I'm always loathe to use the bible to support much of anything. The sheer number of times it's been translated or new versions have come out is.. eye opening. My ex believed in the inviobility of the bible itself, despite the fact she had 3 bibles in 2 different languages that were all just a bit different, and that didn't include the fact that none of them were in any of the more "ancient" biblical languages. Word of God my rear end.
Even if it was written in perfect modern English with footnotes to precisely explain meaning over interpretation and the intro was just "DO NOT FUCKING REINTERPRET WHAT IS WRITTEN HERE" in giant font, it's a collection of material two to three thousand fucking years old, with some of the material considerably predating even that. It doesn't fucking apply to the modern world outside of stories about the basics of human nature and maybe a little (severely distorted) history of the region in which it was written. Even when it tries to be nice, the modern followers try to twist it all up into shit about vengeance and punishment.
Using the Bible for hard-line determination of modern situations is like asking an ancient Greek shepherd for the best genes to sequence to determine the parentage of a baby tortoise. It's a bunch of material so far out of date that the original adherents couldn't even understand that alternate philosophical ideas can exist, much less what modern sensibilities are. The only people who should have anything worthwhile to say about detailed interpretation of what the Bible says should be actual historians and linguists that understand something about the context of the times in which the various materials were collected; most everyone else is just a tremendously biased Christian theologians or people of the type who "researched" how bad the Covid vaccine is.
Basically, we shouldn't be fucking listening to a old book that "solves" problems with stoning or burning people to death.
“If a man meets a virgin who is not betrothed, and seizes her and lies with her, and they are found, then the man who lay with her shall give to the father of the young woman fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife, because he has violated her. He may not divorce her all his days."
An earlier verse in Exodus 22 at least states that the father may choose not to give up his daughter, though in the end the daughter's wishes are irrelevant.
The Christian apologetics website Got Questions addresses Deuteronomy 22:28-29 thusly:
In that culture, virginity was highly prized. It would have been very difficult for a woman who was not a virgin, and especially a woman who had been raped, to find a man to marry her. So Deuteronomy 22:28-29 could be viewed as merciful to the woman, who, because of the rape, would be considered unmarriageable. In that culture, a woman without a husband would have a very difficult time providing for herself. Unmarried women often had no choice but to sell themselves into slavery or prostitution just to survive. This is why the passage leaves marriage to the discretion of the father, because every situation is different, and it is better to be flexible than have a blanket rule.
Dueteronomy 22 also states that if a woman is found on her wedding night to not be a virgin after previously having led her betrothed to believe she was one that she must be stoned to death in front of her father's house.
Now, while it is true that John 8 in the New Testament has Jesus spare a woman accused of adultery (another capital punishment), the Old Testament verse commanding that those involved in adultery be put to death (good old Deuteronomy 22) specifies that both the married woman and the man are to be stoned, and that there should also be a witness who would cast the first stone. So Jesus isn't saying that no one should be stoned anymore (not here, at least), but that the conditions for execution according to the Law of Moses were not met. There's also the matter that people today disagree on whether the story of the adulteress was even originally in John and if it should be included in the Bible; defenders claim that it was perhaps removed by someone who feared that Jesus' perceived soft-on-adultery stance would make other women think they could get away with adultery.
Just so I don't spend this entire post quoting Dueteronomy 22 or NT verses citing it, I'll end things with a quote from Leviticus.
“If a priest’s daughter defiles herself by becoming a prostitute, she also defiles her father’s holiness, and she must be burned to death."
Stuff like this has always been a big problem for not only me, but a great number of people throughout the millenia who couldn't reconcile the generally good advice given by Jesus on how to treat others with the more brutal entries in the Old Testatment, especially since Jesus is supposed to be part of the same entity that inspired the Old Testament.
The 'positive' reading of most ancient legal and morality texts is that, in a state which lacks the financial and structural capability to provide any reasonable support and care to its populace, nor the ability (or even the concept) of a well trained professional police force whose job it is to fairly and equally protect all citizens from crime things like "The rapist shall be forced to marry his victim" were, in comparison to the alternative (The rapist shall get a big old thumbs up and the woman will be starved as a witch) the best that society could hope to achieve.
But this is a cautionary tale of the evils of the hamstrung state, and malfunctioning government. Without a well supported government, with well crafted laws, enforced by capable professionals (said with full awareness than many modern police forces do not meet this standard) the best a woman can hope for is to be forced to marry her rapist. An attack on abortion rights is a direct blow against women, but EVERY attack on government pushes us to the same end. If society and law is not supreme, then the fist is.
More relevant then the Bible itself, sure? But they're responsible for enough repugnant beliefs that I feel confident in jettisoning like 80% of their opinions.
I haven't read any social guide cover to cover; I'm just winging it
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I put the Bible up there with the founding fathers.
They're centuries old and have no bearing on modern life.
Textualism is even more bullshit with the Bible than with the Constitution, because of the larger remove from modern life but also because of it being a collection of texts written by different authors over a long period of time and translated into multiple languages before being codified into the forms we recognize it as today.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
I put the Bible up there with the founding fathers.
They're centuries old and have no bearing on modern life.
Textualism is even more bullshit with the Bible than with the Constitution, because of the larger remove from modern life but also because of it being a collection of texts written by different authors over a long period of time and translated into multiple languages before being codified into the forms we recognize it as today.
Also originally a bunch of it began as an oral tradition
I put the Bible up there with the founding fathers.
They're centuries old and have no bearing on modern life.
Textualism is even more bullshit with the Bible than with the Constitution, because of the larger remove from modern life but also because of it being a collection of texts written by different authors over a long period of time and translated into multiple languages before being codified into the forms we recognize it as today.
With selective editing! One passage was changed in one 20th century edition specifically to try and make abortion look worse.
Personally, I choose to follow the literal textual interpretation of a 1631 re-print of the King James bible: In this edition, Exodus 20:14 reads "Thou shalt commit adultery."
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
This is a very narrow reading, a common view is that Paul is providing an example of something that would constitute an offense comparable to adultery that would justify a divorce, and 1 Corinthians is not meant to be an exhaustive list of those things.
The issue is that when people believe interpreting something incorrectly means neverending torture not just for themselves but for others that they misled they don't like to take any chances. Well, except for the times when everybody forgets something Jesus spoke against or have created elaborate justifications to support an alternative interpretation (such as claims that Jesus' reference to the "eye of the needle" was talking about a narrow gate for camels, instead of the tailor's needle mentioned in Matthew and Mark or the surgeon's needle mentioned in Luke).
I put the Bible up there with the founding fathers.
They're centuries old and have no bearing on modern life.
Textualism is even more bullshit with the Bible than with the Constitution, because of the larger remove from modern life but also because of it being a collection of texts written by different authors over a long period of time and translated into multiple languages before being codified into the forms we recognize it as today.
With selective editing! One passage was changed in one 20th century edition specifically to try and make abortion look worse.
Depending on the trajectory of the next 5 years, I'd be willing to bet that a "true Bible" edition will become standard amongst the evangelical alt-right.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
This is a very narrow reading, a common view is that Paul is providing an example of something that would constitute an offense comparable to adultery that would justify a divorce, and 1 Corinthians is not meant to be an exhaustive list of those things.
The issue is that when people believe interpreting something incorrectly means neverending torture not just for themselves but for others that they misled they don't like to take any chances. Well, except for the times when everybody forgets something Jesus spoke against or have created elaborate justifications to support an alternative interpretation (such as claims that Jesus' reference to the "eye of the needle" was talking about a narrow gate for camels, instead of the tailor's needle mentioned in Matthew and Mark or the surgeon's needle mentioned in Luke).
All the translations I've seen just talk about a needle. Where do you get the tailor/surgeon bit from? Genuine question.
I put the Bible up there with the founding fathers.
They're centuries old and have no bearing on modern life.
Textualism is even more bullshit with the Bible than with the Constitution, because of the larger remove from modern life but also because of it being a collection of texts written by different authors over a long period of time and translated into multiple languages before being codified into the forms we recognize it as today.
With selective editing! One passage was changed in one 20th century edition specifically to try and make abortion look worse.
Depending on the trajectory of the next 5 years, I'd be willing to bet that a "true Bible" edition will become standard amongst the evangelical alt-right.
Didn't the conservopedia guys try this some years back?
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
This is a very narrow reading, a common view is that Paul is providing an example of something that would constitute an offense comparable to adultery that would justify a divorce, and 1 Corinthians is not meant to be an exhaustive list of those things.
The issue is that when people believe interpreting something incorrectly means neverending torture not just for themselves but for others that they misled they don't like to take any chances. Well, except for the times when everybody forgets something Jesus spoke against or have created elaborate justifications to support an alternative interpretation (such as claims that Jesus' reference to the "eye of the needle" was talking about a narrow gate for camels, instead of the tailor's needle mentioned in Matthew and Mark or the surgeon's needle mentioned in Luke).
All the translations I've seen just talk about a needle. Where do you get the tailor/surgeon bit from? Genuine question.
Matthew and Mark use the word Greek word Rhaphidos, which means sewing needle. Luke instead uses the word Belones, which referred to a smaller needle used by surgeons.
The quotations of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all show him likening a rich person getting into Heaven to a camel passing through the eye of a needle, an impossible act. The latter invention that there was a gate called an eye of the needle that a camel could just barely get through with effort is just a means to change a wealthy person getting into Heaven from an impossibility to something that can happen rarely.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
This is a very narrow reading, a common view is that Paul is providing an example of something that would constitute an offense comparable to adultery that would justify a divorce, and 1 Corinthians is not meant to be an exhaustive list of those things.
The issue is that when people believe interpreting something incorrectly means neverending torture not just for themselves but for others that they misled they don't like to take any chances. Well, except for the times when everybody forgets something Jesus spoke against or have created elaborate justifications to support an alternative interpretation (such as claims that Jesus' reference to the "eye of the needle" was talking about a narrow gate for camels, instead of the tailor's needle mentioned in Matthew and Mark or the surgeon's needle mentioned in Luke).
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
I mean I can’t imagine a modern church getting up and saying “abortion is kind of ok, as long as you have a good reason for it, alcohol is great as long as you don’t get sloppy drunk, but you shouldn’t try to get rich and should give away anything you accumulate over what you legitimately need to survive, and also try to be celibate but if you absolutely can’t help it go ahead and get married so you can fuck. But we’re not advocating it, if you do it is on you.”
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
This is a very narrow reading, a common view is that Paul is providing an example of something that would constitute an offense comparable to adultery that would justify a divorce, and 1 Corinthians is not meant to be an exhaustive list of those things.
The issue is that when people believe interpreting something incorrectly means neverending torture not just for themselves but for others that they misled they don't like to take any chances. Well, except for the times when everybody forgets something Jesus spoke against or have created elaborate justifications to support an alternative interpretation (such as claims that Jesus' reference to the "eye of the needle" was talking about a narrow gate for camels, instead of the tailor's needle mentioned in Matthew and Mark or the surgeon's needle mentioned in Luke).
All the translations I've seen just talk about a needle. Where do you get the tailor/surgeon bit from? Genuine question.
Matthew and Mark use the word Greek word Rhaphidos, which means sewing needle. Luke instead uses the word Belones, which referred to a smaller needle used by surgeons.
The quotations of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all show him likening a rich person getting into Heaven to a camel passing through the eye of a needle, an impossible act. The latter invention that there was a gate called an eye of the needle that a camel could just barely get through with effort is just a means to change a wealthy person getting into Heaven from an impossibility to something that can happen rarely.
If memory serves, there's also a debate on whether camel itself is the result of a clerical error at some point - the Greek for cable is very close, and obviously a thick rope makes a lot more sense for the analogy.
Honestly, I'm curious if the Religious Right will eventually turn its crosshairs on limiting divorce should they have their way regarding abortion. Going by the New Testament, divorce is only ever permitted if a person's spouse commits adultery or in the case of a non-Christian spouse leaving a Christian spouse. Notice that spousal abuse is not mentioned, which leads to interpretations like this:
The Bible never commands divorce, even in the case of abuse. The Bible specifies two acceptable reasons for divorce: abandonment of a Christian by an unbelieving spouse (1 Corinthians 7:15) and adultery (Matthew 5:32). Since the Bible does not list abuse as an acceptable reason for divorce, we are careful to limit our advice to separation.
Every sane interpretation of that considers abuse to be a form of unfaithfulness. The abuser has broken their vows; the victim has no obligation to stay.
This is a very narrow reading, a common view is that Paul is providing an example of something that would constitute an offense comparable to adultery that would justify a divorce, and 1 Corinthians is not meant to be an exhaustive list of those things.
The issue is that when people believe interpreting something incorrectly means neverending torture not just for themselves but for others that they misled they don't like to take any chances. Well, except for the times when everybody forgets something Jesus spoke against or have created elaborate justifications to support an alternative interpretation (such as claims that Jesus' reference to the "eye of the needle" was talking about a narrow gate for camels, instead of the tailor's needle mentioned in Matthew and Mark or the surgeon's needle mentioned in Luke).
All the translations I've seen just talk about a needle. Where do you get the tailor/surgeon bit from? Genuine question.
Matthew and Mark use the word Greek word Rhaphidos, which means sewing needle. Luke instead uses the word Belones, which referred to a smaller needle used by surgeons.
The quotations of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all show him likening a rich person getting into Heaven to a camel passing through the eye of a needle, an impossible act. The latter invention that there was a gate called an eye of the needle that a camel could just barely get through with effort is just a means to change a wealthy person getting into Heaven from an impossibility to something that can happen rarely.
If memory serves, there's also a debate on whether camel itself is the result of a clerical error at some point - the Greek for cable is very close, and obviously a thick rope makes a lot more sense for the analogy.
I saw this, too. While that could be possible, apparently the Talmud has a phrase similar to the one attributed to Jesus, albeit with an elephant instead of a camel.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
The hot button issues for the Religious Right are abortion and opposition to LBGT+ rights, but in the Gospels neither of those issues is mentioned, with Jesus instead consistently condemning the rich:
Jesus watches the wealthy giving tithe without comment but jumps up and praises a poor woman giving the only bit of money she possessed, saying that she is the one who gave the most.
When describing people experiencing the afterlife, Jesus tells of a poor beggar being rewarded after death and a rich man being condemned to everlasting suffering because "he received his good things in life." As a sidenote, 1st Enoch (a popular text of the time that is quoted in the New Testament in Jude) states that only the unrighteous who received their good things in life would suffer eternal torment, with the unrighteous who did not receive good things in life condemned to something more along the lines of Limbo, still separate from God but not in neverending agony.
When a young rich man asks what he can do to enter Heaven, Jesus replies "sell everything you have and follow me." The young rich man leaves, saddened.
In Jesus' most memorable "eat the rich" moment, he gets a scourge made from cords and chases merchants from the temple while pouring out their money and flipping over the tables. This story is related in all four Gospels (whereas the virgin birth of Jesus is only in Matthew and Luke).
It's been 25 years since I had any kind of religion. But it really did always confuse me why the pro life movement at the time never tried to appeal to a more secular demographic by appealing to something other than religious fervor. I mean, it's still no reason to make laws limiting abortion. Science says open abortion laws are simply better for society on the whole. But no nuanced discussion even happens period. It's all so black and white.
People shy away from it. Hell, people shy away from discussions about whether you should be the primary caregiver or work a job and pay someone else to do it, and that's talking about what to do with children - we're just not able to have a clear-headed discussion about when / whether a child even exists and what, if anything, a woman is allowed to do to change that situation. We can't do it. We can't even do it here. Earlier in this very thread somebody asked me to kindly fuck off for simply stating it was possible to have a moral objection to abortion and still support abortion rights.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
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Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
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Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
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Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Absolutely. Though in fairness as was mentioned Paul literally thought the world was ending within a generation or two, his proscribed lifestyle would probably not be sustainable over the long term (its hard to keep a movement going when no one gets married and has children afterall). Paul also has some ideas that are problematic from a modern sense (he definitely wasn’t gay friendly and he was definitely patriarchal in a way that Jesus if judged by the text of the gospels was not).
Its funny though that the proto-socialist/anarchist and anti-wealth and anti-religious-authority points are often forgotten, as those are really mostly the only actual moral teachings attributable to Christ himself, other than the one somewhat odd aside against divorce (which can be read as “don’t just casually toss aside your spouse for no reason”, more than “don’t divorce or seperate from your spouse for any reason ever”).
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
:
Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Absolutely. Though in fairness as was mentioned Paul literally thought the world was ending within a generation or two, his proscribed lifestyle would probably not be sustainable over the long term (its hard to keep a movement going when no one gets married and has children afterall). Paul also has some ideas that are problematic from a modern sense (he definitely wasn’t gay friendly and he was definitely patriarchal in a way that Jesus if judged by the text of the gospels was not).
Its funny though that the proto-socialist/anarchist and anti-wealth and anti-religious-authority points are often forgotten, as those are really mostly the only actual moral teachings attributable to Christ himself, other than the one somewhat odd aside against divorce (which can be read as “don’t just casually toss aside your spouse for no reason”, more than “don’t divorce or seperate from your spouse for any reason ever”).
So, Paul was a stereotypical modern evangelical? Only thinking about his own ascension above the continued betterment of society, and misinterpreting the teachings of the word of Jesus.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
:
Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Is that evangelical canon in the U.S. ? To like just completely cut out the old testament? I come from Canadian evangelical missionary stock, and that shit is just WILD to me.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
:
Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Is that evangelical canon in the U.S. ? To like just completely cut out the old testament? I come from Canadian evangelical missionary stock, and that shit is just WILD to me.
Definitely not. It's not uncommon to find Bibles that only contain some subset of the canonical books, though (and are clearly labeled as such) for more or less the same reasons as you can find abridged versions of classic literature (more approachable, cheaper to print, physically smaller, etc.)
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Paul sucks.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
:
Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Is that evangelical canon in the U.S. ? To like just completely cut out the old testament? I come from Canadian evangelical missionary stock, and that shit is just WILD to me.
Definitely not. It's not uncommon to find Bibles that only contain some subset of the canonical books, though (and are clearly labeled as such) for more or less the same reasons as you can find abridged versions of classic literature (more approachable, cheaper to print, physically smaller, etc.)
Many of those abridged versions have verses and chapters that are, if one is being generous, "interpreted" in such a way as to be completely indistinct from fan fiction.
A large part of the US version of evangelical writing and/or preaching that's made up on the spot without any kind of scholarship or even a vague connection to the cannons or past work.
They're so allergic to expertise or scholarship that they've spent the better part of three centuries vilifying the Catholic side, in part, for exactly that. They rather like living in their own little religious world unconnected to anything else.
All opinions are my own and in no way reflect that of my employer.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
:
Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Absolutely. Though in fairness as was mentioned Paul literally thought the world was ending within a generation or two, his proscribed lifestyle would probably not be sustainable over the long term (its hard to keep a movement going when no one gets married and has children afterall). Paul also has some ideas that are problematic from a modern sense (he definitely wasn’t gay friendly and he was definitely patriarchal in a way that Jesus if judged by the text of the gospels was not).
Its funny though that the proto-socialist/anarchist and anti-wealth and anti-religious-authority points are often forgotten, as those are really mostly the only actual moral teachings attributable to Christ himself, other than the one somewhat odd aside against divorce (which can be read as “don’t just casually toss aside your spouse for no reason”, more than “don’t divorce or seperate from your spouse for any reason ever”).
So, Paul was a stereotypical modern evangelical? Only thinking about his own ascension above the continued betterment of society, and misinterpreting the teachings of the word of Jesus.
Well, he was fairly liberal compared to his contemporaries, and other leaders of “new religious movements”,but at the same time a lot of his views don’t quite square with those we can directly read or implied from the description of Jesus in the
Which, really, Paul was just a recognized leader writing letters and trying to give people advice and help them organize, his writings in a way have blown up far past what they were intended as. I don’t think theres much textual evidence at all that he intended to be laying out the canonical basis for organized Christianity (and the ones that do claim to do that, like the Pastoral Epistles, are suspected to have been forgeries.)
I do think Paul was more genuinely sincere in his beliefs than many modern evangelical leaders.
Jealous Deva on
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Munkus BeaverYou don't have to attend every argument you are invited to.Philosophy: Stoicism. Politics: Democratic SocialistRegistered User, ClubPAregular
Oh there's no doubt that Paul was sincere.
He's just a huge asshole and you can trace the church's misogyny and homophobia directly to him.
Humor can be dissected as a frog can, but dies in the process.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
:
Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Absolutely. Though in fairness as was mentioned Paul literally thought the world was ending within a generation or two, his proscribed lifestyle would probably not be sustainable over the long term (its hard to keep a movement going when no one gets married and has children afterall). Paul also has some ideas that are problematic from a modern sense (he definitely wasn’t gay friendly and he was definitely patriarchal in a way that Jesus if judged by the text of the gospels was not).
Its funny though that the proto-socialist/anarchist and anti-wealth and anti-religious-authority points are often forgotten, as those are really mostly the only actual moral teachings attributable to Christ himself, other than the one somewhat odd aside against divorce (which can be read as “don’t just casually toss aside your spouse for no reason”, more than “don’t divorce or seperate from your spouse for any reason ever”).
So, Paul was a stereotypical modern evangelical? Only thinking about his own ascension above the continued betterment of society, and misinterpreting the teachings of the word of Jesus.
No. He lived 2,000 years ago and had the attitudes of that time. Modern evangelicals are trying to cosplay Paul. He didn’t get much out of it, financially, and insisted on working his trade (tent maker) to support himself.
The one that gets me is prosperity gospel - literally the opposite is taught in the bible. And it's not subtle or subtext. Jesus is pretty explict about it.
In this moment, I am euphoric. Not because of any phony god’s blessing. But because, I am enlightened by my intelligence.
Yeah where's the "utterly destroys a temple like that scene in Walking Tall" gospel
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
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ShadowfireVermont, in the middle of nowhereRegistered Userregular
The one that gets me is prosperity gospel - literally the opposite is taught in the bible. And it's not subtle or subtext. Jesus is pretty explict about it.
The one that gets me is prosperity gospel - literally the opposite is taught in the bible. And it's not subtle or subtext. Jesus is pretty explict about it.
He flips some tables and whips folks about it!
Yep. Greed is one of the few (only?) defined things where Jesus engages in physical violence. And I can't recall him ever apologising for it (my study of scripture ended several decades ago), it's a pretty fundamental (hah!) part of his philosophy, that significant worldly gains are not virtuous.
The one that gets me is prosperity gospel - literally the opposite is taught in the bible. And it's not subtle or subtext. Jesus is pretty explict about it.
In the OT God made a covenant with Abraham to bless his descendants, and many times in the OT God blesses Israel and His chosen people when they please him and does things like send disasters or enemy nations against them when they sin against him, like when they worship other gods. There are instances in the OT where it is acknowledged that sometimes bad things happen to good people and good things to bad people, but at that point the view was that death was the great equalizer, with bleak and dismal Sheol the destination of all. By Jesus' time, though, this thinking had shifted. By then it was widely accepted that rather than death being the great equalizer, Sheol instead had compartments for the righteous and the damned, with those who received their good things in life often counted among the damned.
The Prosperity Gospel looks more to the OT and certain cherrypicked verses from the NT for support and was, in part, an invention of James Fifield. Fifield was a minister in Los Angeles who told his wealthy congregants that they were rich because God had blessed them, in opposition to American preachers of the time who had much stronger pro-socialism and pro-union ideals. Business leaders were afraid of popular sentiment turning further against them, especially after FDR's New Deal, so Fifield was recruited by people like Herbert Hoover and J. Howard Pew (president of Sunoco) to preach against the evils of "pagan statism" and convince other clergymen to do the same.
So, basically, capitalists got a heretic to claim that socialism was evil as part of an effort to pretend capitalism is Christian, and it largely worked.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
:
Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Absolutely. Though in fairness as was mentioned Paul literally thought the world was ending within a generation or two, his proscribed lifestyle would probably not be sustainable over the long term (its hard to keep a movement going when no one gets married and has children afterall). Paul also has some ideas that are problematic from a modern sense (he definitely wasn’t gay friendly and he was definitely patriarchal in a way that Jesus if judged by the text of the gospels was not).
Its funny though that the proto-socialist/anarchist and anti-wealth and anti-religious-authority points are often forgotten, as those are really mostly the only actual moral teachings attributable to Christ himself, other than the one somewhat odd aside against divorce (which can be read as “don’t just casually toss aside your spouse for no reason”, more than “don’t divorce or seperate from your spouse for any reason ever”).
So, Paul was a stereotypical modern evangelical? Only thinking about his own ascension above the continued betterment of society, and misinterpreting the teachings of the word of Jesus.
Paul is pretty much the reason Christianity is as widespread as it is today. When it began Christianity was basically several small sects of Judaism that disagreed over certain ideas, but when Paul (a Jew himself) converted he argued that Gentiles could be Christians, saying that Christians were united in Christ so that there was no longer Jew nor Gentile. Furthermore, he said that they did not have to be circumcised, follow kosher (going so far as to say that nothing was truly unclean), and in general did not have to follow most of what Judaism asked of its followers. He travelled all over the Roman world preaching to Gentiles (at times getting arrested or attacked) and his letters to the early churches that are included in the New Testament actually predate the four Gospels themselves.
Man (30) rapes girl (16). Illegal even if his claims it was consensual are true. Finds out she was pregnant and gave birth. Got joint custody about a decade ago. Now has sole custody, and the girl (now woman) must pay child support.
EDIT- And the argument for stripping the mother of her custody, and granting sole custody to this scumbag? Mother bought child a cellphone. That's apparently it. The act that pretty much is universal for parents nowadays, was enough to strip custody? I don't know what to say.
Shit like this is the reason why abortion needs to be available everywhere, with no stigma attached. It would have still been her choice, but I would bet everything I own that at least part of the determinative factor is that it's Louisiana, and even if there were resources available, I doubt they were easy to come by, and the social stigma would have pressured her not to have it, so really, she wasn't given a choice.
But fucking hell, I can't even begin to imagine the fucking hubris of that asshole, or the grief he has put on this girl/woman. And the potential psychological damage to this child. And the various courts, fuck the lot of them.
Man (30) rapes girl (16). Illegal even if his claims it was consensual are true. Finds out she was pregnant and gave birth. Got joint custody about a decade ago. Now has sole custody, and the girl (now woman) must pay child support.
EDIT- And the argument for stripping the mother of her custody, and granting sole custody to this scumbag? Mother bought child a cellphone. That's apparently it. The act that pretty much is universal for parents nowadays, was enough to strip custody? I don't know what to say.
Shit like this is the reason why abortion needs to be available everywhere, with no stigma attached. It would have still been her choice, but I would bet everything I own that at least part of the determinative factor is that it's Louisiana, and even if there were resources available, I doubt they were easy to come by, and the social stigma would have pressured her not to have it, so really, she wasn't given a choice.
But fucking hell, I can't even begin to imagine the fucking hubris of that asshole, or the grief he has put on this girl/woman. And the potential psychological damage to this child. And the various courts, fuck the lot of them.
Just furious.
"He's well connected," Abelseth said. "He's threatened me multiple times, saying he has connections in the justice system, so I better be careful and he can take her away anytime he wants to. I didn't believe him until it happened."
The Iowa Supreme Court just ruled that Iowans DO NOT have a constitutional right to an abortion, overturning a 2018 ruling that said the opposite. Iowa was one of the few Midwestern states that protected the right to an abortion. Now, that's gone.
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Even if it was written in perfect modern English with footnotes to precisely explain meaning over interpretation and the intro was just "DO NOT FUCKING REINTERPRET WHAT IS WRITTEN HERE" in giant font, it's a collection of material two to three thousand fucking years old, with some of the material considerably predating even that. It doesn't fucking apply to the modern world outside of stories about the basics of human nature and maybe a little (severely distorted) history of the region in which it was written. Even when it tries to be nice, the modern followers try to twist it all up into shit about vengeance and punishment.
Using the Bible for hard-line determination of modern situations is like asking an ancient Greek shepherd for the best genes to sequence to determine the parentage of a baby tortoise. It's a bunch of material so far out of date that the original adherents couldn't even understand that alternate philosophical ideas can exist, much less what modern sensibilities are. The only people who should have anything worthwhile to say about detailed interpretation of what the Bible says should be actual historians and linguists that understand something about the context of the times in which the various materials were collected; most everyone else is just a tremendously biased Christian theologians or people of the type who "researched" how bad the Covid vaccine is.
Basically, we shouldn't be fucking listening to a old book that "solves" problems with stoning or burning people to death.
The 'positive' reading of most ancient legal and morality texts is that, in a state which lacks the financial and structural capability to provide any reasonable support and care to its populace, nor the ability (or even the concept) of a well trained professional police force whose job it is to fairly and equally protect all citizens from crime things like "The rapist shall be forced to marry his victim" were, in comparison to the alternative (The rapist shall get a big old thumbs up and the woman will be starved as a witch) the best that society could hope to achieve.
But this is a cautionary tale of the evils of the hamstrung state, and malfunctioning government. Without a well supported government, with well crafted laws, enforced by capable professionals (said with full awareness than many modern police forces do not meet this standard) the best a woman can hope for is to be forced to marry her rapist. An attack on abortion rights is a direct blow against women, but EVERY attack on government pushes us to the same end. If society and law is not supreme, then the fist is.
They're centuries old and have no bearing on modern life.
I think the founders are far more relevant, really, in both practical and philosophical terms
It also stands to show how the founders thought religion was horseshit
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Textualism is even more bullshit with the Bible than with the Constitution, because of the larger remove from modern life but also because of it being a collection of texts written by different authors over a long period of time and translated into multiple languages before being codified into the forms we recognize it as today.
Also originally a bunch of it began as an oral tradition
With selective editing! One passage was changed in one 20th century edition specifically to try and make abortion look worse.
The issue is that when people believe interpreting something incorrectly means neverending torture not just for themselves but for others that they misled they don't like to take any chances. Well, except for the times when everybody forgets something Jesus spoke against or have created elaborate justifications to support an alternative interpretation (such as claims that Jesus' reference to the "eye of the needle" was talking about a narrow gate for camels, instead of the tailor's needle mentioned in Matthew and Mark or the surgeon's needle mentioned in Luke).
Depending on the trajectory of the next 5 years, I'd be willing to bet that a "true Bible" edition will become standard amongst the evangelical alt-right.
All the translations I've seen just talk about a needle. Where do you get the tailor/surgeon bit from? Genuine question.
Didn't the conservopedia guys try this some years back?
Matthew and Mark use the word Greek word Rhaphidos, which means sewing needle. Luke instead uses the word Belones, which referred to a smaller needle used by surgeons.
The quotations of Jesus in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) all show him likening a rich person getting into Heaven to a camel passing through the eye of a needle, an impossible act. The latter invention that there was a gate called an eye of the needle that a camel could just barely get through with effort is just a means to change a wealthy person getting into Heaven from an impossibility to something that can happen rarely.
Yeah I think the big factor is that interpretation depends on preconception more than anything else. For example current Evangelicals are big on wealth, big on marriage, down on alcohol, down on abortion, so those are the interpretations that get taught, where a clear reading of the text basically says little on abortion and what it does say is broadly permissive, is very openly and clearly permissive of alcohol (to the point I automatically assume anyone arguing from a temperance interpretation of the text is flat out arguing in bad faith, “alcohol is cool as long as you don’t get flagrantly drunk and sin because of it” is really the only possible textual interpretation given the absolutely pervasive direct textual support for that position), is very much against accumulation of wealth (again to the point that anyone who has read the text and is arguing for another interpretation has to be suspected a little of bad faith), and is discouraging but permissive of marriage.
I mean I can’t imagine a modern church getting up and saying “abortion is kind of ok, as long as you have a good reason for it, alcohol is great as long as you don’t get sloppy drunk, but you shouldn’t try to get rich and should give away anything you accumulate over what you legitimately need to survive, and also try to be celibate but if you absolutely can’t help it go ahead and get married so you can fuck. But we’re not advocating it, if you do it is on you.”
If memory serves, there's also a debate on whether camel itself is the result of a clerical error at some point - the Greek for cable is very close, and obviously a thick rope makes a lot more sense for the analogy.
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I saw this, too. While that could be possible, apparently the Talmud has a phrase similar to the one attributed to Jesus, albeit with an elephant instead of a camel.
Regarding marriage, Paul does seem to be saying in one of his letters that since the Second Coming is soon (as in, Paul seems to believe that he'll live to see it) Christians should remain celibate (unless they absolutely can't keep it in their pants) and that even married couples should act as if they weren't, as marriage causes people to worry about worldly things when they should instead be dwelling on God and preparing for the Second Coming. It also adds a bit of additional context to Paul's repeated advice to slaves that they should submit to their worldly masters; after all, why worry about freedom now when the world's going to end any day now and you'll go to eternal paradise anyway?
The hot button issues for the Religious Right are abortion and opposition to LBGT+ rights, but in the Gospels neither of those issues is mentioned, with Jesus instead consistently condemning the rich:
- Jesus watches the wealthy giving tithe without comment but jumps up and praises a poor woman giving the only bit of money she possessed, saying that she is the one who gave the most.
- When describing people experiencing the afterlife, Jesus tells of a poor beggar being rewarded after death and a rich man being condemned to everlasting suffering because "he received his good things in life." As a sidenote, 1st Enoch (a popular text of the time that is quoted in the New Testament in Jude) states that only the unrighteous who received their good things in life would suffer eternal torment, with the unrighteous who did not receive good things in life condemned to something more along the lines of Limbo, still separate from God but not in neverending agony.
- When a young rich man asks what he can do to enter Heaven, Jesus replies "sell everything you have and follow me." The young rich man leaves, saddened.
- In Jesus' most memorable "eat the rich" moment, he gets a scourge made from cords and chases merchants from the temple while pouring out their money and flipping over the tables. This story is related in all four Gospels (whereas the virgin birth of Jesus is only in Matthew and Luke).
:People shy away from it. Hell, people shy away from discussions about whether you should be the primary caregiver or work a job and pay someone else to do it, and that's talking about what to do with children - we're just not able to have a clear-headed discussion about when / whether a child even exists and what, if anything, a woman is allowed to do to change that situation. We can't do it. We can't even do it here. Earlier in this very thread somebody asked me to kindly fuck off for simply stating it was possible to have a moral objection to abortion and still support abortion rights.
Yeah, it is very interesting to read the epistles in the New Testament because it is clear that Paul and the other writers are writing about and to a church that is VERY VERY different from the state-supported Roman and medieval churches that came after and by extension the Catholic and Orthodox churches of today and also VERY VERY different from modern protestant and evangelical churches.
Like in another thread I mentioned how western practitioners of Buddhism and Taoism seemed like people took the holy texts of a religion and formed a new religion based on it based on their own preconceptions and biases with little regard for how those religions were actually practiced historically or today in the east (though in fairness IIRC you can find historical writing from Buddhists in India and SE asia from centuries ago about how Chinese Buddhists are ‘Doing it Wrong’ and just layering Chinese religion and culture on top of Buddhism too), but in a lot of ways you can level the same charge against modern Christianity.
Honestly one of the reasons I went from a Christian as a child to an agnostic today is because I realized how little modern Christians actually follow what the Bible says or even know what it says. For example, my stepmother is one of the most religious people I know in terms of how much time she spends each week consuming religious content, but her personal Bible doesn't even have the Old Testament and most of the Bible study she gets is from the interpretations of both her preacher and TV preachers on TBN who never really go into the details of the lifestyle Jesus and Paul prescribed.
Absolutely. Though in fairness as was mentioned Paul literally thought the world was ending within a generation or two, his proscribed lifestyle would probably not be sustainable over the long term (its hard to keep a movement going when no one gets married and has children afterall). Paul also has some ideas that are problematic from a modern sense (he definitely wasn’t gay friendly and he was definitely patriarchal in a way that Jesus if judged by the text of the gospels was not).
Its funny though that the proto-socialist/anarchist and anti-wealth and anti-religious-authority points are often forgotten, as those are really mostly the only actual moral teachings attributable to Christ himself, other than the one somewhat odd aside against divorce (which can be read as “don’t just casually toss aside your spouse for no reason”, more than “don’t divorce or seperate from your spouse for any reason ever”).
So, Paul was a stereotypical modern evangelical? Only thinking about his own ascension above the continued betterment of society, and misinterpreting the teachings of the word of Jesus.
Is that evangelical canon in the U.S. ? To like just completely cut out the old testament? I come from Canadian evangelical missionary stock, and that shit is just WILD to me.
Definitely not. It's not uncommon to find Bibles that only contain some subset of the canonical books, though (and are clearly labeled as such) for more or less the same reasons as you can find abridged versions of classic literature (more approachable, cheaper to print, physically smaller, etc.)
Many of those abridged versions have verses and chapters that are, if one is being generous, "interpreted" in such a way as to be completely indistinct from fan fiction.
A large part of the US version of evangelical writing and/or preaching that's made up on the spot without any kind of scholarship or even a vague connection to the cannons or past work.
They're so allergic to expertise or scholarship that they've spent the better part of three centuries vilifying the Catholic side, in part, for exactly that. They rather like living in their own little religious world unconnected to anything else.
Well, he was fairly liberal compared to his contemporaries, and other leaders of “new religious movements”,but at the same time a lot of his views don’t quite square with those we can directly read or implied from the description of Jesus in the
Which, really, Paul was just a recognized leader writing letters and trying to give people advice and help them organize, his writings in a way have blown up far past what they were intended as. I don’t think theres much textual evidence at all that he intended to be laying out the canonical basis for organized Christianity (and the ones that do claim to do that, like the Pastoral Epistles, are suspected to have been forgeries.)
I do think Paul was more genuinely sincere in his beliefs than many modern evangelical leaders.
He's just a huge asshole and you can trace the church's misogyny and homophobia directly to him.
No. He lived 2,000 years ago and had the attitudes of that time. Modern evangelicals are trying to cosplay Paul. He didn’t get much out of it, financially, and insisted on working his trade (tent maker) to support himself.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
He flips some tables and whips folks about it!
Yep. Greed is one of the few (only?) defined things where Jesus engages in physical violence. And I can't recall him ever apologising for it (my study of scripture ended several decades ago), it's a pretty fundamental (hah!) part of his philosophy, that significant worldly gains are not virtuous.
In the OT God made a covenant with Abraham to bless his descendants, and many times in the OT God blesses Israel and His chosen people when they please him and does things like send disasters or enemy nations against them when they sin against him, like when they worship other gods. There are instances in the OT where it is acknowledged that sometimes bad things happen to good people and good things to bad people, but at that point the view was that death was the great equalizer, with bleak and dismal Sheol the destination of all. By Jesus' time, though, this thinking had shifted. By then it was widely accepted that rather than death being the great equalizer, Sheol instead had compartments for the righteous and the damned, with those who received their good things in life often counted among the damned.
The Prosperity Gospel looks more to the OT and certain cherrypicked verses from the NT for support and was, in part, an invention of James Fifield. Fifield was a minister in Los Angeles who told his wealthy congregants that they were rich because God had blessed them, in opposition to American preachers of the time who had much stronger pro-socialism and pro-union ideals. Business leaders were afraid of popular sentiment turning further against them, especially after FDR's New Deal, so Fifield was recruited by people like Herbert Hoover and J. Howard Pew (president of Sunoco) to preach against the evils of "pagan statism" and convince other clergymen to do the same.
So, basically, capitalists got a heretic to claim that socialism was evil as part of an effort to pretend capitalism is Christian, and it largely worked.
Paul is pretty much the reason Christianity is as widespread as it is today. When it began Christianity was basically several small sects of Judaism that disagreed over certain ideas, but when Paul (a Jew himself) converted he argued that Gentiles could be Christians, saying that Christians were united in Christ so that there was no longer Jew nor Gentile. Furthermore, he said that they did not have to be circumcised, follow kosher (going so far as to say that nothing was truly unclean), and in general did not have to follow most of what Judaism asked of its followers. He travelled all over the Roman world preaching to Gentiles (at times getting arrested or attacked) and his letters to the early churches that are included in the New Testament actually predate the four Gospels themselves.
"INVESTIGATIVE UNIT: Rape victim ordered to pay her abuser child support"
Man (30) rapes girl (16). Illegal even if his claims it was consensual are true. Finds out she was pregnant and gave birth. Got joint custody about a decade ago. Now has sole custody, and the girl (now woman) must pay child support.
EDIT- And the argument for stripping the mother of her custody, and granting sole custody to this scumbag? Mother bought child a cellphone. That's apparently it. The act that pretty much is universal for parents nowadays, was enough to strip custody? I don't know what to say.
Shit like this is the reason why abortion needs to be available everywhere, with no stigma attached. It would have still been her choice, but I would bet everything I own that at least part of the determinative factor is that it's Louisiana, and even if there were resources available, I doubt they were easy to come by, and the social stigma would have pressured her not to have it, so really, she wasn't given a choice.
But fucking hell, I can't even begin to imagine the fucking hubris of that asshole, or the grief he has put on this girl/woman. And the potential psychological damage to this child. And the various courts, fuck the lot of them.
Just furious.
Sounds like some heads need to roll.
Figuratively.
Iowa: "Fuck precedent or consistency."