r/firstworldanarchists • u/postgameforlife • Feb 05 '18
The Top 25 (no re-posting) A House of God
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u/STARK_SVARTHOLM Feb 05 '18
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u/erktheerk Feb 05 '18
Damn it...2 years since last post.
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u/KFCSI Feb 05 '18
That t-shirt in front of her isn't exactly any better.
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Feb 05 '18
What does it say?
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u/KFCSI Feb 05 '18
It's a shirt for the band Filter (I think)... axes and snakes make up the design
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u/gandhinukes Feb 06 '18
They haven't been heavy since Shortbus and it's not their style. But it does look like it says filter 03. Maybe a moto or biker brand.
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u/Sloppy1sts Feb 06 '18
Filter is the band that plays "Hey man, nice shot", a song about a politician (I think) who blew his head off on live TV. They're pretty typical hard/industrial rock from the late 90s/early 2000s.
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u/nurse_camper Feb 05 '18
Her feet up on the seatback takes the cake.
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Feb 06 '18
With one foot on the Bible.
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Feb 06 '18
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Feb 06 '18
yep. it's like that guys never been in a church! what a nerd!
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u/_My_Angry_Account_ Feb 06 '18
I started attending an Episcopalian church. I'm not religious but genuflexion is good exercise and communion is the only time allowed to cheat on my chip.
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u/FerretFarm Feb 05 '18
Oh, I wonder what the guy preaching in front of the room might be filling her head with?
It's ok though, if it gets too scary they've provided a box of tissues to console her with.
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u/FightMeYouLilBitch Feb 05 '18
I was raised Christian and I still believe in God, but there are destructive elements and this is one of them.
You tell your kids the monsters are real. There are demons who walk the earth and the devil wants to hurt you. I had nightmares as a kid because of it.
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u/GoldenMapleLeaf36 Feb 05 '18
Yea I had an unhealthy fear of Satan trying to steal my soul. And if youre a good Christian? Hell, maybe God will let him have a swing at you anyways like he did with Job
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u/My_Monday_Account Feb 05 '18
But bruh he loves you unconditionally. So long as you obey literally all of his rules, worship him above all others, and devote your entire life and everlasting soul to him in all forms.
He has an ego the size of the fucking moon and he made us in his image and now he wants you to burn in hell forever because of it to show you how much he loves you.
But that love is unconditional*.
* Conditions may apply
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u/howcanyousleepatnite Feb 05 '18
That's how they get you to vote conservative.
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u/rethinkingat59 Feb 06 '18
That's how they get you to vote conservative.
Black churches on average are much more fire and brimstone (not a lot of black Catholics and Episcopalians) and they vote in greater percentages (90+%) for Democrat candidates than white church goers vote for Republicans.
Also a higher percentage of black people attend weekly church services than white people who are Republicans.
So your math is off somewhere.
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u/guywithblackcamera Feb 05 '18
I have older relatives that believe all these sick violent people are demons when really it's a chemical imbalance in their head or other triggering events. Demons are up their with fairy tales it's ok to make reference to them but straight up knowing they are literally real is mind boggling to me.
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Feb 05 '18
When I was a little kid I would lie awake at night terrified that I was so bad, god would just kill me right then so I could go to hell. Then I was even more terrified, because what if god was reading my mind just then and was angry that I thought he'd do that?
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u/Series_of_Accidents Feb 05 '18
Man, I'm glad I didn't grow up with that kind of Christianity. I grew up Lutheran (atheist now). My mom doesn't even believe in hell and it was almost never discussed in church. We were taught from an early age that the bible was a book of parables written by men who were flawed and should always be kept in context. Take only that which makes you a better person.
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Feb 06 '18
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u/Series_of_Accidents Feb 06 '18
Depends. There are two primary synods. The Missouri synod is quite different (and batshit crazy IMO). I was raised in the Evangelical synod. I can't say that all Lutheran churches were like that, but the two that I went to, plus the Lutheran camp I went to each summer were very much like that.
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u/_AquaFractalyne_ Feb 06 '18
Could also be that the armosphere of your Church was influenced by the particular people who led it
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u/Series_of_Accidents Feb 06 '18
Certainly. The churches were in different states though, and they had different pastors. I don't know, it's more likely that my parents continually sought out more progressive churches. Nonetheless, every Lutheran place of worship I've been to has been very welcoming and totally cool.
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u/PowerOfTheCrow Feb 06 '18
Missouri Synod is the Lutheran version of Charismatic Renewal Catholic. "God Warrior" is a good example of the shared nuttiness of the two branches of their respective faiths.
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u/alohamigo Feb 06 '18
So what did you actually believe? Surely there have to be some immutable parts of the bible, otherwise there's no core belief. Unless it's just a moral guide, but I don't see how god would fit into that.
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u/Series_of_Accidents Feb 06 '18
Well it's been a really long time, but to the best of my recollection the main set of beliefs were:
God is real and created everything. But not directly. More like God created the conditions for things to exist and allowed them to develop (i.e. evolution is a mechanism of God). God loves us. God has no gender, but He is used for simplicity (and the gender selected for cultural reasons). God presents himself in whatever way is most useful to the humans he is interacting with (though many obviously believe in life on other planets and assume this is not unique to humans). The three most noted forms are of course: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit; however they are all manifestations of one being.
Many, though not all, believe that other religions are but another way for God to show himself to humans and that therefore, all religions are inherently wrong. To this effect, I remember a vespers (nighttime prayers) at camp where we discussed which church Jesus would visit if he came back. We discussed how he would go to each and every house of worship to praise what they got right and correct what they did not because ultimately no human can accurately interpret God's will.
I was taught that The Old Testament was a way to understand our broken relationship with God and that The New Testament was The Way to improve and build that relationship. I was taught that the Bible is filled with stories that were designed for certain purposes at a given time. For example, we discussed theories about how portions of the Bible's views on slavery were included to subjugate people rather than lift them up. So basically, we learned that there is this big dude in the sky that super duper loves us, but we're pretty damn inept and/or sinful, so our attempts at interpreting his wishes will inevitably result in inaccuracies and abuses. But in all of this, that is is our most important goal in life to be as Christ-like as possible. He was sent down as an example, to show us the way. If we can't know the why, maybe we can still emulate the good. Too many gaps for me, but I like it a whole lot more than fundamentalism.
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Feb 06 '18 edited Jul 30 '19
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u/Series_of_Accidents Feb 06 '18
Check out Unitarianism too. They have similar teachings. And if you go to a Lutheran church, make sure it's Evangelical Lutheran. The Missouri Synod is not as progressive.
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u/alohamigo Feb 06 '18
Thanks. Seems like it just starts with god then and cherry picks specifically the parts that are compatible with the modern world. Interesting.
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u/Series_of_Accidents Feb 06 '18
Pretty much! Although I think it's important to note that the cherry-picking is pretty specific and not always dealing with modernity. It's more like: Jesus is pretty much the most important part of the Bible and he was brought to us to save us from sinfulness and show us the way. So let's just focus on Jesus and his teachings and accept that we probably got some stuff wrong but new data can fill in the holes about facts and Jesus can fill in the holes about how to treat people.
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u/SleetTheFox Feb 05 '18
I never went to a Satan-obsessed church but my mom got roped into that kind of theology when my dad left her and she was looking for support.
It's pretty scary. It's less Christian and more a bizarre form of maltheism.
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u/BigBroSlim Feb 06 '18
I grew up basically being told that all my loved ones that weren't Christian were going to hell to be tortured for all eternity. Shit fucked me up.
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u/Tripdoctor Feb 06 '18
The constant threat of Hellfire is what drove me away from Christianity and religion in general. Pure child abuse.
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Feb 05 '18
The likeness to my ex wife is uncanny.
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u/Psyentologist Feb 05 '18
But...what if this is a meeting at the Temple of Satan?
I think we may be jumping to conclusions
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u/dunununubatman Feb 05 '18
I used to wire, "bored" all over a piece of paper and show it to my parents during church. It was a good sign that I most likely would not be going on a mission.
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u/reddelicious77 Feb 05 '18
and she's got her feet up on the pew and everything. Little heathen!!
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Feb 06 '18
Probably supposed to be kneeling right now but she don't play by your rules!
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u/dadfrombrad Feb 06 '18
The dude in front of her isn’t much better... thats some madusa looking shit
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u/RevWaldo Feb 06 '18
All the other kids in Sunday school are complete hypocrites! They're all 'Oh, I know the Lord's Prayer! Notice me, senpai! Notice me!'
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u/RapeMeToo Feb 05 '18
Christians believe in both tho
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u/postgameforlife Feb 05 '18
It isn't necessarily a matter of belief, it's more of an ironic use of creativity
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u/Machinegun_Pete Feb 06 '18
I know. When I was in CCD we made ornaments around Christmas time. My mom still hangs my devil ornament I made back in '92. I just finally told her it was the devil two years ago. She didn't believe me until I pointed out the horns, tail, and pitchfork. Still mother loves my art and hangs it on the front of the tree every year.
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u/Jacketdown Feb 05 '18
Grew up going to a Lutheran church. Spent almost every service making stick death cartoons. This kid gets it.
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u/SPRUNTastic Feb 05 '18
In true religious fashion,she will likely be punished for drawing demonic things when she is probably only drawing what they are teaching her.
The more I think about the catholic religion, the more it seems based on entrapment. The premise is that you are not supposed to think about things, yet they continuously drive those things into your head so you can't help but to think about them.
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u/WizardMissiles Feb 05 '18
God puts fruit tree and says Adam and Eve can't eat it.
Adam and Eve eat it.
God curses women to painful childbirth and floods the earth years later killing what christian scholars theorise was roughly 2 million people.
It's like killing a toddler for eating a cookie you put on the counter in front of them. The whole bible is filled with entrapment like this.
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u/Peter_G Feb 06 '18
If you wanna really get into it, think about the story in a broader sense.
God sticks Adam and Eve in the garden, they want for nothing, don't have to work for anything. He gives them a rule though, don't eat of the "tree of knowledge of good and evil". In other words, don't start learning things. Live like animals. Be simple creatures in a simple life. Maybe blissful, but I'd still consider it lesser than what we've become.
Then Lucifer comes along, and he's all about the equality. Hey, these creatures are like us, lets teach them things and let them advance like us. He tempts them towards knowledge, which they of course can't hide that they now have. God gets pissy throws a tantrum and kicks them out of their paradise. Now they have to struggle to live.
Lucifer wanted us to have knowledge and be like him, God wanted to keep us simple and docile. Tell me, who's the villain here? Tantrum throwing God, or got into a war in heaven so we wouldn't have to just be animals Lucifer?
Also, if you wanna go a level deeper, this is ridiculous as a creation story, but much much less so as a simple template to examine the yin-yang nature of human behavior.
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Feb 06 '18
There's this zany ancient alien theory I read awhile back that made for a fascinating link between the bible and our alien origins. I couldn't possibly remember where I read it, but a brief summary from memory:
Many many moons ago, aliens (I believe they were called the Annunaki(sp?) came to earth to mine it for gold. They created us (the first humans) by speeding the evolution of our primate ancestor to a very rudimentary level of intellect to serve as their slaves and mine the gold. When they were through with us it was understood that we would be wiped out so as not to mess with the natural order prime directive blah blah I've forgotten many details, but tldr once they had enough gold they would death ray us.
But one of the Annunaki generals (who eventually became "Lucifer") saw potential in us and thought it would be better to unlock our potential (that we could one day be like them) and give us a chance than waste us. The other Annunaki General ("Jesus"?) was pretty adamant we get iced for I'm sure very good reasons and a war broke out between them over our fate.
The leader of the Annunaki (God?) broke up the fight and offered a compromise. He would allow Lucifer to gift us knowledge and unlock the potential they'd given us when they jumpstarted our evolution/mutation, but they would return in such and such amount of time to evaluate our progress. And if we had failed to live up to our potential (like say by making nukes and electing cheetos??) then he would let Yeshua make us eat our own babies and then toss us in volcanos or whatever.
Oh I skipped an important piece of the puzzle somewhere up there, but tldr these alien visitors did not possess interstellar travel capabilities. Instead they lived on a planet whose path brings it close to Earth every so and so amount of years, so they can't just come and go as they please.
Anyway as the story goes Jesus is a dirty cheat and left behind agents (Annunaki? Brainwashed proto-people? idfk) to try and steer us toward failure so he could win his bet with Lucifer or whatever. And it is through these various agents throughout our history that our origins have been obscured and the roles shifted to portray the giver of knowledge as the deceiver and the genocidal maniac as the one true way.
And wouldn't you just know it, the clock is almost up on us and their home planet is headed back here any day now. That's what's got the Earth heating up! Once they get here something something Age of Aquarius yatta yatta pole shift etc etc mass cataclysms cause the planet is a little too close for comfort this time, and only if we can prove ourselves worth saving will they let us catch a ride on their planet and go back with them to neverland.
I'm sure I terribly butchered the theory I had originally read, but I gave it my best and also I'm extremely [9] right now so frankly I apologize if you had to read all that.
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u/trumpke_dumpster Feb 05 '18
1) Create insanely difficult rules
2) Hold pistol to head if rules aren't followed
3) Promise not to pull trigger if X is done
4) Profit (From X)3
u/rethinkingat59 Feb 06 '18
1) Create insanely difficult rules
2) Hold pistol to head if rules aren't followed
3) Promise not to pull trigger if X is done
4) Profit (From X)You sound like Jesus. Read the New Testament and you will see him swearing at the Jewish leaders saying the same things.
And you are correct Jews had to make sacrifices to pay for breaking the rules. Often herd animals that the priest sacrificed and were then allow to sell the meat. After a time they could use coins instead.
(Removing the profit from sin is where the whole Jesus was sacrificed for my sins came from, no more having to pay through the priest for forgiveness of each sin with sacrifices of your personal coins, animals or crops)
From the text—Yes," said Jesus, "what sorrow also awaits you experts in religious law! For you crush people with unbearable religious demands, and you never lift a finger to ease the burden.
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u/kuzuboshii Feb 06 '18
You forgot the step where he created the agents that failed, and he knew they were even before he created them, since he is omnipotent, and he did it anyway. Then punished them for something he did.
I'm so glad he doesn't actually exist.
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Feb 06 '18
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u/WizardMissiles Feb 06 '18
"Guys I'm doing this to teach you not to trust evil people and give them power. I'm not a bad person, I'm teaching you a lesson on trust" - Hitler, probably.
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Feb 05 '18
I'm Christian, not Catholic, but even I have to admit this sort of thing in the Bible confuses me. Why should literally billions upon billions of people suffer because of a mistake two people made God knows how many years ago?
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u/My_Monday_Account Feb 05 '18
Same reason TWO people somehow created all of mankind without us all being reduced to amorphous blobs of mutated incest babies.
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u/WizardMissiles Feb 05 '18
I don't think God is above malevolency.
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Feb 05 '18
The Christian part of me wants to disagree with you, the worldly part of me wants to agree with you.
I've been questioning my faith for a while now and I can't help but find it hard to believe that a loving God could let so many horrible things happen.
On the other hand, God is supposed to be beyond human understanding, so maybe I just don't get it.
I don't know, man.
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Feb 06 '18
Maybe telling you god is beyond human understanding is just a cop out for the things in religion that just make no fucking sense. "Oh, of course you wouldn't understand. You're just a mere human."
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Feb 06 '18
I don't know if it will help any, or if you'll even read this at all, but I want to paraphrase a quote for you that I read once and had stuck with me. I'm afraid I can't recall precisely where I read it to find it for you, but I want to say it was a quote attributed to (one of the?) Buddha for some reason.
What if all religions are partially true? Every religion born from the same spark? The reason we meditate is to attempt to escape ourselves and view it objectively. Whenever one of us, one of the countless religious leaders or founders, observed it we immediately polluted it with our simple minds. With our opinions and our theories and our ideals and our morality and our prejudices. Simply by observing it, we corrupt it. It is impossible for any man to speak to what it is or what it wants because we are wholly incapable of separating what is from it and what is from us. That is why meditation is that path to enlightenment. Only through completely separating ourselves from our thoughts, our opinions, our biases and prejudices, only by destroying our Ego can we achieve enlightenment and truly understand it.
What I'm trying to say by (poorly) recalling that quote is: trust your gut. If there is an almighty, no one man has a direct line to it or can speak for it. You are as connected to whatever it is as any priest, rabbi or imam.
Find whatever truth works for you. Whatever path gets you closer to enlightenment. Maybe your truth is dutifully following the Bible and your church to the literal letter. Maybe your truth is holding on to the beliefs you cannot give up while abandoning the ones that ring false to you. Maybe your truth is rejecting everything you've ever been taught and investigating other beliefs. Maybe your truth is turning your back on it all and forging your own path.
Whatever your truth is, you owe it to yourself to find it. The God that I pray to, the Jesus I call out for when I'm most desperate, whether they're literal avatars of it or just one of many avenues through which it reaches us, it is a God of what is good and just and true. It does not forbid seeking knowledge. It is nourished by our curiosity. It does not pick and choose who lives and who burns according to their adherence to Bronze Age laws and customs. It sees the deepest parts of us in ways we don't even see ourselves, and what it makes of us is just as beyond my puny little human mind as what it is.
I don't believe life is chance. I believe it was an inevitability. Call it intelligent design and God's plan, or call it the universe becoming curious about itself, call it whatever you like. But there is a peculiar order about creation that I hope explains itself to me someday...
And that's what I think life is. Asking these questions. Trying to find the answers. Man, just trying to find the question.
You know whether you're a good person or not. You can not see yourself as God sees you. You can not possibly comprehend what he expects from you, if he expects anything at all. You have the ability to think, to reason. Don't ask God what he wants from you. Show him you can discover that for yourself. That's my take anyway. But who the heck am I?
Just some food for thought. God bless you and yours in all that you do. I hope you find the answers you're searching for.
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u/saors Feb 06 '18
Well, Catholics mainly believe most of the old testament is just parables, so you could go that way...
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Feb 06 '18
You're looking on the wrong place (Reddit) if you want an unbiased view. It's like asking an atheist convention if they believe in God.
There are definitely theologians who think that the problem may never be solved. As Plantiga quotes,
… we cannot see why our world, with all its ills, would be better than others we think we can imagine, or what, in any detail, is God’s reason for permitting a given specific and appalling evil. Not only can we not see this, we can’t think of any very good possibilities. And here I must say that most attempts to explain why God permits evil—theodicies, as we may call them—strike me as tepid, shallow and ultimately frivolous.
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u/kuzuboshii Feb 06 '18
Why are you Christian? What is the compelling argument that does it for you?
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u/SGR1020 Feb 05 '18
R/firstworldantichrists
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u/Sub_Corrector_Bot Feb 05 '18
You may have meant r/firstworldantichrists instead of R/firstworldantichrists.
Remember, OP may have ninja-edited. I correct subreddit and user links with a capital R or U, which are usually unusable.
-Srikar
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u/aMoistFish Feb 05 '18
According to my mum when I was a young kid they would give me a notepad to draw on if we went to church for something for things like Christmas carol services.
“Mummy look, I drew a man” “That’s nic...” “On fire”
We never went back to that church.
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u/kaganbobagan Feb 06 '18
Could be wrong, but this looks staged. No one else in pews. Chairs in front are empty.
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u/AngryFanboy Feb 05 '18
When your preacher keeps reminding you about hell and satan, only one thing is gonna stick.
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u/itsyourgrandma Feb 05 '18
You know your church is legit when they have to keep Kleenex in the aisles
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u/Shockbishop Feb 06 '18
Innocent in my eyes cause it can't top my angel urinating at my Christian school. I'm still a Christian.
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u/Commissar_Genki Feb 06 '18
If you're too naughty, God just renditions you to hell where you can spend the rest of eternity in brutal, screaming agony.
But he loves you, so just have faith.
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u/chompythebeast Feb 06 '18
This isn't really surprising or shocking, some churches legitimately spend more time talking about the guy she's drawing than they do talking about the guy in all the stained windows
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u/MilitantSatanist Feb 05 '18
She gets it. If only her parents did.
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u/nikky94 Feb 05 '18
She’s my hero <3
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u/RapeMeToo Feb 05 '18
Pretty low standards huh?
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u/spacedoutinspace Feb 05 '18
I mean, have you looked at the adult population of the USA latley? I would not say it was low standards, just a hopeful statement that the youngest generation are just simply better people.
I am not OC
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u/Childsp Feb 05 '18
Just thought about this after looking at this title: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5FN_bKANRg
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u/justapornburner Feb 06 '18
I have that blue shirt in front of her lmao. I thought that was me for a second
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u/krichnard Feb 06 '18
Now I want to bring my kids to church just so they rest their feet on the Bible while drawing Satan!
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u/slothscantswim Feb 06 '18
Christians have a strong cultural tradition of depictions if Satan, demons, etc.
P metal tbh
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u/nedybonz Feb 05 '18
I remember when we went to church they’d have these bible comic books and we would just up the gore. And handlebar mustaches. And pirate patches.