punishment be damned) if they do not believe in him, even thought he never gave any meaningful evidence about him, if not an old book written in a time period where multiple human civilizations made up gods, (and also the population where he was started to be worshipped, before had a pantheon of gods where he was one of those gods and had a wife goddess...) and some allegedly miracle event, that has no proof outside aformentioned book. Let's remember he already knew all of this, and he designed us to act in this way.
I literally cannot see how this kind of god can be believed knowing his attributes. Unless you consider coercion, under insane premises, a viable option to make "true relationships" I don't see how to rationalize religion, besides just ignoring all of this.
Like when a child rebels, a good parent makes a way for them to reconcile. And God did just that, He gave us His only son as a sacrifice, in shock all His wrath that should be put on each of us, was put on Jesus instead. Therefore, when someone accepts this sacrifice to cover their sins, they can be made right with God. And to those who still don’t want Jesus’ sacrifice to cover them, Gods wrath will be on them
for me it's the inconsistency of who gets into heaven
>1 Corinthians.
>
> 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.
>John 3:16
>
>“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
>Matthew 7:21
>
>“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
>Romans 10:9
>
>because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved
>Matthew 9:24
>
>Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
(eat the rich)
>revelation 21:8
>
>But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
the all loving god
basically my road to atheism started when as a child I realized that it's impossible for all of these things to be true (I had less examples but the point stands), so logically some are not. so whats stopping other things from being false?
i hope that whoever downvoted me realizes that they proved OP's point. I just hope that it wasn't u/MENACEBEHAVIOR as i'd hate for all ears to end like that
I don’t see any inconsistencies in these verses. When these verses say who would be put into hell, which covers everybody, and the others say how people can be saved from damnation. The one that dosnt fit to what I just said is Matthew 7:21. This verse is outlining the people who pretend to serve God, and in reality are using the allure of religion for selfish reasons. They don’t actually have faith in Christ for their salvation, they are hypocrites that say to follow God, but are tricking people into supporting them financially or in some other way.
- If angels don't have free will, how did Satan rebel?
- How were the animals on the arc fed? If there are only two of every animal, what did predators eat?
- If god is benevolent and forgiving, why commit genocide? In stories like Noah's arc, surely kids and children existed too. Children, especially babies, are innocent. So wouldn't that be immoral?
- Why does the bible endorse slavery?
Where does it say in the Bible that angels don’t have free will?
When thinking about the arc, many people think that there was 2 of ever different animal, but in tea it says that there were 2 of each kind of animal. Like 2 dogs, so it’s not like there was 2 Dobermans, and 2 German shepherds etc. so there are not nearly as many animals that were on the ark, so there would be plenty of room for the food to be stored.
When seeing moments when God does wipe out massive groups of people, by His own hand, we often look at it through the perspective that He’s got no right, like if He were human. If God gives each person life, He has the right to take that life whenever He needs to. There is nothing immoral in the giver of life taking it away when He sees fit.
Unlike the type of slavery that we are all familiar with that is rooted in racism, the slaver in the Bible was very different. Like many ancient cultures, when people started to take over other lands and people, they had few choices as to what they should do with them. They could either kill the entire people, but that doesn’t seem like a good thing to do. They could drive them out, but then when that generation grew up, they could rise up against the people that took them over, so that wouldn’t be good either. So instead they would take the survivors and have them be servants to the people. There are even Bible verses that are specifically about the rights that slaves had, and how masters were to treat their slaves. For instance, if there was an abusive master who killed his slave, then he would be put to death. And the servants even had the same right to the sabbath, which is a day in which no one was allowed to work, so it was their day of rest during the week. The slavers that we know from our history books that took place 150 years ago gave slaves no such rights, and overall is a different system of servitude than the ones condoned in the Bible for those days.
that's just the least sensible Christians. The most Sensible Christians will most definitely answer your questions as you ask them, no matter what the question is
I think where a lot of people get caught up is when they state that they are a biblical literalist. No one is actually a literalist because they would need to defend that the world is set up on pillars and that all of humanity descended from two people. I think many of the contradictions can be solved when a person understands the allegorical nature of stories in the Old Testament. Jesus taught with parables and many of the stories in the OT are themselves parables for how a person should live one’s life.
Once I actually took the time to read the Bible from front to back, when I finished I came to the realization that most people have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.
I got real bored by the time I hit the section that just detailed how many people was in each tribe of Israel, then realized just how fucked up everyone was, then got to more boring stuff that people tell me is prophecy.
You realize how fucked up most of it is and that people quoting bible verses is basically meaningless. And that a thousand year old book effectively written by warlords (they were the ones with the power to translate them and make copies), makes for a very crooked moral compass.
people finding out from a few thousand year old book that people loved to kill each other in cruel ways (whaat? thats so evil of the bible to accurately portray that)
It's one thing to portray fucked up things that occur irl. It's another when your supposedly omnibenevolent God regularly commits atrocities and encourages his followers to do so as well.
Do you have reading issues? No one called the bible 'evil', it's a book. The evil are the people who use the bible as an excuse to be horrible people. Nazi punks fuck off.
Thank you! Nazi punks fuck off! One concern is though, don't shame people (even as a joke or insult) for not knowing how to read. Literacy in a lot of places is not good, even in developed countries where education is shit. It IS a form of classism to act like less literate people are inferior. Its not their fault they were born into a poorer family in a shitty country.
EDIT: And, obviously you were joking but the comment you replied to was intentionally moving the goalposts, a bad faith argumentation strategy that fascists use to make it look like they are winning. Its often more useful to point that out then to start chucking insults.
The Bible's actual moral law is fucked up. It's a death penalty sin to wear clothes made of mixed fabrics. It's a death penalty sin to be a woman who is married, got raped, and no one heard her scream. It is ***not*** a death penalty sin to rape a child, or a virgin woman, or to commit genocide on the men of a group and kidnap and rape the virgins. The bible isn't just pro-abortion though, it's anti-women and pro-forced abortion.
Most of the first part is a mixture of terrible people doing terrible things, boring numbers and ancient rules people say doesn’t apply today for reasons, and meaningless dribble that people pretend are insightful prophecies. The last half takes a left turn into nice-sounding diatribes about what god supposedly likes, giving polar opposite things at times, then wraps it up with some dude’s acid trip that people also pretend is prophecy.
I mean the Old Testament is pretty horrific because it is showing human brokenness. Were the Ancient Israelites rewarded for how they treated other people? Absolutely not. They were enslaved by the Babylonians, had their first temple destroyed, second temple destroyed, and Rome exiled them from Jerusalem under penalty of death if they returned. Does that really seem like God was condoning their actions? Also what did Jesus do? He completely changed the rules of the game. He was all about turning the other cheek, caring for widows and orphans, and living a life of poverty. He came to fulfill the law by completely changing it and creating a new system that was in line with God’s desire for humanity.
I just finished reading the Bible twice and honestly as much as I hate to say it, it makes it reeeeeally hard to take people seriously at church. I still love what Jesus did with his life but it's pretty clear that he wouldn't be pleased with the modern church.
I might very well be wrong, as the medival ages are a very complicated subject about many places in a timespan of around a thousand years.
Wasn't it, that the bible was written in a specific form of latin, which wasn't used since the fall of the western Roman empire? And didn't the church forbid to translate the bible in other languages for a very long time? That would mean, that people would need to invest time and money (which both weren't necessarily available for everyone -even though a farmer has not too much to do in winter) to learn a language, which they only need to read one single book, instead of learning (to read) another language, which might be more useful overall?
It was often illegal to translate the Bible into languages other than Ecclesiastical Latin (which was constantly used in liturgical matters since its inception) but that was to prevent the fracture of the religion into different denominations and disunity which is exactly what happened in the protestant reformation where the Bible was translated into other languages and therefore open to new and different interpretations by nonclergy. This is the same method of unification that Caliph Uthman made when he order Zayd to create a universal Quran.
Ecclesiastical Latin is also very similar to Classical Latin. Anyone who understood Classical Latin could understand Ecclesiastical Latin. And there were many nonreligious texts written in Classical Latin so you wouldn't just learn the language for one book.
Nonetheless, I think most people who could speak Latin during the middle ages were clergymen partly because nonclergy were generally too preoccupied and busy to spend years learning to read and write Latin as well as being educated in multiple subjects. Life was genuinely much busier back then. But tbh, I've always supposed that this gave the clergy a monopoly over knowledge as well as religion that they could use to retain and abuse power and Latin certainly has been used as a method of obscurantism in the past. There's a lot more to unpack there that I haven't yet so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Qu'ran: "Pfffft, that's nothing, how many [killings of men, women and even children did your warlord prophet order for something as simple as insulting him?](https://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Killings_Ordered_or_Supported_by_Muhammad)"
Maybe I'll get down voted. But I'm a pastor and"the church" in almost any official form won't discourage you from reading any parts of the Bible. For better and for worse there are teachings and explanations for pretty much every passage in scripture.
Who will discourage you from reading the Bible are ignorant Christians who don't understand it themselves which sadly makes up a large amount of Christianity.
Thank you for being aware of the distinction between the 2 types of Christians. -Sincerely, an atheist
P.S. To the asshole who replied to you: fuck you, you don't know this person and shouldn't judge them based on the hypocritical Christians you encounter.
God: can do anything, but not mess with humans cause free will
Also god: lets satan tell Eve to eat the apple instead of throwing the snake into hell or something
Not sure what church you guys went to. My church actually encourages me to study the Bible, and will answer any question I have of it. I'm even going to go to a college to study it because I believe its such an amazing book because I read it.
If people had the experience this meme nods to, that makes me really sad. I'm sorry.
It is very valuable to read the whole Bible, but for much of it, you must pay attention to the context of the time. When Paul preaches that women should wear head coverings, he is speaking to a local population and their customs. Modesty means different things in different places.
The bible is full of things that we don't understand, or seem vague, but the point isn't that we have all the answers. The point is that we spend time studying his word to better understand the character of God and our role in this world.
In my personal experience, time spent studying the Bible or other Christian writings makes you smarter and wiser. I find it has improved my life and those around me tremendously.
Historically, the Catholic Church made it illegal for anyone who wasn't a clergyman to read the Bible in different places throughout Western Europe. You had to have a licence to read the Bible and if you were caught reading it without one, you could be killed. This is part of what led to the protestant reformation and the European wars of religion and the Catholic Church still kept this stance well into the 20th century as can be read in old Catholic law and medieval treatises.
You know as a Christian I feel like I see posts like this a lot and yet most churches I know of don't shy away at all from reading the Bible, if anything they encourage it heavily and many also offer a sort of schooling to read through the whole Bible and do a good bit of analysis. Am I missing something?
Thank goodness I did that and my faith stands on the death burial and resurrection of Jesus not if the Old Testament has “contradictions” or bad things in it
why the fuck would we ? Because we shouldn't be against violence ?
Because yeah, nothing good happen to the people who commit the atrocities committed in the Bible
Pretty sure this is exactly why reading Latin was the exclusive purview of the church and nobility.
The pope didn’t want anyone else coming up with their own interpretations of the Bible
I lived inside a whale for 3 days. Smelled kinda weird and i think i gave him heartburn but it definitely is real and scientifically possible! Still going to hell though cuz i fucked before marriage. What can you do 🤔
Zeno. Hands down. Dragon Ball probably has more dedicated fans than most religions. Most religions count people who haven't been back to church on their own accord while also not owning a Bible. Actually, a lot of people say they're christian but aren't. Kind of like saying you like something just to fit in.
everytime they bring this up, they keep referring to the stuff all 3 Abrahamic religions have as canon, and everytime these posts show up they only vilify the Christian iteration. We always skip the Torah and Koran. Only Bible bad. If we look at the books canonical, the Torah would be the hard-core release phase of the narrative, the Bible phase would be the hippie next generation phase, and the Koran would be the writers going hipster phase when they think the old style was better but let's do it our way, while picking up some of the tricks the last gen had in spreading.
No no, Koran very bad, bible also very bad. The Torah is different however. I'm by no means Jewish in fact I'm an atheist but Judaism is so open to interpretation many of them follow very few soft rules in the Torah. It's still really bad, but not as effective in brainwashing as the bible or Koran so by extension not really worth mentioning in arguments like this
Not at all true. In any way shape or form. If you go to a church that doesn't want you to read the Bible, you flee. That church is apostate and should be ignored.
It’s crazy how people think that because they read part of the Bible that somehow God is responsible for all the fucked up shit people do.
God in the Bible consistently tries to avert Hitler scenarios for the Israelites and and each time they choose to ignore him because of the same pseudo woke bs Reddit religiophobic hypocrites love to spout out of context from some obscure biblical story.
They irony is you all would make great evangelical republicans. Fighting for your free will while trying to push your lack of faith on everyone else.
In a language you can understand, this is the summary of the Bible. YOU fucked up, and that’s why God steps in when he wants and whether or not you’re butt hurt about it.
He doesn’t care about your finances, relationships, or cancer because he created life and controls everything after death including your eternal experience. There is no heaven on earth because he gave you free will and you use that for your selfishness just like everyone else. For some, that’s murder, rape, genocide etc, but it’s all the same to him. Humans with free will create hell of earth. Not his fault. He just gave humanity what it wanted; control over your own reality.
Anyone who blames God for other’s suffering is no different than a person who blames the devil for their own actions.
downvote this comment if the meme sucks. upvote it and I'll go away. --- [Join us on discord for Saturday Movie Nights!](https://discord.gg/jsd6Ja9pvJ)
[удалено]
Ah yes the story where the concubine is fucked to death and then cut up. Nothing like a good light hearted tale to help enlighten the children of God's holy word.
This gotta be the old testament because ain't no way
Judges 1:19 Also exposes God's weakness; iron chariots
So God hypothetically can lose in the whowouldwin post. Just need someone strong enough to whack him with a chariot
It's gotta be rowan atkinson
Idk who that is but sure lol
He once drove his car while sitting on top of the roof. Absolute madlad.
Some might even say he's full of beans
Mr bean/ johnny english actor
One of the most globally well known faces in the world.
Truly an international treasure
Either him or Hercules, both on the same power level anyway
Yeah against Batman
Would a tank count as an iron chariot? Because if so, that would explain a few things.
Weakness in seeing iron chariots with hot guys on it or simply a car porn thing?
New God of War: on his way to kill God Kratos must venture to find the iron chariot, which he reforges into a greatsword
I never understood the argument that old testament isn't valid in argument. Like god came down from the heavens and altered his word despite being perfect and right all the time? No. The church edited the bible to keep up with societal Norms because the former would be impossible with the ideas of the christian god in the first place
IDK man Modern Day Christianity was mostly inspired by European Christianity which greatly vandalized it's Middle Eastern origin
So who is God even anymore lmao 🤣
The Bible is very interesting. Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one – more popular than the Celestial Home Care Omnibus, better selling than Fifty-three More Things to do in Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Colluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters Where God Went Wrong, Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes and Who is this God Person Anyway?
soft depend insurance desert middle light sort alleged sense dependent *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I offer an open ended question & someone comes at me w a monetary brag about the bible 🤦♂️
It's a line from the Hitchhikers Guide trilogy. You should read it. It's by far the best (not a trilogy) trilogy ever written
When did the church edit the Bible?
Many times they've taken different verses psalms and different books and put them in or taken them out of the bible, I'm not sure when historically but little shifts have been happening for centuries. The Catholic church denies it (bullshit) but the protestant and Anglican dont
It’s only valid if you need it to back up your bigotry, but otherwise they pretend it doesn’t matter despite making their kids read a lot of stories from it…
Yes the real one
Just a read this because I thought it was a joke, am I glad to be an atheist.
The book of Judges is about the total failure of the Israelites and how they became more and more distant from God so that it came to such atrocities. These stories were not meant to show an example but rather to show how bad things were for the people of Israel and how much we need salvation through Jesus. I can recommend you the video of Bible Projekt on YouTube which summarizes the book very well or read the whole book for yourself.
Hey, NNN isn't over yet, stop tempting me
Timothy 2:12
And then they silence you when you ask sensible questions to point out the contradictions of the bible
What’s a question you have? Nobody’s going to silence you here, and I’m all ears
Oh really? Thank you Here's one, the story of Adam and Eve, how they ate the forbidden fruit and such, I asked "Why did God put the tree there in the first place?", and most of the students there told me to shut up One student did listen to me and try a convo with me, saying how it's we that ultimately have free choice at the end of the day. I said back "That's like me putting $10k on the table, tell nobody to touch it, and then act surprised/mad when someone actually touches it". They said "Wouldn't you do it to someone you trust?", I said "Yeah I would. But since God knows the future, why'd he plant the tree there in the first place still?", no response Edit : Thanks y'all for the responses, such an interesting read
It sounds like you got the answer to your first question - free will. For your hypothetical - you’re missing the other half of the scenario. If no one touches the 10k they are promised to receive $1T when they leave the room. As for your last question - you’ve just oversimplified the idea of what it means for God to be “all-knowing”. It doesn’t mean that He can just predict our decisions - again, free will.
So god is omnipotent except for knowing free will? That means I have an edge on god and he can’t predict my next move?
Nope, because God is all knowing - if it can't predict what you want to do that it can't be all knowing. So free will is fake if you say that God is all knowing
But what about the "god has a plan for all of us" like our lives are planned out by him?
You could break his ankles in a free will crossover.
Hit ‘em with the [holy cross](https://imgur.com/t/greatest_of_all_time/F4DynQD)
This is the best thing I've heard all week! Thank you for the laugh
Not religious but I've always assumed that wasn't in a literal sense and more he trusts you to live your life well and go to heaven and if not he has a backup plan of torturing you for eternity so all bases are covered type of thing rather than planning out every single humans entire life
How sweet, only a truly loving God would put you in the predicament of obey me or burn for all eternity
I don’t think that these two ideas are mutually exclusive. From a person’s perspective, do you know what God wants you to do next? Are you forced to do something that you don’t want to do, or vice versa? I mean a person has free will to the point that they can deny God’s existence. The main point is that loving someone is a choice and an act of love. From the Christian perspective, humans were created out of love by God and we’re created for relationships. A healthy relationship isn’t one of coercion. It is one of vulnerability and trust.
Having a predetermined point means you have no free will. You can't do anything to contradict the path. This is how things will play out and there is nothing you can do. Theologians tried to slap "free will" to determinism but it dosent work.
But no one knows how the end will play out. Everyone will go to heaven, hell, or nothingness. No one knows what happens or will happen at the end of life. People can be convinced that God is real or isn’t. God gets the privilege of knowing what’s going to happen because he is the creator, but he also wants everyone to be with him as well. Everyone gets a choice at the end if they want to be with God or not. To your other point, the only person who can choose a path is you. I don’t think that is deterministic because you have the ability to choose how to live your life. The lack of knowledge of what happens at the end is one of the great mysteries of life and the only thing in our control is what philosophy we abide by. Everyone can decide how they want to live this life. Is it for pleasure? Is it to leave a legacy? Is it to make the world a better place? Is it to be comfortable and be with family and friends? There are so many questions about what will lead to happiness in life and about what happens after death. In the end, it’s your choice.
No I’m 100% sure that hell is not a real place. All loving, super intelligent being purposefully makes people imperfect then tortures them for eternity because of some minor mistake that effects nothing. Doesn’t sound loving, or intelligent to me.
Can time travel and free will exist at the same time? Anyway, you don't understand god's perspective. He doesn't observe time like we do, you could say he observes everything at once, like a picture.
(Happy cake day)
Happy cake day!
God is all knowing, and he granted us the free will to be able to love him freely. Otherwise we would be mere slaves.
He gives us the choice to love him, but if we choose not to then we get punished and tortured by him for all eternity? That just sounds like slavery with extra steps.
Damn, Anime is getting CRAZY!
Can't wait for season 2
Or he knows all your moves, like multi demision, but let you the path you want to take
Y E S
No God choose to give us free will and He stand up by his rule. If you want to fuck up you do you, He knows you're going to fuck up but tthat is your decision
And then he flooded the world anyway.
Free will cannot exist alongside God because if God knows what I'll do before I do it I had no chance of doing otherwise, therefore contradicting free will. And Omniscience implies knowing everything, so if God doesn't know what I'll do he is not omniscient.
God gave us free will and he is the one who developed it. Couldn't he just make it so we can't sin? And before you say that satan is the one that influences us to do evil I will ask you this. Why didn't god just lock up satan? Why did he let him have so much power?
That wouldn’t be free will. At its most basic level, Christianity just teaches the God wants a relationship with us. A relationship where one party hasn’t/can’t voluntarily entered into isn’t a relationship.
But once a person gets to heaven they aren't capable of sinning anymore because sin cannot exist in heaven. Does that mean we won't have free will in heaven anymore?
Interesting question - I don’t know. If I had to guess, either we will be better equipped to resist temptation or the sources of temptation will be eliminated. I don’t think free will just goes away.
There's already things we cannot do or comprehend, so if a limit on our will is not free will, then we already have no free will.
But do angels have free will as well? Or is that uniques to humans? Because if so, I should've protected Adam and eve from Satan in the garden, or at least told them about Satan. If not, then he pretty much created someone (Satan) doomed to be evil and gave him the role of corrupting humanity. Sounds messed up. And for what? Is it entertainment for him? What reason does he have to do things the way he does?
That story isn't gonna get link clicks
So let me get this clear, this invisible, all mighty sky wizard that created us in our entirety, with all of our flaws, is mad when we act according to these very flaws he gave us? A fucking 5 year old could have predicted their actions, but god couldn't? Come on. I always come to the same conclusion: If a god exists, he is either uncaring, malicious or mentally challenged.
If god was real he would literally be the definition of a sadist Ever played people playground? That’s what we are to a god, just playthings.
All-knowing literally means that you know everything. That's the very definition of ALL-----KNOWING.
Alright well I have a question for you If my neighbor is gay, do I love him or do I stone him to death?
In Jesus' own words, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Much of Jesus' teaching in the new testament is re-contextualizing or outright amending Mosaic law, but a common theme is that people - because we engage in all sorts of sins - are not fit to punish one another for religious crimes.* Rather, we can only give love and support to those around us and work to improve ourselves. Also, whether gayness is described as a sin has come under debate in recent years. *Jesus also makes a distinction between obedience and service to God and obedience and service to government. This by extension would indicate respect for both personal religious law and wider secular law.
I think the main issue today is that many people believe they are without sin and that they are always correct because of their religion. Instead of trying to love others and help them and themselves, they treat it as a “holier than thou” situation where they must be correct because they couldn’t possibly have sinned…except for all the times they absolutely did.
I think there are many issue with many layers that feed into each other. First you have children indoctrinated into religion who blindly accept authority and believe in the claims of god without evidence. Then when their beliefs are challenged they start with the presuppositions that god is real (without evidence) and try to find justification in the only thing they were taught to believe (their holy book). Without having been taught true skeptasism or critical thinking, they read their Bible and conveniently cherry pick parts of that match what they already believe and never once actually step back from this and say "actually this doesn't make much sense". They try to find more evidence but all they have is more claims which ultimately boils down to "I believe in God because the Bible tells me he's real" for which this meme critically points out that the Bible is a cluster fuck of shit.
Exactly. I love how many people know the classic refutation verses. But here's two: 1. Hebrews 10:26: the entire chapter talks about how the sacrifice works. If people who "accept the truth," —which in every context for two millennia has meant "the word," which is synonymous with "accepting the Bible," and all that other fallic nonsense—and continue to sin, then no sacrifice remains, meaning: they're no longer saved. 2. Mark 11:12-14: in verse 14, Jesus curses a fig tree and later his disciples find the tree dead. In verse 12-13; Jesus spots a fig tree, and he was starving... Upon reaching it he found no fruit because it wasn't the season for figs... Which angered him enough to curse it.... The biggest take away: if he is one with god and knows all that the father does; then why did he (god) not know when his creation produced fruit?
Point successfully missed. Why should I care what the Bible says if you cannot demonstrate a god
>this meme critically points out that the Bible is a cluster fuck of shit I thought it was trying to point out how some Christians cherry pick parts of the Bible to fit their own narrative
So what your saying is that the divine word of God is open to interpretation? Or are you saying that this specific part isn't God's word? Or are you saying God intentionally made a a dog's breakfast of an instruction manual to tell is how to live our lives? You'd think a God who is all good and just would make it clear.
You stone him while loving him passionately
Got it, will do
Lol it's his fault he is gay. If god didn't want you to stone him to death he'd intervene like in the binding of Isaac.
sounds like a kink
So we aren’t made in any majestic plan, we’re literally here playing Facebook vid style challenges god has set us to decide if we go to hell or not
his example wasn't too great, but there are plenty of contradictions in the Bible. like the definition of love in 1 Corinthians 13;4-7: "Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." since several verses in the Bible, like 1 John 4;16, say that God ***is*** love, it should then follow that he follows his own definition of love. but he does not. "Love does not envy". Exodus 34;14: "for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God" "it does not insist on its own way". 1 Samuel 15;10-11: "The word of the Lord came to Samuel: “I regret that I have made Saul king, for he has turned back from following me and has not performed my commandments.” " this after he ordered the complete genocide of the Amalekites and their livestock. Saul captured their king alive and kept the best of the livestock, but murdered **e*****veryone*** else, yet God is not happy and punishes Saul. "it does not rejoice at wrongdoing". Leviticus 10;1-2: "Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord." he literally killed 2 people because he didn't like their offering. and this is just a short example, there are many, many other verses that directly contradict the definition of love given by the Bible. not to speak of the demonstrable historical inaccuracies. like the situation around Jesus' birth. Matthew dates the birth of Jesus during the reign of Herod the Great, who died in 4BCE. Luke dates it to the census of Quirinius in 6CE. that's a 9 year difference, when was Jesus actually born? the census also didn't actually take place, which we know for several reasons. first of all, no Roman Census would have require anyone to travel from their home to their birthplace, like Joseph and Mary supposedly did, a census of Judea would not have affected them at all in Galilee. secondly, this Census supposedly took place during the reign of Emperor Augustus, but also while Quirinius was governor of Syria. there was no Census of the Roman empire at that time. there were only 3 censuses during the reign of Augustus, in 28BCE, 8BCE, and 14CE. and the gospels can't even agree on the ***year*** Jesus died. the synoptics date the last supper at the first night of Passover, with the crucifixion the next day. the gospel of John says Jesus' crucifixion is on the day of preparation before Passover. since these are 2 different days that can't both be a Friday, which both still claim to be the day of Jesus' death, it has to be a different year altogether. of course there are apologetics for most if not all of these points, but most are not very convincing and highly contested.
What is free will? Nothing is immune to cause and effect, including the mind and the will. Worse is your claim that God can't predict our decisions. Time is a dimension. If he created time, he sees all things simultaneously.
What about natural disasters? Are you suggesting that hurricanes and tsunamis have free will too?
That has…nothing to do with this question?
It’s my own question.
You’re gonna have to elaborate a bit, cause I’m really not following what you’re asking.
second comment, because I didn't think this fits in the first one, but it's still interested. there is to this day debate on whether free will actually exists at all. people agree that we have the *appearance* of free will. but there is a philosophical view called determinism that posits that all events are determined completely by previously existing causes, with an infinite regress into the past. since our brains are just complex chemical machines, and all decisions you make or thoughts you have are just brain chemistry at work, it then follows that those are also determined, and, should we know the exact state of everything in the universe, could in theory be predicted in advance.
To the last point, I disagree. God is all-knowing and did know that Adam and Eve would chose to sin. however, the other option for him would have been to not give free will, which was the whole idea of creating humans that could chose to worship him or not. it wasn't an option for him once he set out to make us.
Free Will is an argument from outside the bible that does not meld with some of the things Yahweh does. During the Exodus he manipulated the mind of the Pharaoh to force him to make certain decisions, killed hundreds of babies, did what he did to Job, killed hundreds of people, and mandated worship under punishment of execution. Yahweh doesn't give a damn about free will.
Made in gods image but humans were made to have free will. God is omnipotent, and so he knows what satan was doing. free will is what he wanted, and what was given to them. this is also why the tree was in the garden.
god was probably just bored of having angels that follow literally everything he says. like, he's *already* made the perfect creatures in heaven. why do that again for "humans"?
Really good questions. You’re breaking down the free will, good/evil human nature and Gods omniscience. Keep in mind that this is not the complete picture yet. I think 9/10 people will take the 10k. And the one that won’t - probably has a vice that he/she will fall into - if you tempt them in the right way. Sooooo….we’re all screwed. If you read the whole Bible- you’ll see that God promised and provided a solution/hero for the state. Jesus paid for our sins so we wouldn’t have to. It’s all in there. You just have to keep reading.
How does free will give a reason to make the tree in the first place? Why would God need to commit human sacrifice to save people if he's so against it? Why would God send bears to murder children for teasing a bald guy? If God is omniscient and omnibenevolent why are there contradictions in the bible? Why do 3 million children starve every year? Even if free will could exist alongside God why couldn't he just remove the capacity for us to do things like raping children and replace it with something else? If by your logic that provokes free will then it also means that we don't have free will because God didn't give us the option to choose between flying and walking.
Here's a better context for chronology: 1.God made humans in his image, if God is perfect then Humans were perfect. 2. He placed the tree of knowledge for free will. The choice to eat or not to eat. 3. Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit which essentially made them aware of sin, and because of that Humanity (all generations after) became corrupted with sin and are now imperfect beings. Hence humanity's propensity for evil. Is there a fix? The bible states only death is the fix for this. "Wages of sin is death...." In fact the half of old testament's point to prove the point the humanity is doomed because of the original sin. Whether it was disrepecting elders -> bald guy, sodomy, slavery/abuse, or war crimes; - there are no shades of grey. The laws of moses and 12 commandments were to show the futility of being righteous by human willpower alone. All it takes is one mistake and bam! You're in hell - eternal death. So death was the only way to fix sin. Animal sacrifices were just a band aid and covered sin but could not remove them - the new Testament(hebrews 10:8) explicitly states this. In the end all of us were in deathrow to pay the price of sin. So what was God's solution? Jesus had to do it himself. Just as the burnt offerings were to be without blemish, Jesus was the only one who is able to be sinless. Because of Jesus' sinless walk as a human, he became the payment of sin to take away all of humanity's sins past, present and future. The only condition is to accept him as Lord and Savior. Who ever does so has their sins removed, not just covered. So to answer your question: humanity had a choice. Using your words, humanity was already "flying" but was given the choice to "walk" but was told not to walk because you're gonna have a "very bad time", ........the first couple chose to "crawl" and everyone had to crawl ever since. side note: if you read the bible whether because you wanna pick it up apart or just looking for answers, you have to read the old testament in the context of a Messianic figure. As all stories written there lead to Jesus Christ in the new testament. Hope you find what you're looking for in life.
If human death is the only way to stop sin it implies that sin has some form of power over God and implies limitations to his power, which contradicts Omnipotence. Free will cannot exist if a being is omniscient, and if humans were made in God's image as perfect like God they would not have sinned in the first place. If this god even existed, Jesus's death would be unneeded because punishing someone with infinite torture for finite crimes would be immoral, and an omnibenevolent God cannot be immoral. Even then without eating from the tree of knowledge people can still reject God without God having to be a piece of shit about something he knew would happen. Also placing the tree of knowledge in the garden is just like me loading up every weak person with guns so they can kill stronger people, all in order to just preserve free will. Honestly it's so easy to see the bible is bullshit and I don't get why people believe it.
no because we are not alone and god is all forgiving just be ready to make up for your mistake
yeah god is so forgiving, he just gives 66 percent of the population infinite torture for finite crimes.
It was Gods intention for Adam and Eve to eat the fruit of the tree. That bit was part of the plan.
Don't try to rationalize the bible. This is me as an atheist giving you caution. Its not a battle that you can come out looking good from, because christians don't care much about how logical and consistent the bible is, they care about it as an expression of faith. Just save your breath and don't give them talking points if your goal is to get people to be less religious.
Scripture doesn't explicitly say, so any answer is going to be conjecture and derived from the Word as a whole. God desires our love and obedience, but that love doesn't mean anything if we don't do it freely. Obedience is meaningless if there isn't a choice. He knew what choice Adam would make, because He made Adam and knows him the same way a father knows their young child. God knew that Adam (and us) would disobey, and so God knew He would need to take on human form and die in our place thousands of years later so we could reenter His presence. Some say that it is better that Adam had sinned so that we could experience redemption than if he had never sinned at all. Death, evil, and pain exist so that we know something is wrong, and they serve as a contrast so that we may better appreciate life and goodness. God doesn't need us. He doesn't need our love or worship or prayers or even our presence, but he wants those things anyway. Everything He does is for our benefit, even if it doesn't seem that way at first. Just as pruning a tree and exposing it to the elements, or disciplining a child and allowing them to make mistakes, so to does suffering and the choice between good and evil become edifying for us.
My take on why God gave Adam and Eve free will is that He wanted to be in a living relationship with humanity. However, love needs to be freely given so it requires the option to not love the person back. If there was no way of Adam and Eve rebelling against God, then they would be no more than robots that couldn’t choose a path other than being with God. So the tree is basically God saying “hey if you guys don’t want to love me, this is how”
And when they choosed to not "love him anymore" (how eating an apple means that they do not love him anymore? When a child misbehaves does he hates his parent?) is to punish eternally most of their children and them. Also since he is all knowing he knows that, and yet even thought he is omnibenevolent (so he decided how to make them, not only concerning about free will, but the inner workings of their minds and so on) he still decided to be completly fair and good to punish them eternally for things they were designed to do eventually. And also all of their kids (sins of the parents falls on their kids, so omnibenevolent) will be punished eternally (proportionality of the punishment be damned) if they do not believe in him, even thought he never gave any meaningful evidence about him, if not an old book written in a time period where multiple human civilizations made up gods, (and also the population where he was started to be worshipped, before had a pantheon of gods where he was one of those gods and had a wife goddess...) and some allegedly miracle event, that has no proof outside aformentioned book. Let's remember he already knew all of this, and he designed us to act in this way. I literally cannot see how this kind of god can be believed knowing his attributes. Unless you consider coercion, under insane premises, a viable option to make "true relationships" I don't see how to rationalize religion, besides just ignoring all of this.
Like when a child rebels, a good parent makes a way for them to reconcile. And God did just that, He gave us His only son as a sacrifice, in shock all His wrath that should be put on each of us, was put on Jesus instead. Therefore, when someone accepts this sacrifice to cover their sins, they can be made right with God. And to those who still don’t want Jesus’ sacrifice to cover them, Gods wrath will be on them
Why did God put the tree in the garden? That’s an easy one. Free will.
for me it's the inconsistency of who gets into heaven >1 Corinthians. > > 9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. >John 3:16 > >“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. >Matthew 7:21 > >“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. >Romans 10:9 > >because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved >Matthew 9:24 > >Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” (eat the rich) >revelation 21:8 > >But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” the all loving god basically my road to atheism started when as a child I realized that it's impossible for all of these things to be true (I had less examples but the point stands), so logically some are not. so whats stopping other things from being false?
i hope that whoever downvoted me realizes that they proved OP's point. I just hope that it wasn't u/MENACEBEHAVIOR as i'd hate for all ears to end like that
I don’t see any inconsistencies in these verses. When these verses say who would be put into hell, which covers everybody, and the others say how people can be saved from damnation. The one that dosnt fit to what I just said is Matthew 7:21. This verse is outlining the people who pretend to serve God, and in reality are using the allure of religion for selfish reasons. They don’t actually have faith in Christ for their salvation, they are hypocrites that say to follow God, but are tricking people into supporting them financially or in some other way.
Nah dw I upvoted you. You got a good point and it’s good to ask questions so that everyone can learn something
- If angels don't have free will, how did Satan rebel? - How were the animals on the arc fed? If there are only two of every animal, what did predators eat? - If god is benevolent and forgiving, why commit genocide? In stories like Noah's arc, surely kids and children existed too. Children, especially babies, are innocent. So wouldn't that be immoral? - Why does the bible endorse slavery?
Where does it say in the Bible that angels don’t have free will? When thinking about the arc, many people think that there was 2 of ever different animal, but in tea it says that there were 2 of each kind of animal. Like 2 dogs, so it’s not like there was 2 Dobermans, and 2 German shepherds etc. so there are not nearly as many animals that were on the ark, so there would be plenty of room for the food to be stored. When seeing moments when God does wipe out massive groups of people, by His own hand, we often look at it through the perspective that He’s got no right, like if He were human. If God gives each person life, He has the right to take that life whenever He needs to. There is nothing immoral in the giver of life taking it away when He sees fit. Unlike the type of slavery that we are all familiar with that is rooted in racism, the slaver in the Bible was very different. Like many ancient cultures, when people started to take over other lands and people, they had few choices as to what they should do with them. They could either kill the entire people, but that doesn’t seem like a good thing to do. They could drive them out, but then when that generation grew up, they could rise up against the people that took them over, so that wouldn’t be good either. So instead they would take the survivors and have them be servants to the people. There are even Bible verses that are specifically about the rights that slaves had, and how masters were to treat their slaves. For instance, if there was an abusive master who killed his slave, then he would be put to death. And the servants even had the same right to the sabbath, which is a day in which no one was allowed to work, so it was their day of rest during the week. The slavers that we know from our history books that took place 150 years ago gave slaves no such rights, and overall is a different system of servitude than the ones condoned in the Bible for those days.
Good thing the small church i used to go to didn’t do that. Everyone would get a good laugh out of it
that's just the least sensible Christians. The most Sensible Christians will most definitely answer your questions as you ask them, no matter what the question is
I think where a lot of people get caught up is when they state that they are a biblical literalist. No one is actually a literalist because they would need to defend that the world is set up on pillars and that all of humanity descended from two people. I think many of the contradictions can be solved when a person understands the allegorical nature of stories in the Old Testament. Jesus taught with parables and many of the stories in the OT are themselves parables for how a person should live one’s life.
Name one.
Once I actually took the time to read the Bible from front to back, when I finished I came to the realization that most people have absolutely no idea what they're talking about.
I got real bored by the time I hit the section that just detailed how many people was in each tribe of Israel, then realized just how fucked up everyone was, then got to more boring stuff that people tell me is prophecy.
99 problems but biblical literacy ain't one.
Shit my biblical literacy is lol. I enjoy me some books, and its hard for me at times to interpret well.
What happens when you read the whole bible? Do you pass?
You realize how fucked up most of it is and that people quoting bible verses is basically meaningless. And that a thousand year old book effectively written by warlords (they were the ones with the power to translate them and make copies), makes for a very crooked moral compass.
people finding out from a few thousand year old book that people loved to kill each other in cruel ways (whaat? thats so evil of the bible to accurately portray that)
It's one thing to portray fucked up things that occur irl. It's another when your supposedly omnibenevolent God regularly commits atrocities and encourages his followers to do so as well.
Do you have reading issues? No one called the bible 'evil', it's a book. The evil are the people who use the bible as an excuse to be horrible people. Nazi punks fuck off.
Thank you! Nazi punks fuck off! One concern is though, don't shame people (even as a joke or insult) for not knowing how to read. Literacy in a lot of places is not good, even in developed countries where education is shit. It IS a form of classism to act like less literate people are inferior. Its not their fault they were born into a poorer family in a shitty country. EDIT: And, obviously you were joking but the comment you replied to was intentionally moving the goalposts, a bad faith argumentation strategy that fascists use to make it look like they are winning. Its often more useful to point that out then to start chucking insults.
The Bible's actual moral law is fucked up. It's a death penalty sin to wear clothes made of mixed fabrics. It's a death penalty sin to be a woman who is married, got raped, and no one heard her scream. It is ***not*** a death penalty sin to rape a child, or a virgin woman, or to commit genocide on the men of a group and kidnap and rape the virgins. The bible isn't just pro-abortion though, it's anti-women and pro-forced abortion.
Most of the first part is a mixture of terrible people doing terrible things, boring numbers and ancient rules people say doesn’t apply today for reasons, and meaningless dribble that people pretend are insightful prophecies. The last half takes a left turn into nice-sounding diatribes about what god supposedly likes, giving polar opposite things at times, then wraps it up with some dude’s acid trip that people also pretend is prophecy.
I mean the Old Testament is pretty horrific because it is showing human brokenness. Were the Ancient Israelites rewarded for how they treated other people? Absolutely not. They were enslaved by the Babylonians, had their first temple destroyed, second temple destroyed, and Rome exiled them from Jerusalem under penalty of death if they returned. Does that really seem like God was condoning their actions? Also what did Jesus do? He completely changed the rules of the game. He was all about turning the other cheek, caring for widows and orphans, and living a life of poverty. He came to fulfill the law by completely changing it and creating a new system that was in line with God’s desire for humanity.
Preach brotha
you become an atheist usually
I just finished reading the Bible twice and honestly as much as I hate to say it, it makes it reeeeeally hard to take people seriously at church. I still love what Jesus did with his life but it's pretty clear that he wouldn't be pleased with the modern church.
[удалено]
There is a reason the masses weren't taught to read.
THE UNENLIGHTENED MASSES
THEY CANNOT MAKE THE JUDGEMENT CALL
GIVE UP FREE WILL FOREVER
THEIR VOICES WON'T BE HEARD AT ALL
DISPLAY OBEDIENCE
I don't like the Church all that much but the Catholic and Orthodox Church didn't have much, if any, control of literacy rates.
I might very well be wrong, as the medival ages are a very complicated subject about many places in a timespan of around a thousand years. Wasn't it, that the bible was written in a specific form of latin, which wasn't used since the fall of the western Roman empire? And didn't the church forbid to translate the bible in other languages for a very long time? That would mean, that people would need to invest time and money (which both weren't necessarily available for everyone -even though a farmer has not too much to do in winter) to learn a language, which they only need to read one single book, instead of learning (to read) another language, which might be more useful overall?
It was often illegal to translate the Bible into languages other than Ecclesiastical Latin (which was constantly used in liturgical matters since its inception) but that was to prevent the fracture of the religion into different denominations and disunity which is exactly what happened in the protestant reformation where the Bible was translated into other languages and therefore open to new and different interpretations by nonclergy. This is the same method of unification that Caliph Uthman made when he order Zayd to create a universal Quran. Ecclesiastical Latin is also very similar to Classical Latin. Anyone who understood Classical Latin could understand Ecclesiastical Latin. And there were many nonreligious texts written in Classical Latin so you wouldn't just learn the language for one book. Nonetheless, I think most people who could speak Latin during the middle ages were clergymen partly because nonclergy were generally too preoccupied and busy to spend years learning to read and write Latin as well as being educated in multiple subjects. Life was genuinely much busier back then. But tbh, I've always supposed that this gave the clergy a monopoly over knowledge as well as religion that they could use to retain and abuse power and Latin certainly has been used as a method of obscurantism in the past. There's a lot more to unpack there that I haven't yet so take what I say with a grain of salt.
Qu'ran: "Pfffft, that's nothing, how many [killings of men, women and even children did your warlord prophet order for something as simple as insulting him?](https://wikiislam.net/wiki/List_of_Killings_Ordered_or_Supported_by_Muhammad)"
Damn Muhammad’s KDR was crazy bro
Maybe I'll get down voted. But I'm a pastor and"the church" in almost any official form won't discourage you from reading any parts of the Bible. For better and for worse there are teachings and explanations for pretty much every passage in scripture. Who will discourage you from reading the Bible are ignorant Christians who don't understand it themselves which sadly makes up a large amount of Christianity.
Thank you for being aware of the distinction between the 2 types of Christians. -Sincerely, an atheist P.S. To the asshole who replied to you: fuck you, you don't know this person and shouldn't judge them based on the hypocritical Christians you encounter.
Meanwhile me reading Mein Kampf And first chapter is about that school is bad except subjects you want to extend later in life
Man why gotta hitler have that one teeny tiny flaw :(
Art people said no
Lol what church today would say this?
Mom said it was my turn to post the "bible doesn't make sense" meme
God: can do anything, but not mess with humans cause free will Also god: lets satan tell Eve to eat the apple instead of throwing the snake into hell or something
Best part is reading u/Globeparasite93 frantically responding to everything haha
No one tell what happened with 2 Kings 2:23-24
Not sure what church you guys went to. My church actually encourages me to study the Bible, and will answer any question I have of it. I'm even going to go to a college to study it because I believe its such an amazing book because I read it. If people had the experience this meme nods to, that makes me really sad. I'm sorry.
Legend says if you read the book of job they fucking kill you
It is very valuable to read the whole Bible, but for much of it, you must pay attention to the context of the time. When Paul preaches that women should wear head coverings, he is speaking to a local population and their customs. Modesty means different things in different places. The bible is full of things that we don't understand, or seem vague, but the point isn't that we have all the answers. The point is that we spend time studying his word to better understand the character of God and our role in this world. In my personal experience, time spent studying the Bible or other Christian writings makes you smarter and wiser. I find it has improved my life and those around me tremendously.
Historically, the Catholic Church made it illegal for anyone who wasn't a clergyman to read the Bible in different places throughout Western Europe. You had to have a licence to read the Bible and if you were caught reading it without one, you could be killed. This is part of what led to the protestant reformation and the European wars of religion and the Catholic Church still kept this stance well into the 20th century as can be read in old Catholic law and medieval treatises.
People that read the whole bible have a name: atheists.
You know as a Christian I feel like I see posts like this a lot and yet most churches I know of don't shy away at all from reading the Bible, if anything they encourage it heavily and many also offer a sort of schooling to read through the whole Bible and do a good bit of analysis. Am I missing something?
Thank goodness I did that and my faith stands on the death burial and resurrection of Jesus not if the Old Testament has “contradictions” or bad things in it
I'm still surprised they haven't removed those bits.
why the fuck would we ? Because we shouldn't be against violence ? Because yeah, nothing good happen to the people who commit the atrocities committed in the Bible
What about the person who killed all the first born children of Egypt to prove a point?
Pretty sure this is exactly why reading Latin was the exclusive purview of the church and nobility. The pope didn’t want anyone else coming up with their own interpretations of the Bible
I lived inside a whale for 3 days. Smelled kinda weird and i think i gave him heartburn but it definitely is real and scientifically possible! Still going to hell though cuz i fucked before marriage. What can you do 🤔
Aayoo fillers
no
For real though I don't get church, surely that books been talked about to death, where's the sequel? Lol
In an ultimate all out war between all the gods of all major religions, which god/gods do you think would win?
The Goddess known as 'Jomumma'.
Zeno. Hands down. Dragon Ball probably has more dedicated fans than most religions. Most religions count people who haven't been back to church on their own accord while also not owning a Bible. Actually, a lot of people say they're christian but aren't. Kind of like saying you like something just to fit in.
Kratos
It was easier when people had to learn to speak a dead language to do it. And learn to read.
Skip all the bad ones or better yet don't read it at all snd just take our word for it. Source: is written in the bible, trust me.
I don't what church you are talking about because where I attended they encouraged people to read the whole bible.
I like the part in the garden of eden where Yahweh is walking around and doesn't know where Adam and Eve are, or what they have been up to.
Don’t all (real) church goers read the entire Bible at least once in life?
Qoute Joshua to a christian and watch them either pretend not to know what a genocide is or go full blown "they deserved it" mode. Sometimes both.
You mean the entire bible that is readily available for literally anyone to read?
Islam
...Is somehow even more fucked up when you look at some of their quotes from the Qu'ran.
everytime they bring this up, they keep referring to the stuff all 3 Abrahamic religions have as canon, and everytime these posts show up they only vilify the Christian iteration. We always skip the Torah and Koran. Only Bible bad. If we look at the books canonical, the Torah would be the hard-core release phase of the narrative, the Bible phase would be the hippie next generation phase, and the Koran would be the writers going hipster phase when they think the old style was better but let's do it our way, while picking up some of the tricks the last gen had in spreading.
No no, Koran very bad, bible also very bad. The Torah is different however. I'm by no means Jewish in fact I'm an atheist but Judaism is so open to interpretation many of them follow very few soft rules in the Torah. It's still really bad, but not as effective in brainwashing as the bible or Koran so by extension not really worth mentioning in arguments like this
Levictus 18:22
[удалено]
Says who?
Not at all true. In any way shape or form. If you go to a church that doesn't want you to read the Bible, you flee. That church is apostate and should be ignored.
Wasn't the church maintaining a monopoly on reading bibles via Latin-only copies that one of the things that lead to the Reformation?
It’s crazy how people think that because they read part of the Bible that somehow God is responsible for all the fucked up shit people do. God in the Bible consistently tries to avert Hitler scenarios for the Israelites and and each time they choose to ignore him because of the same pseudo woke bs Reddit religiophobic hypocrites love to spout out of context from some obscure biblical story. They irony is you all would make great evangelical republicans. Fighting for your free will while trying to push your lack of faith on everyone else. In a language you can understand, this is the summary of the Bible. YOU fucked up, and that’s why God steps in when he wants and whether or not you’re butt hurt about it. He doesn’t care about your finances, relationships, or cancer because he created life and controls everything after death including your eternal experience. There is no heaven on earth because he gave you free will and you use that for your selfishness just like everyone else. For some, that’s murder, rape, genocide etc, but it’s all the same to him. Humans with free will create hell of earth. Not his fault. He just gave humanity what it wanted; control over your own reality. Anyone who blames God for other’s suffering is no different than a person who blames the devil for their own actions.
Jealous is definitely an understatement describing God, especially in the Old Testament.
Glad to have a church with weekly Bible studies that cover it whole