After the rapture failed to happen on Tuesday, many Christians are blaming it on the fact Donald Trump hasn't released a trove of documents relating to Jeffrey Epstein
Christians are almost always been selective about what parts of the bible they believe (or even bother to read) and this is an easy example. The bible makes very clear that the date the world ends will be known to none but god. There won’t be a warning from angels and humans won’t be able to figure out in advance. There could be signs it’s coming that people pick up on but someone saying “it’ll be this day on this month” will always be a lie. That aside, why would a Christian who thinks the world is gonna end sell anything? What will you do with that money in Heaven?
I have yet to meet a Christian who doesn’t regularly practice at least one of the 7 deadly sins.
In the modern age, just Greedy, Envy and Wrath are already common amongst the vast majority of Christians - I mean, if you want to punish immigrants becuase you think that “they’re taking our jobs” that’s already Greed and Wrath and possibly also Envy.
Then even the most pious religious people are generally Prideful, at the very least on how close to the Lord they thing they are and how superior their own moral and ways are.
Sloth and Gluthony also tend to be very common - you certainly don’t get overweight “epidemics” in a country without tons of people doing very little when they could do more (say, riding their car everywhere) and eating far beyond what they need.
If there’s ever a Rapture, nobody will notice because only a handful of people - most of whom eremits living separate from the rest of the World - dissapears.
He forgot to convert from God Time to mortal time. He was thinking they would live another couple dozen years or whatever, a thousand times as long as it took HimDadSelf to create the universe and speedrun evolution. Forgetting those the same kind of Days.
The most common Christian apologetic is to say he was talking about the transfiguration. That fails because the language is clearly talking about his return. The early church clearly thought he was going to return in their lifetime. Also, the transfiguration a few days later. It’s weird to say “some of you will still be alive in a few days”
If you hold a single text to be the very word of your god, and you use it to justify all that you do or do not do, then you must follow it to the letter or admit that you’re just a tourist. There is zero in between when you claim that the thing is pure and divine, cannot be questioned, and should be the basis for all your laws.
Christians just keep throwing out whole chunks of the fucking thing except all the parts that they can misinterpret and mistranslate to allow them to do awful things to people they don’t like for “reasons”.
My favorite part is how every pastor and many laypeople will have their own particular set of interpretations. Never mind that, at most, only one of those could be fully right, and therefore the rest are doing/believing some things wrong.
Although everything is like that. Some people have different political, scientific, philosophical theories about a load of things. It’s not that big of a deal.
Nobody thinks you’re going to hell for having a new idea about quantum gravity. Nobody has set up car bombs over whether or not plucked chickens are human. Political differences do have a very different history with violence, of course.
But when there is a large number of people who are happy to make me feel profoundly wrong for not accepting their deity, or thinking the wrong day is the day God wants us to rest, or who think plenary indulgences are or aren’t a good idea, or if Jesus abolished or fulfilled the old law, or if God thinks we should kill all trans people… we have hit a different territory.
These are not the same thing, and sometimes it is a VERY big deal. Literally life and death.
Nobody is going to hell for believing in Calvinism/Arminianism. Nobody is going to hell for believing in Memorialism or Real Presence. You go to hell for your sin.
But when there is a large number of people who are happy to make me feel profoundly wrong for not accepting their deity, or thinking the wrong day is the day God wants us to rest, or who think plenary indulgences are or aren’t a good idea, or if Jesus abolished or fulfilled the old law, or if God thinks we should kill all trans people… we have hit a different territory.
These aren’t necessarily salvation issues, although some beliefs may be signs of someone being unsaved (for example thinking they can buy their way into heaven or wanting to kill trans people- both show examples of someone who hasn’t been regenerated by the Holy Spirit)
And this is my point - it’s not about what any one person on Lemmy thinks is what gets you to hell, it’s just what some folks with certain views end up thinking, and sometimes yelling.
Sure, but why do they get to pick and choose what is more important than the rest? How do intentionally bad mistraslations for kings and personal gain provide the basis for a religion? Even the best Christians I know, who don’t force their own beliefs on others, still consider themselves to be pro-life because of the bible, or if they treat gay people with all the respect a human being deserves otherwise they still believe beung gay to be a sin. Why choose that stuff to follow but ignore the mixed cloth and tattoo parts?
You(maybe you, maybe the general “you”) don’t get to pick what part of your holy text is important or not. That’s not a religion, just a theology enthusiast with potentially questionable ideas all of their own.
Why choose that stuff to follow but ignore the mixed cloth and tattoo parts?
The mixed cloth and tattoo parts are from the Old Testament, which many Christians believe was superseded by the sacrifice of Christ. A new covenant - Abraham didn’t sacrifice Isaac, but God sacrificed his son. No longer a need to sacrifice in the temple, no longer a need to follow dietary laws.
There’s nothing in the text of the Bible that justifies a “pro life” position. The only part that mentions abortion is an Old Testament verse about forcing a woman who is suspected of cheating to drink something that will cause an abortion.
The language used by Paul in the New Testament about gay men is ambiguous and could easily be interpreted to only prohibit pedophilic sex.
Several of “Paul’s” letters in the New Testament are known forgeries. It’s very easy to “pick and choose” to reject those. One could even reject Paul entirely.
It’s a text written in multiple different ancient languages. It’s not cut and dry always that “the Bible says this.” (Same with other ancient texts - most translations of the I Ching are absolutely bonkers in how they look nothing alike.)
Even if someone would want to call themselves a “literalist,” there’s clearly poetry and figurative language. I don’t think anyone has baby dear for mammaries.
You cannot flatten Christianity like this. The fundamentalist interpretation/“Biblical literalist” interpretation is really a product of the 19th century (as is fundamentalist Islam - these are both tied to more widespread literacy in the world). It’s not one coherent ideology you can throw r/atheism logical “gotchas!” at.
A lot of shit that is part of mainstream Christianity isn’t even biblical. The Satan and hell most imagine is more from Milton and Dante than it is from the text of the Bible.
Religions aren’t their texts - even the ones that purport to be. They’re centuries of folk traditions and interpretations stacked on those ambiguous texts.
You’ve proven my point exactly. The only text that christians follow, the one that is front and centre of their entire ideology no matter how they choose to interpret it, is comepletely full of holes. Without the bible there is no religion. What do you honestly think Christianity looks like, and where could you even find enough information on it, if you removed the bible and all references to it?
There is nothing without the bible, and the bible itself is nothing of you refuse to obey it to the letter. If there are clear lies they must be removed or else that is an edorsement of said lies contained within, and a willful corruption of the holy text.
And the extra funny thing is that the muslims believe in the same god and they follow the rules in the book. It’s the same guy but apparently all the people who don’t even live in the birthplace of the religion get a free pass to just go off and do whatever? Sure, ok.
Diverse, sure. But some statements hold true across most of that diversity. Almost every Christian individual and denomination is selective about what parts of the bible they listen to. Since some parts of the bible are contradictory, this is sometimes a necessity. But other times it’s just people being people.
I’m gonna write a book that contradicts itself, not give clarification on those parts, leave it up to the readers to figure it out, and base the afterlife on how right they were. Because at least some Christians think they are doing it exactly right, and they will not be having the afterlife they think they will.
You left out “pick the correct translation of that book”. There are people who are ‘KJV Only’ who believe that the King James Version of the bible is the only correct divinely inspired version.
Look, the list of corrections and amendments we could make to what I said could fill out a book of their own. The Bible of Why The Bible Is Fallible, or whatever.
Christians are almost always been selective about what parts of the bible they believe (or even bother to read) and this is an easy example. The bible makes very clear that the date the world ends will be known to none but god. There won’t be a warning from angels and humans won’t be able to figure out in advance. There could be signs it’s coming that people pick up on but someone saying “it’ll be this day on this month” will always be a lie. That aside, why would a Christian who thinks the world is gonna end sell anything? What will you do with that money in Heaven?
I have yet to meet a Christian who doesn’t regularly practice at least one of the 7 deadly sins.
In the modern age, just Greedy, Envy and Wrath are already common amongst the vast majority of Christians - I mean, if you want to punish immigrants becuase you think that “they’re taking our jobs” that’s already Greed and Wrath and possibly also Envy.
Then even the most pious religious people are generally Prideful, at the very least on how close to the Lord they thing they are and how superior their own moral and ways are.
Sloth and Gluthony also tend to be very common - you certainly don’t get overweight “epidemics” in a country without tons of people doing very little when they could do more (say, riding their car everywhere) and eating far beyond what they need.
If there’s ever a Rapture, nobody will notice because only a handful of people - most of whom eremits living separate from the rest of the World - dissapears.
it’s all carnies and rubes.
Even Jesus, who is God, sorta, didn’t know when it would happen. He told his disciples he would return in their lifetime.
Didn’t he technically return for a short bit?
He forgot to convert from God Time to mortal time. He was thinking they would live another couple dozen years or whatever, a thousand times as long as it took HimDadSelf to create the universe and speedrun evolution. Forgetting those the same kind of Days.
From what I understand this is a common misconception
The most common Christian apologetic is to say he was talking about the transfiguration. That fails because the language is clearly talking about his return. The early church clearly thought he was going to return in their lifetime. Also, the transfiguration a few days later. It’s weird to say “some of you will still be alive in a few days”
Would be funny if that’s what he meant
Its literally what it says in the bible.
There’s a lot of mental gymnastics Christians do to pretend this isn’t true, but that is transparent and pathetic.
Apparently it’s a guess of misinterpretation and he was talking about the destruction of Herod’s temple which happened in 70 AD
So, what got misinterpreted to turn “Herod’s temple will be destroyed” into
“Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” ?
deleted by creator
They must not think Trump is releasing the Epstein files any time soon.
Well…on that front, they wouldn’t be wrong.
Sell car.
Donate to church.
GGEZ
Church: no re
I wonder if the inverse would hold true
If somebody “knows” its the rapture, then it must not actually be the rapture
Pretty sure it is a time when it’s least expected
This was like a slim minority of Christians
Oh I know. But there have been many similar slim minorities of Christians over the Millenia.
Yes… And?
I mean, “Yes…And?” Would have been a fair response to what you said
You do realize Christianity is pretty diverse group, right?
You can believe what you want to believe
If you hold a single text to be the very word of your god, and you use it to justify all that you do or do not do, then you must follow it to the letter or admit that you’re just a tourist. There is zero in between when you claim that the thing is pure and divine, cannot be questioned, and should be the basis for all your laws.
Christians just keep throwing out whole chunks of the fucking thing except all the parts that they can misinterpret and mistranslate to allow them to do awful things to people they don’t like for “reasons”.
My favorite part is how every pastor and many laypeople will have their own particular set of interpretations. Never mind that, at most, only one of those could be fully right, and therefore the rest are doing/believing some things wrong.
Although everything is like that. Some people have different political, scientific, philosophical theories about a load of things. It’s not that big of a deal.
Nobody thinks you’re going to hell for having a new idea about quantum gravity. Nobody has set up car bombs over whether or not plucked chickens are human. Political differences do have a very different history with violence, of course.
But when there is a large number of people who are happy to make me feel profoundly wrong for not accepting their deity, or thinking the wrong day is the day God wants us to rest, or who think plenary indulgences are or aren’t a good idea, or if Jesus abolished or fulfilled the old law, or if God thinks we should kill all trans people… we have hit a different territory.
These are not the same thing, and sometimes it is a VERY big deal. Literally life and death.
Nobody is going to hell for believing in Calvinism/Arminianism. Nobody is going to hell for believing in Memorialism or Real Presence. You go to hell for your sin.
These aren’t necessarily salvation issues, although some beliefs may be signs of someone being unsaved (for example thinking they can buy their way into heaven or wanting to kill trans people- both show examples of someone who hasn’t been regenerated by the Holy Spirit)
Well, Ortodox Cristians for example, do as a matter of fact, believe you go to hell for believing in heretic shit.
And this is my point - it’s not about what any one person on Lemmy thinks is what gets you to hell, it’s just what some folks with certain views end up thinking, and sometimes yelling.
Most of those things aren’t heresies.
Which not all Christians do. There are many who believe to be the words of human beings, just divinely inspired or significant.
Sure, but why do they get to pick and choose what is more important than the rest? How do intentionally bad mistraslations for kings and personal gain provide the basis for a religion? Even the best Christians I know, who don’t force their own beliefs on others, still consider themselves to be pro-life because of the bible, or if they treat gay people with all the respect a human being deserves otherwise they still believe beung gay to be a sin. Why choose that stuff to follow but ignore the mixed cloth and tattoo parts?
You(maybe you, maybe the general “you”) don’t get to pick what part of your holy text is important or not. That’s not a religion, just a theology enthusiast with potentially questionable ideas all of their own.
The mixed cloth and tattoo parts are from the Old Testament, which many Christians believe was superseded by the sacrifice of Christ. A new covenant - Abraham didn’t sacrifice Isaac, but God sacrificed his son. No longer a need to sacrifice in the temple, no longer a need to follow dietary laws.
There’s nothing in the text of the Bible that justifies a “pro life” position. The only part that mentions abortion is an Old Testament verse about forcing a woman who is suspected of cheating to drink something that will cause an abortion.
The language used by Paul in the New Testament about gay men is ambiguous and could easily be interpreted to only prohibit pedophilic sex.
Several of “Paul’s” letters in the New Testament are known forgeries. It’s very easy to “pick and choose” to reject those. One could even reject Paul entirely.
It’s a text written in multiple different ancient languages. It’s not cut and dry always that “the Bible says this.” (Same with other ancient texts - most translations of the I Ching are absolutely bonkers in how they look nothing alike.)
Even if someone would want to call themselves a “literalist,” there’s clearly poetry and figurative language. I don’t think anyone has baby dear for mammaries.
You cannot flatten Christianity like this. The fundamentalist interpretation/“Biblical literalist” interpretation is really a product of the 19th century (as is fundamentalist Islam - these are both tied to more widespread literacy in the world). It’s not one coherent ideology you can throw r/atheism logical “gotchas!” at.
A lot of shit that is part of mainstream Christianity isn’t even biblical. The Satan and hell most imagine is more from Milton and Dante than it is from the text of the Bible.
Religions aren’t their texts - even the ones that purport to be. They’re centuries of folk traditions and interpretations stacked on those ambiguous texts.
You’ve proven my point exactly. The only text that christians follow, the one that is front and centre of their entire ideology no matter how they choose to interpret it, is comepletely full of holes. Without the bible there is no religion. What do you honestly think Christianity looks like, and where could you even find enough information on it, if you removed the bible and all references to it?
There is nothing without the bible, and the bible itself is nothing of you refuse to obey it to the letter. If there are clear lies they must be removed or else that is an edorsement of said lies contained within, and a willful corruption of the holy text.
And the extra funny thing is that the muslims believe in the same god and they follow the rules in the book. It’s the same guy but apparently all the people who don’t even live in the birthplace of the religion get a free pass to just go off and do whatever? Sure, ok.
Diverse, sure. But some statements hold true across most of that diversity. Almost every Christian individual and denomination is selective about what parts of the bible they listen to. Since some parts of the bible are contradictory, this is sometimes a necessity. But other times it’s just people being people.
I’m gonna write a book that contradicts itself, not give clarification on those parts, leave it up to the readers to figure it out, and base the afterlife on how right they were. Because at least some Christians think they are doing it exactly right, and they will not be having the afterlife they think they will.
You left out “pick the correct translation of that book”. There are people who are ‘KJV Only’ who believe that the King James Version of the bible is the only correct divinely inspired version.
Look, the list of corrections and amendments we could make to what I said could fill out a book of their own. The Bible of Why The Bible Is Fallible, or whatever.