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It’s wild the Christian religion is generally about love and tolerance (if you read the Bible), but the actual practitioners are some of the worst fuckers in American society
As a Christian, I can honestly say I'm appalled at literally everything the current administration is doing. We're called to love others, not to judge them. There is a huge difference in saying you're Christian and behaving as one.
You really don't know very much (or want to admit) about the history of Christianity do you
They loved those heretics when they burned them alive.
That's not the same thing as the teachings of the NT though. I'm not saying Christianity is without fault at all here, but saying the message is equivalent to the behavior of zealots from another age is kind of silly
Crusade, Inquisition, Holocaust.
None of those things are contemporary with anything Jesus would have taught.
The only problem is that the old testament has lots of problematic things in it, and it is used as "evidence" for the claims in the new, and the character of Jesus is made to say that "not one jot or tittle" thing.
The new actually has a few things that are not exactly perfect, either...but it doesn't really matter, terrible people that claim they are xtians clearly don't care. They are told to keep their religion in the closet in the bible, and here they are, insisting their religion should be not only out of their closet, but running our government and they have the "right" to rub their religiosity all over other people that don't really care about their little book club and want nothing to do with it.
OK first, none of the things listed in the comment I was replying to were contemporary with the OT that you are bringing up, so we're getting even further off the rails here
And second, how people behave today is not the same as how people behaved 2000 years ago, which is also probably not exactly as described by the people who wrote those texts that have been retold and transcribed so many times over so many years by so many peoples. "Zealots of a different age," and all that. The text is there, scroll up.
Edit: and seriously, have you read any other mythologies before? Seriously, the Bible isn't even that salacious in terms of the old stories about the shenanigans the gods would get up to.
And they never were, but they were and are in fact what the followers of Jesus have and are doing, these examples are the norm in the history of Christianity, as they are once again being repeated in Trump and MAGA. We got the receipts man, the whole world does. This is who Christians are, and this is what Christians do.
OK so you are having a different conversation with your self. Have fun I guess?
You talking Old or New Testament? Because most of the arguments people seem to have with Christianity (from my experience, at least) come from OT rules/etc that became obsolete due to Jesus.
Unless you're talking more modern history...?
you grew your church at the tip of a spear, and at the sharp end of a sword. you made demons during the inquisitions. you made partners with the nazis. christians. don't make me fucking laugh.
So you're talking more modern history. I don't agree with the way Christianity has been forced on people throughout history. I don't condone the inquisitions, etc.
It saddens me, honestly, at how far from true Christianty most publically open "Christians" are. Forcing your beliefs on others, ridiculing those who don't believe the same as you, and not treating all of humanity with the respect and love the deserve are not actions of a true believer in Christ.
And I pose to you all those evil things are CENTRAL to the actions of a true believer in Christ, as they've proven to be, for the last 1700 years, that any fantasy about love, forgiveness, acceptance and peace is the fairy tale Christians tell themselves while they're forcefully decimating anyone that doesn't believe what they do
I like to point out that one of the first lessons the Bible teaches the reader is one of hierarchy and inherent supremacy over others. Eve is lesser to Adam, as all women should be to all men. Man is the dominator of the land, bending nature to his whims. All men are to worship a supreme being because he's bigger, stronger, more powerful, and these are respected traits held by any authority. It's baked into the values that some of us should be supreme to others, and the inherent violence of this philosophy can be used to justify wars and genocide, as has happened time and again.
Christianity is only good if you use confirmation bias to pick out the parts you like, but the whole text creates drones and fascists by design. I believe in God, but I would never in my life subscribe to Christian beliefs (not even getting into the open hostility the church has held against my particular section of belief throughout history that persists to this day).
It's worse than that. The first lesson is that God created Adam and Eve without the knowledge of good and evil. Then Satan tricked Eve into eating the fruit. She didn't know better until after she ate it, nor did Adam. But God punished her and Adam for doing something when they didn't know any better. So the lesson is that God is arbitrary and can change the rules on you at any time if he feels like fucking with you. And you are expected to say "Thank you Sir, may I have another?" It very much reinforces the view that the deity is a petulant child and we're his ant farm. And yeah, the hierarchical view and the idea of God as the Big Alpha Male in the Sky is part of it too.
I'd like to add that God, being omnipotent, knew they'd break the "rules," and went ahead punishing them just the same. Seems to me like the punishment was the point all along.
Very love. Wow.
I agree that basically all religion is bad, but for what it's worth, in the story Eve knows she shouldn't eat the fruit, and she isn't tricked, she's tempted. Those are different things. It doesn't make god any less of a jerk, but mistakes like that can sometimes make people disregard a whole argument because they think you don't know what you're talking about.
Checks out if you define "God" as "the universe, time, all of existence". Probably one of the more useful and realistic lessons in the old testament.
No true scotch egg or some shit
That's a thought-terminating cliche in this case, because Christians as a group have a wide range of beliefs and behaviors, from progressive to fascist, and it's bullshit to pretend they're all the same.
I'm an atheist, but I've been at protests where there were Christians willing to get beaten down by cops' billy clubs. I was more inclined to run away and live to fight another day. They're not the same as the MAGAfundies, snake-jugglers, drive-through prosperity gospel hucksters, and pig-ignorant misogynist racist bumpkins. Your "all Christians are equally culpable" position is just another way of weakening the resistance by excluding natural allies.
I’m sorry, are you responding to me? The dude said “true Christians”. Are you saying there are or there aren’t? Haha 🤦🏻♂️ What is happening here?
Edit:
For some reason, only part of your comment was displayed on my side.
Still, get right off my back with this strawman bullshit. I didn’t say any of the shit you’re putting in my mouth. I called out the use of the term “true Christianity” in that guy’s comment.
All that nonsense you’re arguing against came with you to this place.
Let's talk about the behavior of self-identified Christians. Start from that. And there are some life-denying, antihuman parts in the NT too, just look at some of the Epistles. Paul (or at least whoever wrote the two Timothy epistles) was one nasty piece of work.
Jesus explicitly said He was not making any rules obsolete.
What He did was tell and show that OT laws are supposed to be read from the perspective that they are meant to help and protect the weak and "lesser".
And the OT is a history of God's love for humanity as much as the NT.
I was thinking more about the things such as animal sacrifices and temple rituals, which were law prior to Jesus. But he did say he came to fulfill the Law, thereby making those practices obsolete since He became the ultimate sacrifice.
There was actually a dispute among the early Christians about whether or not they were still subject to the Law. James, the brother of Jesus, who led the church in Jerusalem took the view that Christians should still follow it. St Paul, for whatever his motives might be (Josephus speculated that Paul was an agent of the Jewish elders whose job was to detach the Christians from the Jews, in hopes the whole thing would fizzle out), held the view that the Law was fulfilled and also that Christianity was open to Gentiles.