The Jesus Christ of the New Testament was a dark skinned communist who belabored loving and helping immigrants to his followers, whipped the greedy, and informed them they would go to hell if they didn’t stop being selfish fucks.
If the Jesus of the new Testament both existed and returned, the “Christian” right would be first in line to kill him again so they could get back to worshipping this guy:
I think it would be hilarious if Christianity turned out to be true and the rapture really happens, but they’re the ones all left behind and even atheists get to go up. They’re minds would explode LMFAO
The Jesus of the Bible also believed the Kingdom of God would be a literal Kingdom that would arise within the lifetimes of his followers.
That is what happens when you actually read the Bible literally, instead of metaphorically.
Also, I forget which Gospel it is, but one of them features a zombie apocalypse of the dead rising out of their graves when Jesus dies on the cross.
Also, more to your original theme: Jesus was fucking homeless for his adult ministry.
He and his followers just stayed at random people’s places who were sympathetic to his movement.
He did not have a steady job, he was not a productive member of society and he certainly did not have a nuclear family.
If Jesus was here today, he’d be shunned, starved, imprisoned, likely become a drug addict and die on the streets, and this would be by design and with approval of many of his most outspoken followers today
I’m more than a little convinced that if Jesus walks the earth today, he is really into EDM and you’re only really coming across him on the festival circuit.
but one of them features a zombie apocalypse of the dead rising out of their graves when Jesus dies on the cross.
Matthew. I am not sure exactly what the author was thinking at the time. It does align with what a minority of Jews believed would happen (Ezekiel hints at it) as well as Paul’s letters so I want to say he invented it to align but it almost feels like he got it from the oral tradition.
He did not have a steady job, he was not a productive member of society and he certainly did not have a nuclear family.
I almost feel bad for mentioning this because it is minority view but I think Paul had a conception of him as a Nazar from birth, like Samson. As you said he is living this sexless, unproductive life, wandering around, barefoot, telling people that the Lord will provide. It could also explain the incident at the temple. From what we can tell Paul knew something hostile happened there but not what exactly. Nazarsbl were required to give an offering to end their lifestyle and at the same time the Temple almost always turned them away as insincere.
So Paul thinks the orders of events are something like this:
Jesus is a born Nazar He goes around until he feels his tasks are completed. Shows up to the temple with his followers. Temple says no way, get out. His followers convince the Temple. They let him into the first gate. Satan sees defeat so gets involved and starts a brawl. Infests Pilot and Pharisees. He gets crucified. Satan thinks he has won. Turns out God disagrees and accepts the perfect sacrifice. And since the ending the Nazar oath was a forgiveness offering it all works out nicely, Jesus gets everyone forgiven.
As a counter point Jesus would have also said “What on earth is a ‘government program’?”
They had them at the time.
If the real Jesus stood for all the same values that you do, why are you an Atheist?
Assuming all the stories are true and accurate, Jesus from the Bible was a pretty chill dude and good human. His dad, on the other hand, makes Hitler look like Mr Rogers. So there’s that.
I used to believe it all, but the more I learned, the more I questioned, the more I questioned, the more it all fell apart.
Notable things that led to my deconstruction/atheism:
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The sheer number of times the Bible has been edited. From key words omitted or added to entire books added or removed. It’s like a cobbled together series of Grimms Fairy Tales and Op Ed news articles by hundreds of people for over a thousand years. If it was real then why has it been edited and changed so much though history? Couldn’t a god that wrote that make it divine and unalterable.
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The sheer number of contradictions.
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The fact that there are countless thousands of other religions all claiming to be the only one. Most have their own books. Their own prophets. Their own stories. There’s a ton of overlap and commonality, almost as if they all pull from similar cultural stories. If any religion were true, wouldn’t that god have some way to make their religion the only one? And if you want to argue that it is a test of some sort then it’s a crazy test because it’s impossible to ever choose one out of thousands of clones and spinoffs.
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If it is all true, why did the god need people to write a book to tell the story, but did it hundreds of years after the Jesus stuff and thousands of years after the creation stuff? Couldn’t the lore book have been created and existed on a little pedestal for all to see or something? What about the millions of people that died before it was written? What about all the people that have lived and died having never heard about it even once? It’s unfathomable.
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If religion is good and right and moral then why are priests, pastors, and other religious leaders the ones committing so many SAs and other awful behaviors? Similarly, why is an entire political party so intertwined and permeated with religion while committing the most awful of actions?
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Lastly, go read the old testament, specifically all the stories where the response to almost everything is murder and genocide. Like, one person commits some sin and the god just murders everyone and burns the whole city down. Seriously? That’s “good”? That’s worthy of belief and worship? The flood story. The Jericho story. The Sodom and Gammorah story. Etc etc. That god’s solution to everything is psychopathic mass destruction and death. You’d think a good god would come down and be like “Hey guys, let’s talk”.
Yeah, I get where you’re coming from. My dad was a real asshole as well. He’d literally rather leave me dying in a ditch than suffer a single word of criticism from me. Weird how that works, huh? Almost like there is some truth to the Bible after all…
Unfortunately, I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
Salvation from what?
I don’t see any proof that there is a god or gods out there. Nor that there is any sort of objective morality. Nor a single shred of evidence for any of it. All the evidence is circular and answers one question while adding another. You may say the Bible says so, but how do we know the Bible is true? And you may say because God said so. So how do we know that is true? You have to assume that either a god or the Bible is true, but you can’t prove it. How do we know your God is the real one and not The Great Flying Spaghetti Monster ™️ ? You can’t prove your god any more than I could prove that. And that’s the issue.
If you can’t even prove there is a god or morality or anything then why should I assume there is anything to be saved from?
I don’t believe in gods or religions or the concept of “sin” and “salvation” at all anymore. I just can’t without some form of proof. I can’t accept the “because it is” or “because God said so” or “because Bible said so” anymore. All of those things require you to believe in them first and then add on “proofs”. But for every proof you can add there is also a proof to the contrary.
And on top of that, I am so much happier and less anxious and less worried and stressed now after getting out of all that. The constant fear and worry about my soul and eternity and salvation and converting others and all that was so much. It was painful to live like that. After letting it all go I am so much happier and at peace with myself and the universe than before. I don’t ever want to go back into a system where hellfire and brimstone is yelled at me. Or even worse a system where a god demands that I worship and love him OR ELSE SUFFER FOREVER! Because that isn’t love, it’s manipulation and control and threats and fear.
I simply can’t anymore. I burned out all my ability to ignore reality and believe elaborate stories. And I honestly don’t think I can ever go back to blindly believing it all. It feels like waking up from a fever dream.
Alright then, I guess you will just have to find out for yourself, won’t you.
That sorta proves my point. That’s a thinly veiled threat. “Believe like I do or you’ll be sorry”
And to be honest with you. If a god created the universe and this system, filled it with misinformation, fake religions, lies and deceptions galore all hoping that I would somehow still bullseye a 1 in a million chance to believe exactly the right things and say the right things and do the right things out of the infinite choices available and if I don’t I get tortured for eternity… Then I don’t want any part of that god or religion. That’s evil and awful and does not deserve worship from anyone.
Why would you set up a system designed to trick and fail everyone, but have 1 correct answer hidden. One option that is the correct choice, but NO way to ever know for sure or prove it? You just have to pick one and hope you are correct. That is insane and heartless.
If your god is real and all the stories are true then either A. He is an evil god and I don’t want to worship that. Or B. He is a good god and created me to think like I do and he knew I’d have doubts and will still accept me for doing my best in an impossible scenario.
But I’m gonna go with C. gods don’t exist or don’t interact with us.
Until proven otherwise I don’t know what else to do, but I will not go back into an abusive and evil religious system that causes so much harm.
It’s not a threat, it’s a warning. Like saying “be careful about swimming in that lake, there’s alligators in there”. Perhaps you’ll be lucky and they’ve already eaten for the day, but simply not believing in them will not make them go away.
And no, that’s not to say there aren’t any alligators in church, because that would be a lie. What I’m trying to tell you is that they’re everywhere, not just in church, and it’s a mistake to believe you are safe because you got out of there.
You’ll definitely be converting the masses with that sanctimonious attitude.
Do you have a moment to talk about my lord and savior Big Tony? He wants to love you. Follow his every word and obey and believe and worship him or he’ll break ya legs and send yas ta swim with da fishes. Yeah, see. But he loves you.
Guess that makes two of us
I can’t believe that you think this is an argument you are proud of making.
Who says I’m proud of it?
The problem with free will is that everyone is entitled to use theirs as they see fit, even if you vehemently disagree with their choices.
Sometimes, the best you can do is tell someone that they’re headed for the abyss, but if they’ve already spent countless hours convincing themselves that the abyss is a lie and they intend to prove it by throwing themselves in it, there may not be much you can do to change their mind.
So no, I’m not proud of having said this, but occasionally you have to cut your losses before you get dragged down along with the other person.
I can tell you from harsh experience that becoming atheist and deconstructing the entire faith isn’t going to lead to any sort of salvation at all, the only thing it’ll accomplish is your own undoing. It’s a very slow and agonizing death by a thousand papercuts.
I deconverted two decades ago and nothing wrong came out of it. If anything, the immoral hypocrites who provoked problems from within the faith kept creating those problems and covering for each other, so things would have gone better if more people deconverted.
I’m sorry you weren’t in a good mental place to healthily finish the process though.
Thanks, I appreciate that. But I hope you do understand that this is not the average experience for the vast majority of people who become atheist, right?
Would you care to share what you may have done differently?
Just to be clear, I am by no means advocating for anyone to return to their parents’ church if they found it to be full of assholes and hypocrites. Rather, what I am saying is that unless you manage to live a more moral life than those you left behind, you aren’t likely to end up anywhere good in life, and to the extent you use atheism as an excuse for being a shitty person, you’ll be just as much of a hypocrite as those you condemn.
So just stick to your own values?
If you won’t find ethics in religion, you’ll find some by exploring philosophy. If you won’t find truth in religion, you’ll find some by learning science. If you won’t find a purpose without religion, reach out to people who are worthy of sharing a life with, enjoy art, try to make the world a better place. You will find a purpose far truer to you than any preacher could offer.
So just stick to your own values?
Not a good idea if your own values suck – and a lot of people end up using atheism as a an excuse to have shitty values because there is no God who will judge them for it.
The values Jesus espouses are fundamentally solid and worth imitating. The fact that many of his fan clubs do a terrible job at living them is not a testament to their futility, but rather, to the sheer difficulty of actually practicing them.
My point is basically that if you throw out your morals along with God, there is no hope for ever making it anywhere good in life. It’s true that you don’t HAVE to go to church to have morals, but unless you find them somewhere else, you’ll be no better than those fake Christians.
huh?
What?
I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours. ― Stephen Roberts
This is the sort of intellectual conmanship that I’m sure is very impressive to a 15 year old, but people who talk like that do not have your best interests at heart.
You’ve said absolutely nothing of substance, here. Just platitudes. You haven’t explained why Yahweh is legit but, say, Zeus isn’t.
I don’t need to, because Christ has delivered us from the need of worshiping Yahweh, in much the same way that Prometheus delivered mankind from worshiping Zeus.
Don’t you understand? The point of Christianity isn’t to worship, it’s to become a moral person. Whatever amount of horror or exploitation you may have seen going on around you in the church you grew up in wasn’t a sign that it had failed, but rather, that it worked on YOU in a way that it didn’t on everyone else, because it gave you eyes to see what others were missing – that is, all the evils and crimes they had committed and were still praying to be delivered of.
I understand that this is somewhat of a horrifying gift to receive, but you should treasure it anyways because it will keep you from running straight into the welcoming arms of another abuser – which WILL happen if you deny it.
Everything you do and say in this life will leave a mark on you, one way or another. Look up epigenetics if you need a scientific explanation for this. There is no such thing as a free lunch – getting rid of God does not get rid of the consequences of doing evil.
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For me, I don’t need jesus to give me morals, I have them on own. I don’t believe in a angry guy in the clouds creating this. It’s mind blowing to me, that people believe in it, it’s clearly a form of control. There are many religions, what makes one right over another? Feelings? I like to think more scientifically and logically.
Right?
I have decided I want to be a good person. I don’t need a sky daddy looming over me threatening torture if I do something wrong.
In fact, I would argue I’ve become a better and nicer and more accepting person after leaving religion. I was taught to basically hate LGBTQ, all the other religions, and a list of other “sins” and “wrong beliefs”…
It’s just another form of tribalism and control. I’m out. I’m gonna be over here being as kind and compassionate to my fellow humans as I can.
I like to go with, be a good a human. It’s really not hard, but there is a lot of people that choose not to be.
100%
If anything I think religion can often enable people to become awful humans.
Maybe they think they are doing “wrong things for the right reasons” (E.G. a parent beating their child and screaming “I’m doing this because I love you!”, which, surprise, is more common in religious households) OR Maybe they’ve convinced themselves that what they are doing isn’t wrong at all. The Bible commands you to stone women to death if they have sex outside marriage. So, one could convince themselves that murder isn’t murder, but justice and obeying their gods commands.
I don’t really know, because I was never a bad person in religion, so I don’t really know what goes on in people’s heads like that, but it scares me.
That’s easy to say on the Internet, where nobody knows if you’re a dog.
Because there are plenty of people who stand for the same values, and I don’t worship them either.
What’s the point of having values if you’ll do nothing to uphold them?
Nothing in the other user’s message said anything about not upholding those values.
True, that’s a bit of a lucky guess based on the observation that the vast majority of atheists never grow past the stage of resenting the church, and it’s extremely difficult if not impossible to do a better job if you’re full of hatred.
It’s a wrong observation based on what you see online. When you see atheists online being explicitely atheist, they have some hot issue with religion at the moment. The vast majority of non-believers are just chill.
I, personally, went through a period during which I had already embraced the “Whatever, they’re stupid, but as long as they’re not evil I can respect their general existence”, then the church I did live next to forced me to move away, and when I protested, they tarnished my name and tacitly threatened several members of my family to receive the same treatment if they raised their voice.
So, honestly? I wish more atheists were angry and combative. Religion is a means of social control, enforcing comformity and protecting the privileges of the in-group and the impunity of the hierarchy. Brainwash kids into being unable to live without faith, so that if they ever try to leave, they’ll se their life get torn apart, both mentally and socially. You have just acted in bad faith (as you admitted you just guessed what the intentions of the other person were) as a means to protect your identity, your worldview, rather than sincerely considering the honesty of the other person because you have been abused into interpreting the possibility of reasonable doubt as a threat.
Nothing of this is an attack against you. I just want you to see your attitude will only lead you to continue living in a cloud of fear, hindering your own growth.
It’s a wrong observation based on what you see online. When you see atheists online being explicitely atheist, they have some hot issue with religion at the moment. The vast majority of non-believers are just chill.
It’s possible that my view is somewhat skewed by mainly observing atheism through online discourse, but the “hot issue” with religion seems to be a perennial one. After all, most atheists seem to come from religious households, and a lot of it appears to be a form of rebellion against parental tyranny. Meanwhile, people who were raised in atheist households often seem to seek out religion instead.
Religion is a means of social control, enforcing comformity and protecting the privileges of the in-group and the impunity of the hierarchy.
That’s not necessarily a bad thing as long is it is not oppressive. Having an orderly and well-behaved society benefits everyone after all. I don’t think you’d enjoy living in a society without rules or norms for all that long, because it makes for a short and brutal life for most people.
You have just acted in bad faith (as you admitted you just guessed what the intentions of the other person were) as a means to protect your identity, your worldview, rather than sincerely considering the honesty of the other person because you have been abused into interpreting the possibility of reasonable doubt as a threat.
That’s an interesting accusation coming hot on the heels of telling me that social control and conformity are bad things. Why would you possibly care? And aren’t you making yourself guilty of the same crime by assuming the reason for my acting this way? What if it was merely a reasonably educated guess based on the observation that the vast majority of people who complain about Christians not living up their own stated values never even attempt to live those values themselves?
Nothing of this is an attack against you. I just want you to see your attitude will only lead you to continue living in a cloud of fear, hindering your own growth.
Come on now, that’s textbook gaslighting and psychopath behavior. “I never did the thing I’m currently doing” said the abuser, “and if I did, it’s for your own good.”
If I stand for all the same values that Jesus did, does that by default make me the son of God?
That depends on what you mean by “stand for”. Do you only preach those values on the Internet, where no one can ultimately hold you accountable? Or do you live them in real life, where standing up for them might entail taking risks to defend them?
“Not everyone who says to Me, Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven.” — Matthew 7:21
And what if they actually do practice them in real life?
Are they then the son of god?
I think we are all the sons and daughters of dog on this blessed day, just like you are the famous skateboarder who is constantly unrecognized in public
“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.” — Matthew 10:32-33
Does that clear it up?
Proselytizing clears up nothing except your agenda.
And what’s that?
Because Jesus or any other mythical figure is not required for anyone to have the same or similar values.
Your logic doesn’t follow. Evidence for the existence of Jesus and god – either the Yahweh or any of the other ones – is scant (in the case of Jesus) or nonexistent (in the case of his dad). Sharing similar values to what Jesus allegedly had is not evidence for his existence, nor that of any gods. In this context, the “real” Jesus is as he is depicted in scripture. That doesn’t necessarily mean he was a real person in reality, so don’t get that part twisted. What the poster you’re replying to is interpreting a character as he was written.
It’s exactly the same thing as claiming, “Captain Picard would not do XYZ, because it is inconsistent with how he was written in every single episode.” That may be so, and maybe we all know who Captain Picard is and what he does, but that still doesn’t make Picard a real person. Having a taste for tea, Earl Grey, hot does not require that any person actually believe that Picard physically existed, nor that his published actions were anything more than the fancy of some scriptwriters.
Because Jesus or any other mythical figure is not required for anyone to have the same or similar values.
That’s true, but it helps having an example as a role model to look up to, because you’re not going to go far without one.
Honestly, I could care less if it’s Jesus, Luke Skywalker, or Jean-Luc Picard, as long as your atheism isn’t an excuse for smoking weed and watching porn all day. All I’m saying is to be careful about throwing out the baby with the bathwater when you leave organized religion behind, because while the church you grew up in may very well have been a den of thieves and fully deserve your condemnation, not all of them are, and there’s thieves outside of the church, too.
I don’t think there was a real Jesus but I concede you do have a point. Everyone builds Jesus in their own image, even atheists. It takes effort not to. The natural tendency of anyone who was ever infected with this meme or has Christian friends is to try to find something redeeming about him.
Have heard male homosexuals tell me he was gay, heard black power types tell me he was black, heard a scholar in Greek literature tell me he was a secret Hellenistic Jew, heard him described by hippies as a hippy, by fire and brimstone types that he laid down the law, by SJW that he was a social activists, by communists that he was a communist, by a pacifist that he was a pacifist, by rabbis that he was a rabbi…
He can’t be all of those things, he can however be none of those things. He is the blank slate that people scribble on what they want, and what they want is a version of themselves with super powers.
That’s a very good point, and it’s interesting that you rarely (if ever) hear atheists claim that he was an atheist because he made himself equal to God and abolished the church of his ancestors in order to replace it with his own. It’s almost as if they either didn’t understand the Gospel, or they simply do not want that kind of responsibility, and prefer to endlessly complain about organized religion instead.
Obviously. I am an atheist today because I went to Catholic school where I had to read the bible. Nothing makes better atheists than those who actually read the bible.
Isaac Asimov famously said “Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived.”
Mark Twain:
It ain’t the parts of the bible that I can’t understand that bother me, it’s the parts I can understand.
Its not that they don’t read it. They only read the self serving parts of it. They ignore the parts that they don’t agree with. This of course makes them false christians. They focus on the ten commandants but ignore the slavery and outright barbarism in the rest of the old testament. For the majority of false american christians its the pick and choose part of the bible. They also ignore the teaching of Jesus in the new testament. The parts that tell them to be tolerant, to not cast the first stone are reinterpreted to to take offense at anything that someone else does that they do not like. All their hate and all their hang ups are their own but they use their version of the bible to support their hate and intolerance. None of them ever question how god seems to always want what they want. Destruction.
They only read the self serving parts of it.
Of the King James version.
And then they don’t read King James’ other books, like Daemonologie, “a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic.” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemonologie
duh
At least KJV is in the public domain unlike many other translations.
Oh, it’s not so that they don’t read it. It’s rather that …
While I agree with your sentiment, the problem with the Bible is that it doesn’t contain democracy. It only really has examples of god ordained despots. So one can “follow the Bible” and have results that are wack.
Israel was supposed to still be loyal to King David even though he was a liar, murderer and adulterer. Jesus has the opportunity to tell people to reject Caesar but instead choose to more or less tell them to let Caesar be Caesar and keep whatever is God’s separate. It was tacit acknowledgment that sometimes you have to obey evil rulers. (St Paul carries this on in Romans)
So obviously that was necessary in first century Judea. The problem is that’s the only scenario the new testament deals with.
Add to that that all Jesus’ ethics are person based, without a single word of what a government should or shouldn’t do. Minus all the common sense tradition amalgamated in Europe over 1600 years, and you have the religious right of America.
Those kids would be very upset if they could read
And Thank you for using this version of the meme template.
As someone who unfortunately has had contact with such people, I can assure you that the most extreme of them read their Bibles (KJV ONLY!) every day. For these fundamentalists the Bible is literally their laws, and so extensive knowledge of scriptures becomes a core part of how they exert power over each other and maintain their social hierarchies.
They pick and choose which parts they want to follow and ignore. They interpret things how they wish to support their worldviews.
Of course. They fit the pattern of Yeshua’s own characterization of the Pharisees perfectly. Just read Matthew chapter 23 and replace “Pharisee” with “Fundamentalist”.
Or don’t. There’s countless better ways to spend time.
You know? You’re right! I’m currently enjoying my friend’s birthday party. I will not read it. This is much better. I hope you’ve also enjoyed your weekend so far, friend! ❤️
I was raised by these people. We read the Bible every day, and the family had weekly study sessions where we would all read a portion together and discuss it. We definitely went through the entire thing.
The problem is not that they don’t read the Bible. The problem is that they have developed an obscurantist interpretational framework which allows them to ignore the plain meaning of the text and twist it to conform with their ideology.
Completely agree, very well said. I remember feeling agitated that someone I knew, like that, had interpreted at least one verse from the sermon on the mount to make it mean the exact opposite of what it was saying. Wish I could remember which line.
They don’t read the Bible. They quote parts of it to suit their needs, the hypocrite fucks.
Usury is banned in the Bible, but it’s essentially what the US runs on.
Hell, based on the Bible no Karen should ever quote the Bible in an attempt to teach someone.
1 Timothy 12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet."
Mixing fabric? That’s a stoning. (And not the good kind.)
“Extensive knowledge of scripture” don’t make me laugh
My favorite is when you point out all the shit from their Bible, they don’t follow, and they hit you with “oh that’s from the old testament, and Jesus did away with all of that.”
I’m also always amused at the concept of a perfect infallible being not getting it right the first time and having to push out the revised new testament.
“oh that’s from the old testament, and Jesus did away with all of that.”
Except for the one little verse that says gay people are bad. That part of the Old Testament still applies somehow because reasons.
I’m also always amused at the concept of a perfect infallible being not getting it right the first time and having to push out the revised new testament.
I think the intended idea here is that God is guiding humanity like a parent raises their children and you need different rules for different stages of development, but that would mean growth and change are actually good things and the Fundies really don’t like that.
That part of the Old Testament still applies somehow because reasons.
That’s because Romans 1 also says gay sex is bad
Yeah they don’t even get that part right. Paul got rid of the OT rules, but he grandfathered in ones he liked.
Every time I see a Red Lobster I really just want to get a good stoning in.
Which is funny in the saddest way. Imagine if they applied that time and effort to literally anything true or real or verifiable.
Or if they actually applied the teaching of Jesus to their peoples and didn’t use it as a carrot and stick for the poor to give them money.
They seem to have it read to them by their pastor/Minister/whatever and just memorize what they’ve been told.
They own Bibles, but only open them to quote what they’ve been told already.
All the stuff in-between is just filler.
Just like school. They just cheat off of others.
Most haven’t. Many have. Most of those that have just cherry pick the parts they care about.
The remainder that have read and understood it just compartmentalize the cognitive dissonance. They ignore that the being they profess their undying love for was an unemployed, unmarried vagrant that wandered around with his buddies, that spread philosophy and free food and medical care to strangers, that spoke out many times against the rich, the performatively religious, bigots, opportunists, violence, and retribution, that encouraged one to live a minimalist life, to humble yourself before your sick, poor, and foreign brother, to wash the feet of sinners, and that was an activist whose chosen forms of protest included flipping tables and chasing money changers from a temple with a whip. But no, I’m sure he wanted you to make sure gay people don’t get married, or whatever.
I mean duh, they’re descended from the intellectual reflex that believed translating the book and receiving mass in your own language were sins.
Of course they don’t read the book, they believe only their priest can read it “right”, and they probably look at accusations they don’t read the book with confusion over “Well of course not! Don’t tell me you anarchist lunatics are reading it yourselves!”
Some do, but they all end up with “i’m an atheist now” podcasts
It still bothers me that I don’t have the same story other people have. Reading and studying the Bible didn’t deconvert me.
I love how the good liars would tell christian right wing book banners about a book that contains a story about 3 daughters who got their father drunk and had sex with him and they’d ask them if the book should be banned.
They have a grifter to interpret it for them. They read curated selections. It is useful to know certain passages. For example, 1 Timothy 2:12 is useful for shutting down a female proselytizing.
a female?
If someone is proselytizing, I see them as less than human.
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Reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide before the Bible really helped me understand how much fantasy is written in. Reading the Bible is what made me an atheist
For a second there, I visualized The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Bible.
Some of them read the Bible, never read the news. They just listen to what they community says. If everyone you know and trust says president Jimmy bean is the most fantastic Christian devout president ever why would you question it?
I mean they already don’t possess much critical thinking skills at that point, at least in this kind of context.
