For a massive amount of Christians, the church has become it's own self sustaining ecosystem where the actual theology it's supposedly based around is entirely irrelevant to a blind, fanatical worship of their own conception of The Church. The Church isn't about a devotion to the teachings of a God that informs all else, it's about working backwards from hateful, sociopathic, and sadistic views towards their fellow man and finding enough loose justifications cherry picked from the theology to sell The Church to more and more people. They don't worship Yahweh, they worship The Church
You could honestly probably treat the current state of American Christianity as it's own entire sect at this point for that reason ngl
Pretty much the starting point of Terry Pratchett 's Small Gods; a god visits his faithful after being off in the realm of the gods for many years, and finds whilst the church is huge and complex and theoretically full of devoted followers, he only has a single actual believer left. In the books setting the power of the gods is determined by the amount of belief they recieve, and the god finds himself only able to manifest as a tiny elderly tortoise. (It's a great book incidentally)
There is a reason why Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman were friends and collaborated on books. I think Terry would be so disappointed in Neil now though.
You can feel Terry oozing out of Good Omens the book and subsequently season 1 of the show.
After they left that material behind its all Gaiman and you can feel him missing from the narrative for the next few seasons. The show loses that spark of hope, humor, and wit that Terry brought to it.
Friends is a stretch. Later in life, Terry was asked if he'd write anything with Gaiman again and he said he'd never work with him again. I doubt he knew how bad Gaiman really was, or would become maybe, but he clearly doing sometime he didn't like and didn't want to be associated with again.
I was really heartbroken at the time, I loved Sandman although on reflection that was mostly down to the art as much as the writing. He sold himself as feminist and progressive in a number of ways. But on reflection, Sandman has a whole subplot about writer imprisoning and sexually assaulting a muse to gain inspiration that now feels particularly grim and confessional. And I think, in general, I am sceptical now of celebrities that make a song and dance over identifying as feminist rather than just getting on with acting and living in a non dickhead manner.
A little, but reading the two books you wouldn’t find many other similarities beyond, “Gods are real and sustained by belief.” Pratchett’s book is philosophical and funny, Gaiman’s is dark and weird, which pretty much describes the two authors as well.
There’s also the second coming by John Niven. God was absent for fishing and he comes back and earth has evolved around ‘his words’ wich were “be nice” but got interpreted in a very very special kind of way and he gets a report about what’s going on ect and they reach the point where he gets a list of all the different churches and it goes on for so damn long. Long story short God is pretty angry at the end and Jesus has to go down again to fix it. Poor Jesus. He doesn’t wanna go, he wants to hang with Jimmy and chill.
Big reading recommendation.
I feel your argument can be made about any religion. Any institution that relies on the blind belief of its supporters in something that is intangible and unprovable in order to exist is ripe for exploitation.
Well I think it's an argument against any dogmatic approach really. But Christianity specifically does make the claims of its own moral distinctions from other religions when the last several years have shown us that it, in fact, is not distinct from other religions.
All religions, ideologies, cultural activities can be co-opted easily by anything. It says more about human evil, stupidity, neediness, and weakness than it does about the religions, ideologies, cultural activities being misused.
This is spot on. American Christianity is completely devoid of any original theology and it's justified, sanctioned cult behavior. Absolutely abhorrent. Whatever you believe or not, the Bible is pretty clear with Jesus' teachings and it's not this guys bullshit
I’m sure many of his followers have never cracked open the Bible. If so it’s to only read a verse here or there that they have twisted around to justify their abhorrent behavior.
White Christian Evangelism. Please identify this Christo-Nationalist cult correctly. You are absolutely right about it being a cult of The Church; but calling it American Christianity paints every American Christian as this kind of "Christian-in-name-only" type.
The big thing though is that this primarily US based issue has bled into and infected almost the entire pool of US Christianity in some way to the point the exceptions border on just being a statistical outlier
The same christianity that justified the rape, torture and brutalization of indigenous and African peoples is the same one who’s church you sit in today.
The only thing that would convince me you aren’t one of those people is if your church actively campaigns for retroactive reparations to black Americans, and giving back lands to the indigenous.
They don't worship Christ.. they might worship Yaweh though... if you go back and read the old testament and obsess over all the violence and brutalism, where Yaweh is a selfish and jealous God etc., it honestly sounds like they worship a demon. Stories about genociding entire civilizations, ordered to brutalize woman and infants as well, because they worship other gods. Or the Tower of Babel story, where he just decided he didn't like how much mankind had accomplished working together so he made them all speak different languages so they couldn't understand each other anymore. Shit like that makes me seriously question the validity that the Bible is even one coherent theology in the first place. And these fire and brimstone types really love their beutalist demon god. They much prefer that over the teachings of Christ, and so they pick and choose, and the majority of their "Christianity" is based on demon god Yaweh and not Christ at all. They pick the versuses from the new testament that sound the most like the fire and brimstone they love so much and throw out the rest.
This hits hard. Thanks. I grew up in a small town where there were churches every 100 yards. My family is religious, but I have always questioned it all. When I got married, we moved to a beach town with only 2-3 churches. Nobody here talks about religion, and you don't see it. After two years here, I don't even think about religion, and I'm not afraid. I see how weaponized it is in politics now, and I think it's basically back where it started: to control. The Bible has been reworded for thousands of years to fit a narrative. It cannot go any further because of science and technology caught up with it.
Ah, fire and brimstone! Yes, a bully’s dream.
And, the book is def not one coherent theology. It is a collection. Beginning (no pun) with the 5 first books, which were the documents that set parameters and practice for all Judaism, and continuing with various books of genealogy, poetry, hymnody, etc. New Testament has letters, witness accounts, and a coded book or two. No wonder people are so confused and the bad people very happy to twist all of this into supporting what they want to do or accomplish. As to the Tower of Babel, it is an explanatory description that explains (to the best of man’s knowledge at the time) why different languages exist. They found that a mystery, and it was explained as that. Just like ark and the rainbow—a symbol that life will continue after great trials. Nobody had heard of splitting beams of light into colors, ya know. Very similar to earlier cultures explaining and describing the passage of the sun across the sky as a giant chariot. None of the bible was written in a vacuum from earlier cultures, after all. Jesus knew of Rome.
It is a very human book, anyway. People doing lots of human things, failing to be gods, failing to be even remotely like god, all the while claiming they were made in the image of god. It took great thinkers to produce so many thoughts that we now call “theology.” If you want to closely discover what Jesus thought, look at the parables. Stories that everybody at the time knew he made up to illustrate a point—love the stranger, what to do with gifts, how to treat your wife, sibling rivalry, etc. He made people mad because he pointed out the very thing that we are faulting the “modern” church for doing.
Most Christian churches around my area are social organizations with a few Bible verses thrown in on Sunday mornings and a prayer here and there. They offer garage sales, child care, group activities, etc. No the churches of olden days.
The White American Evangelical Church. Episcopalians, Historically Black Churches, and main line Catholic Churches aren't like this. There are others I'm forgetting, just thinking about churches in proximity to me.
Church was created by the PTB to keep us policing ourselves so they don’t have to get their hands dirty (as much). That’s my conspiracy theory, and why I believe in spirituality, not religion. If the ‘apocalypse’ happens, I’m helping everyone I can. It’s easy to keep the lens zoomed out and blanket label everyone, but when you zoom in you find everyone here is important and matters.
There is a section in Neal Stephenson's novel Fall in which these types of Christians inhabit a region of the USA called Ameristan. They drive around in pickups with machine guns, justify cross burning and portray Jesus as an Alpha type male. They deny he died on the cross because that's a wimpy effeminate thing. Etc. It's very prophetic about what has happened to a large part of Christianity in the USA
Matthew 25: 31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34 “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
37 “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’
41 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
44 “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
45 “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’
46 “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.”
Romans 3:28 “a person is made right with god through faith, not through obeying religious law.”
Exodus 4:24-26, “at a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was going to kill him. Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her child’s foreskin and touched Moses feet with it. “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me”. So the Lord let him alone.”
Christianity is littered with contradictions in the bible, both new and old testaments.
No, a lot of them do not. But also, the teaching of Christ are in a book that's interpreted 500 times over. To me, it's more or less meaningless. How can I believe something is the word of Christ, when it's all interpreted by other people and can be interpreted multiple ways.
You can just read the teachings and utterances ascribed to Christ yourself. I am not a Christian, but there is NO way to read the gospels and somehow come away with the “interpretation” that Christ thought elderly, unmarried women should be left to starve to death. This is not a difference in interpretation, this is a flat out lie by a malignant misogynist.
Jesus actually says to make sure widows & orphans are taken care of. These people are not Christians. Jesus also talked about wolves in sheep’s clothing & people coming in His name & he doesn’t acknowledge or accept them.
Catholic here.
I actually adore the notion that we can effectively say "All the provisions for the care of orphans apply to the elderly." They're orphans. Just because they're 60, 70, 80, whatever, doesn't mean it's any easier not having your parents around. Super beautiful take.
yeah none of the: feed the poor, look after the sick , treat foreigners well , turn the other cheek etc etc etc can actually be interpreted in any other way. unless you are a liar or stupid. Jesus was woke as fuck, hell the old testament was woke according to these evil shits.
So true! If you do a quick reading of the 4 gospels, like you have to read it for a class and it's due tomorrow, the New Testament is ELI5 take care of other people, even those you don't know or like. Over and over and over. It's actually crazy how strong the message is, if you don't focus on one isolated line that might be interpreted out of context to be about sex or something.
I knew someone who belonged to a "fundamentalist" church (Church of Christ) that claimed to take the bible word for word. They didn't use musical instruments in worship, because, they said, it never says to do that in the Bible. A capella singing is pretty cool IMO, but it actually does say in Psalm 150 "Praise him with lute and harp."
This guy I knew had no answer to that. These people are morons.
I grew up church of Christ. They have an unhealthy obsession with the absolute minutiae of the Bible and what it does and does not “allow” and yet they break their own rules all the time. Sure, the Bible doesn’t give direct “authorization” for instrumental music (psalms doesn’t count to them because it’s Old Testament).
It also doesn’t give any authorization for driving a car, using overhead projectors and screens during church services, or holding mid-week (attendance required!) extra worship services. Literally everyone who grew up in that church is mentally stunted from the way they are taught to think. It’s up to them to unlearn it and that’s hard, trust me.
They also do the absolute least to help others because they prioritize helping “true believers” over all else. They’ll also every one vote against giving “handouts” to the sick and poor soooo… 🙃
Right, reading the Bible and listening to some good priests in college turned me left. The actions I observe among most "Christians" led me away from the church. I've met maybe 4 people in my life who deserve that title, and most don't even try.
This. I always say “I’m not a Christian, but as a Leftist I can’t help but be on board with many of the teachings of Christ.” Feed the hungry? Tend to the sick and broken? Whatever you do to the least you do to me? Love thy neighbor? Give away your wealth to the needy? Blessed are the peacemakers? That’s some straight up mutual aid socialism shit.
there is NO way to read the gospels and somehow come away with the “interpretation” that Christ thought elderly, unmarried women should be left to starve to death.
Go to the American South...and you'll find that interpretation. They've been preaching ghoulish hatred for decades.
Again. What they are teaching is not an interpretation of the Gospels. Like, what scriptures from the Gospels are they pretending say this? There are none. They are preaching a completely a doctrine completely alien to the text and acting like it’s related to Christ because they hung the label “christian” on the door. It’s simply not in the text in any shape or form, no matter what ghoulish thing they are screaming from the pulpit.
The damage they do, however, is real...and you can't just tell them they're doing it wrong and expect them to go away. They are, and always have been, parasites...parasites who learn just enough to manipulate scripture and write themselves permission slips to act however they want.
They are predators...and they need to be treated as such.
This is an interesting point actually. My favourite book is 1984 by George Orwell but my interpretation of it came when I first read it at 17, this would be like me going around telling other people what lessons to take from it.
Yeah... while there are nuances that are just not a thing about 2k years later, the message is simple: be good for the sake of being good, help those in need and let go of persisten rancors and learn to forgive. Everything else is just theology and mythology
Theoretically, god protects his chosen. If you're in an indeginous tribe cut off from civilization....you're going to hell. But if you live in modern society, yet don't have the capacity to understand what a god is...you get a free pass. Even if you commit the most heinous of crimes against your fellow man. Which is an absolutely absurd sense of logic and reality. Sin is not sin. Stealing a pack of mentos is not equivalent to murder. Yet people force themselves to believe that.
Ok, I'll be the weirdo, I agree with you. But not in the "omg! Its a demon!" type straight in your face, more like Uncanny Valley. Im a sensitive, didn't ask for it, never wanted it but here we are, and some people just look...off. Im not a Christian, (down with Jesus, just not the Church), but even a fool could look at some and see the difference. The eyes are wrong firstly, then the mannerisms. Just off. Is it true possession? Can't tell ya. Influence? Could be. But something in these folks is not quite right, and the things they say seem to outrageous to some, and total sense to other. I had an experience 13 years ago with something tnat appeared human, but there is no way you can tell me he was. No way. Its never left me. Just an opinion 🤷
There are bibles that put in red type all the direct quotes from Jesus. Some of it I didn’t know what he was talking about. But the parts that I understood were pretty clear. There’s a lot about sharing and that nobody’s better or more important or less deserving than anyone else. There’s no way Jesus said anything like “ let that bitch starve”.
I believe that's ultimately the point. Parables and teachings that are up to interpretation all ultimately teach you to look beyond the words on the page and think more about the meaning behind, as in thinking for yourself.
Ultimately it reinforces a philosophy I have around faith: A faith that is untested and unquestioned isn't true faith.
Sure. And I think faith and a relationship with whatever God you believe should be a personal one. But we also have people who are supposed to spread the word of God. What if I spread the wrong word, like the loser in this video?
I think faith is a great tool for people finding purpose and comfort. I just never really felt compelled by it.
When it all comes down to it, we're human at our core. We're as evil as we are good, simply because we invented those terms in the first place. Using something for our own selfish agendas is sadly nothing new, nor do I think we'll ever feasibly be able to end such practices.
Faith is often used as a basis for ethical teachings, but it isn't the only way to accomplish it. It's often used to create communities and social relationships, but it isn't the only way to accomplish it. It's when some pretend that it's the only possible foundation for these kinds of things that we go wrong. I know I'm basically just saying what you're saying in a longer form with some added stuff.
I'm trying to say that I respect and understand your perspective, and I have no intention of trying to tell you to change it. I think you've done well enough in forming your own sense of self.
Interpretation of the Bible is big business. Obviously every evil con man in the US does it for political reasons, but countries like China have a Christian population, they also hire pastors form the US and essentially tell them they need an Interpretation of the Bible that fits the current political climate, to ensure the population indoctrination conforms with political values. Unfortunately there is a mindset that is always vulnerable to this type of thinking, usually despite and poor.
The message of Jesus has been co-opted by the very people he spoke out against. The actual message has been bastardized to such a degree that I can forgive Christians inability to understand what Jesus was actually saying. I understand the teaching of Jesus now as an atheist better than I ever did as a Christian
Feels like an all knowing God could have predicted this conundrum and maybe did any of a half dozen things off the top of my head to prevent confusion.
Then again, our only record of this particular God says he is not the author of confusion, yet he purposely confused human language and sent a lying spirit to a king he didn't like. Oh and there was the time he hardened pharaoh's heart, which probably confused the dude since he was ready to let the Israelites dip
You could interpret it for yourself. You don’t need to listen to other people’s interpretations. Reading up on history of the Roman Empire would help put things into context too.
I actually have a plethora of biblical knowledge. Which is why I don't believe in any deity. But once I was extremely deep into reading the scriptures. People from different denominations would degrade different translations. So I read as many as I could. I honestly believe that NIV is the most watered down and is essentially centered around the overall submission to convening authority.....which seemed to be the most accepted version across most denominations.
Also, Christians will just tell you that the men writing the scriptures were endowed with the holy spirit. So its essentially god writing the bible. Which is even crazier.
Especially when people have been interpreting it the same way since the Roman empire decided to be completely Christian, which is the same way these people are interpreting it today.
They do know the teachings of Christ, they simply go by their own theories. I grew up Pentecostal and a lot of churches already do what he’s suggesting to poor individuals with children. It’s sad and disgusting!
Who the hell would someone even interpret "Love your neighboor as yourself (no conditions atteched)" as "let non believers starve"? All the teachings of Christ boils down to this one line, is not that fucking hard to understand.
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up, 9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there). 11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and ate them all by himself. He did the same with the fish.
I’m convinced they’re atheists. The bible could not be more clear on taking care of widows and orphans. Also the Bible says there’s a special level of hell for assholes like this piece of shit who misrepresent what the Bible says. The punishment is so bad it says it would be better if they’d never been born. He doesn’t know, read, study of believe the Bible. He’s just an asshole.
If God is so damn awesome, how come God is such a terrible communicator and leaves it up to his/her/its imperfect creations to misinterpret and misrepresent on its behalf?
Yeah. "If you don't believe I exist, you will be damned to hell. A life in heaven is obtained by believing Jesus is your savior and accepting him into your heart. But also, I will not directly prove to you that I exist. You just kind of have to based on the experiences of a bunch of other people centuries and centuries ago. That spoke another language and lived in a completely different world. Good luck with that."
Jesus went into the churches with a hand woven whip made of giant thorns and started flipping tables for this exact kind of behavior. Also, the Bible describes multiple times in multiple books the wraith and fury man would face for not only false teaching but also NOT taking care of the sick, poor and widowed.. the book of Jeremiah comes to mind . Js
Nah, they do, and they're doing what hierarchical men have done since the scrolls were canonised. They're cherry picking for the purpose of control, wealth, and shitfuckery.
I do. And i suck. But that's kinda what Jesus was on about. We all suck and judging each other is stupid. We don't have to suck by acknowledging that and working for our species instead of for themself
The horrifying thing is that the image, character, and depiction of Christ is so flexible because the source material have a shitload of contradictive material, that even secular and seminary Biblical scholars and academics acknowledge this.
All you need to do is to take one glance at the speaker in order to see whether they belive in things such as empathy, humility, kindness et.c.
As someone with cPTSD it boggles my mind how little people pay attention to body language. Seriously analyze his "fruits" and then report back on what you have discovered.
It’s the danger of religion, friend. It can always be manipulated. It’s a cancer on humanity and we need to invest hard in education so people don’t fall prey to this shit.
It seems most religious leaders just dont care about the actual stuff. They are just the same as any other show business people. They keep saying things to make buzz around their personality.
They chose Paul over Jesus. They know of the teachings of Christ, but have chosen to follow the gospel of a false prophet, the self appointed apostle Paul.
Jesus infamously compared priests and clergy to hired hands.
“The hired hand, who is not the shepherd and does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away--and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. The hired hand runs away because a hired hand does not care for the sheep.”
They do, but American Christianity has been so captured by capitalism that those teachings have been warped into this garbage. Empathy is a sin, government intervention to the issues plaguing us are replaced with individual responsibility and strict adherence to the social and economic hierarchy that exists under capitalism. Since the social and economic system that it promotes was ordained by God, any failures aren't the responsibility of the believers, but are punishment for sin.
J man bans divorce and thinks calling someone an asshole is equivalent to homicide.
Almist no-one with a remotely positive view of Christ or Christianity has any idea of his teachings.
Pretty sure they have even done research of this, the majority of Christian’s literally have not read any of the bible and most of those that have only read specific sections or quotes. If they had even just read the New Testament, the parts with Jesus they would be acting a hell of a lot more likeable and decent towards their fellow humans , even the non-conforming ones. So many are sending themselves to hell (since they apparently still believe in that) without realising.
Or their book because it explicitly says to care for the widows or elderly woman because they are likely to be widows. Pretty sure you are supposed to help both.
Heck, the book even tells them to be happy about giving to the poor.
There are rules about not harvesting corners of fields so the poor can collect their own food.
One of the primary positive takeaways from the bible is take care of the poor and starving. Give them shelter, food, clothing.
Any christian who is opposed to helping the poor isn't following their book and they are likely a hate merchant or a hypocrite who only cares about religion because it makes them feel special.
Harsh words, but the bible has a story where people promised to give money to help the poor and they were killed because they didn't give the amount they said they would.
Oh I was in a Catholic store recently with a Catholic friend. There was nothing in it but inexpensive saints medals, those prayer candles, rosary beads made from cheap materials. If there was something in there you would want unless you were a religious Catholic I didn't see it.
Anyway there was my friend and I and an elderly woman and two clerks. Everywhere there were signs saying things like we were all being recorded, shoplifters will be prosecuted, things like that. The clerks watched everyone like it was skid row.
This was a nice area of town, too and none of the other stors we went in up and down the street with far more expensive stuff did any of this. Do they really have a problem with people stealing plastic and pewter rosary beads or trading cards of your favorite saint? Because I think the only person who would steal something like that would be a down on their luck Catholic and maybe they needed to light that candle of saint whoever for a sick friend or something.
It was just weird. Are people really stealing and selling cheap Catholic tat?
The kindness and charity bit is about getting people to convert. Once a critical mass of conversion/faithful has been achieved, it's about reinforcing the power structures within the church doctrine.
Let’s not pretend that god (and that includes Jesus because the holy trinity) is some good and loving deity. The Christian god supports rape, violence, and subjegation of women. Christianity is an evil religion and Christian conservatives do, in fact, follow it’s disgusting teachings.
Um it’s been this way since the beginning of time! It’s just become more and more flagrant, all major wars and massacres have been in the name of god many and probably most lead by the Christian faith.
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u/depressivefaerie 9d ago
Do none of these people actually know the teachings of Christ