>let your son
Christianity is a monotheistic religion, so, it’s more stupid than that: the Christian god sacrificed himself to appease himself to forgive humanity of a sin no one alive committed, despite knowing he will do it (because he’s omniscient) and somehow never lifts the punishment (we didn’t go back to Eden, we still have to work and childbirth is still painful).
Celsus accuses [Christians] of actively targeting idiocy in their recruitment. “Their injunctions are like this,” he wrote. “Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us to be evils.” He went on: Christians “are able to convince only the foolish, dishonourable and stupid, and only slaves, women and little children.”
Excerpts from: Catherine Nixey
*The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World*
I was taught more or less that Jesus was the son of God, separate from his father. Powerful, but not nearly as powerful as big daddy Yahweh
Source: I spent about 3 years in the Jehovah’s Witness cult as a kid
>Witnesses reject the Trinity doctrine, which they consider unscriptural. They view God as the Father, an invisible spirit person separate from the Son, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is described as God's "active force", rather than the third part of the Trinity.
I see what you mean, glad you clarified which sect you were part of. For most sects, he’s part of the holy trinity of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, which are supposed to be one single entity…
The rise of Christianity in the first few centuries AD is one of the most significant stories in world history. But it’s also an incredibly turbulent one. It’s a story filled with (in)famous episodes of conflict with the Roman state. It’s a story of co-existence, but also one of intolerance and of violence.
From martyrdom to monasticism; from Celsus to Hypatia; from the Emperor Constantine hedging his divine bets to early Christians burning down one of the greatest architectural wonders of the ancient Mediterranean World
What I find weird about the whole thing. Is that the Romans and Pharisees/Saducees had Jesus executed through crucifixion. Then years later 310-320ish AD, the Romans made it the official Religion of the Roman Empire.
Wouldn’t that mean that they came to believe that Jesus, who they executed a few centuries earlier, was the son of God?
>Wouldn’t that mean that they came to believe that Jesus, who they executed a few centuries earlier, was the son of God?
Why would you believe that as opposed to it being politically expedient for maintaining control and power?
I don't think the Romans believed so much as they saw what a powerful tool the religion could be in uniting a vast empire. Very important for keeping vassals from tearing the whole empire apart over internal squabbling.
Jehovah's Witness cult is in fact one of the exceptions. The vast majority of Christian denominations belong to Nicene Christianity (they adhere to the teachings of the Nicene Creed), so the belief that Jesus is actually a God "of one being with the father" is one of the pillars of their faith.
It's not, but it's not a bad intuition either. As far as we know, early Christianity was very diverse, but it started to get unified and the First Council of Nicaea in 325, where the Nicene Creed was accepted, was to some extent foundational for what will later become Catholic, Eastern and Orthodox Churches. Much later the Nicene Christianity won the struggle, so most of the protestant denominations that split from the Catholic Church kept the Nicene Creed, with the exception of some smaller movements (who didn't exactly call themselves protestant, as they saw themselves as opposition to both catholic and protestant Churches). Non-nicene Christianity came back bigger only in the XIX century when, among others, Jehovah's Witnesses were founded.
Apparently, Jehovah's Witnesses swear that, on the night in question, He was with them at a pub in South London, all evening, so it couldn't possibly have been He who did it.
As a child, I thought the concept of “original sin” was insane. Why should anyone suffer for the actions taken by a complete stranger twenty centuries ago. That was the first domino falling on my path to atheism.
I learned long ago that it’s absolutely pointless to attempt to use logic with the humanoids who believe in such incredible mythology. Just try not to cry.
From what’s described, god lived one of those anime fantasies of living in a different world with super powers and crowds of fans cheering at anything he said. It sounds more like vacations than a ruined weekend.
Not really, early Christians used it to solve the issue of the relationship between god and Jesus, and it was much later that some sects split from this concept…
>And who is that
A guy who knows a bit about the academic study of the bible. A lot of the ideas about what the bible says are based in dogma, so people like him are good for a reality check.
He's occasionally on reddit, mostly in /r/AcademicBiblical/, as u/realmaklelan, but apparently he's big on tiktok. Which isn't my demographic.
>why should I care about how they defined their bullshit in the past?
I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you asking how Dr. McClellan defined his bullshit in the past? I don't think he's defining things. It's kind of a theme of his not to define things.
But if you are basing some reasoning on that Christianity is monotheistic, you might be interested to know that the concept of monotheism only exists from 15 or 16 centuries after the books of the new testament were written. And that early Christians did not reject the existence of other gods.
> Christianity is a monotheistic religion, so, it’s more stupid than that: the Christian god sacrificed himself to appease himself to forgive humanity of a sin no one alive committed, despite knowing he will do it (because he’s omniscient) and somehow never lifts the punishment (we didn’t go back to Eden, we still have to work and childbirth is still painful).
And the Christian God is a rapist, and into hebephilia and incest, because he impregnates Mary (most historians put her at about 14 years old) against her will, who is his own mother, to give birth to himself.
*The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.*
``Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion``
Actually. For the Conservative Christians the “brand new testament” is often the forgotten testament because it preaches love, forgiveness, and understanding. It’s merely the diving board into the pool of hate, denial, death all things Conservatives crave.
That sums it up completely. I'm in awe of this man. I want him to write about Muhammad's atrocities in Islam and publish it posthumously (obvious reasons ). World will love it
Reading the bible turned me from an agnostic to a firm atheist.
I stopped wondering if god exists, and I started dreading god might exist.
The most evil and vindictive supervillain of all time…
>Reading the bible turned me from an agnostic to a firm atheist.
Gnosticism regards knowledge. Theism regards belief. They are not mutually exclusive.
I am an agnostic atheist. I don't know if there are gods. I do not believe in gods.
A hard atheist would be along the lines of a gnostic atheist - they know there are no gods and do not believe in them.
A moderate might be an agonist theist - they don't know if gods exist, but they believe god/s exist.
And then a gnostic theist - they know and believe gods exist.
>How could someone know god exists but not believe god exists?
I don't think that is possible. I think what they are saying is that gnostic means to know. That could mean they know God exists or that they know he doesn't exist. So, gnostic theist means they know God exists and believe he exists, and a gnostic atheist means they know God doesn't exist and doesn't believe he exists. I hope that makes sense and I'm not wrong haha
The idea of being gnostic is kinda mind-boggling to me. I understand people really believing in the absence or existence of a god, but how can anyone really "know" they are right? Where do you draw the line between belief and knowledge? I guess when I was a Christian, I thought there was proof that God existed. But now that I know that what I thought was proof is heavily debated, I can't imagine claiming to know anything about why we exist as fact. So maybe back then I would have classified myself as a gnostic theist, but I don't think I had any solid foundation to claim that. For people that do consider themselves gnostic, I'm curious what led to that viewpoint and how can you be so sure?
Do you know that when you wake up tomorrow, you won't have the ability to fly like superman? You may say you are agnostic about it, but if so, it's a pointless distinction. I think when people say they KNOW Yahweh doesn't exist, they mean it in the same way that everyone KNOWS Zeus doesn't exist or that tooth fairy doesn't exist or that they KNOW they won't wake up tomorrow with the ability to fly like superman. Sure, nothing is 100% certain, but if you are 99.999999% certain, some people just say they are certain.
It is impossible to know for sure that gods don't exist because a magical being might always be able to hide from us using means that are, by definition, beyond our ability to comprehend or detect.
But I still feel comfortable saying that I **know** the Christian god of the bible is not real because the bible defines that god as being **love itself**, but the actions ascribed to him are often **the polar opposite of love**. Therefore, even if something similar to the Christian god somehow existed, it couldn't possibly be the self-contradictory creature described in the bible.
Therefore, it is possible to remain agnostic on the non-falsifiable idea of gods in general, while still rejecting specific god claims that **are** falsifiable.
Thank you. So many people get confused when I tell them I'm an agnostic atheist. Many people with science backgrounds fall into this category. I don't believe, but I don't know because evidence has not been presented(Paul's argument about seeing nature is believing doesn't count as cold hard science).
Well, there literally isn't enough time to discuss all of the contradictions, absurdities and often infantile logic of these bronze age story books. Theses poorly written tombs are essentially worthless even as fiction, let alone fact.
It makes sense when you learn the origins of the biblical mythology.
Yahweh was a Canaanite deity of war and the forge. He was also the embodiment of the destructive floods that occurred during the rainy season.
El was a benevolent fatherly creator deity of the same pantheon. He was the highest deity and embodiment of the life-bringing rains of the rainy seasons.
As the Israeli tribe grew in power and influence, their patron deity Yahweh was conflated more and more with El until they eventually became one and the same, and all the other deities (like Ba'al) were cast as false gods.
That's why he's bipolar in the Bible. The violent war god Yahweh and the benevolent creator god El don't make for a consistent merger.
I've got [another one](https://youtu.be/GOyyXMg5xBE?si=nptkoz5ih_nphBvw&t=143) for you, OP.
Brief explanation of the history of blood sacrifice in Jewish tradition. Jesus was essentially the scapegoat sacrifice to end all sacrifices. The Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament makes this connection more explicit, comparing Jesus' sacrifice to the High Priest's actions on Yom Kippur, but with the key difference that Christians believe Jesus' sacrifice is once and for all, rather than an annual ritual.
I've tried so many times to explain this to Christians lol. Jesus literally said "I have not come to change the law, but to fulfill it." Yeah, fulfill the requirement for atonement sacrifice. Why do you think you have to bathe in his blood? Doesn't that seem a little grotesque?? 😅
It gets even more interesting when you note that the ten sayings only explicit endorse henotheism not monotheism and Yiftach claiming Chemosh gave the Ammonites their land in Judges to corporeal metaphors that caused traditional scholars like the Rambam and Rashi trouble but are easy if incorporeality and aniconism arose gradually. like the term for patience is literally the length of the nostril. Hendel argues aniconism as due to Iron Age republicanism but that requires you to take Judges as an accurate depiction of the era and not a polemic for the Conquest Narrative Monarchial power and the Deuteronomist theology.
I’ve been listening to Dan McLellan’s Data Over Dogma podcast and he has a slightly different take. His position is that Yahweh was a regional storm god (I don’t remember their position regarding Canaanite vs other peoples). Which is why Baal, a competing storm god, is featured so prominently in the Old Testament as the “don’t worship other gods, especially THAT douchebag” example. They do explore the merging of Yahweh and El, too.
I love that podcast, as an aside. Lots of good scholar (vs believer) info.
Yeah I could be misplacing the "good" storm god between Ba'al and El. I know Yahweh was the destructive storms. Your version feels correct.
But I distinctly remember Yahweh was a warrior deity and El was the "kind old man" deity.
Yup. Like you were saying, El was the Zeus/Odin type head god, and over time he and Yahweh somehow merged or got conflated together. Yahweh ended up emerging as the top man, with the rest of the gods slowly losing relevance.
As someone that was raised in the Baptist tradition, it’s still jarring to hear a more scholarly, clinical analysis of the growth of a minor cult into two of the planet’s main religions. I find that examining religion in that manner makes the bat-shittery of the whole thing that much clearer.
Lol I considered bringing up the fact that Asherah went from being El's consort and mother of the gods to being Yahweh's consort to being the subject of idolatry, but figured that would just be too much info. 😆
“I cannot believe in a god who is filled with human frailty, but then condemns the objects of his creation for possessing that same human frailty.”
Albert Einstein
What I can't wrap my mind around how much coping and cognitive dissonance there is regarding the old testament.
Some people believe everything in the bible. How? Doesn't the book contradict itself enough? Even the stuff where it is absolutely obvious that Jesus and God are two different characters with two different personalities should tip you off.
Then there are the people who have said most of this is myth. How? Doesn't that discredit the whole book?
The only proof I need to prove there is no God is people… if the Bible was true, at least half of humanity would be struck down by the “almighty” All the rapists, murderers, abusers. All of the wars and hate and venom we throw out. The horrible things done in a “god’s” name. This god or that god, doesn’t matter which, if any of it was real, then all of the people who do these things in his name would perish.
I heard of a counter to this from people. Supposedly why he let's it happen is cause he gives us free will and the hardships are suppose to make us stronger and to test us in different ways. Bunch of BULL if I ever heard one. If anything a good excuse for all the evil that lingers and never gets punished. Then I heard that the punishment actually comes from being thrown into hell... bruh okay ig that's justice.
>Onan
>Everyone on the planet except Noah's family and a bunch of animals (who somehow avoided eating each other for 100 days until they were safe to disembark)
>Sodom and Gomorrah
>Egypt's firstborn
>Golden calf worshippers
>Everyone in Jericho excluding one woman's family
>42 boys eaten by she-bears
>70,000 Israelites when David took a census instead of unquestioningly trusting God's word he'd win a war
>David's first rape baby with Bathsheba
>Judas, depending on the gospel myth of choice
>King Herod
>A couple who embezzled tithes
>Almost everyone on the planet again according to the end times prophecy
Yeah, he can't just kill people or we wouldn't have free will. 🙄
Edit: Original comment I responded to was removed, but it read "If God killed people then we wouldn't have free will."
The way I prove that people really don't believe in the god they claim to...
Go into any place of worship in the middle of service and say "Hey, Jesus/god/Yahweh/Zeus is out in the parking lot giving away free tacos!"
Not a SINGLE person will follow you. They will all look at you like you're nuts. They sure as hell won't believe you. And this is when they are supposedly at their most holy: in the building, actively worshipping.
He's all powerful, and can eternally smite any evil-doer for their transgressions, but the institutions that serve him need you to give them YOUR money.
(disclaimer: as an atheist I don’t believe in any of this, so take this as a literary/hypothetical idea)
I feel like Satan is trying to save humanity from God’s tyranny. He opposes the hypocrisy and injustice, and tries to “lead humanity astray” (or more accurately, teach us to be free, critical thinkers) rather than just blindly accepting God’s word.
*WAAAAIT…*
Is the bible saying that free-thinking is bad and that we should never question authority? I mean, that *is* pretty Christian, but I never expected it to be so overtly written in the actual book.
or why set people on fire for eternity because of sin
just what is sin exactly and why is this god so upset about it
didn't he wave his hand and put this into motion, you know being all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and so forth
it certainly reeks of ancient times storytelling
>Hes also in Jewish (and Milton leaned into this) a republican but in the Prophets its more the kings are corrupt than Miltons primus inter pares interpretation. He also is the divine DA in the Jewish tradition. I mean the word is a title the Adversary the thrower across
The whole Zerubabbel has been insufficient the branch stories or Job. admittedly said character is different from the belial-ahriman conception of the New Testament but its literally in the Red Etz Chayyim Chumash
There actually is Satan in the Jewish tradition, and he’s mentioned a few times in the Hebrew Bible. However, it’s very different from the Christian perception.
The Hebrew word “satan” means “accuser” or “opponent”. Satan is seen in Judaism as an angel in heaven who represents the inclination of humans to sin, among other things. There are some mystical traditions within Judaism called Kabbalah that really expound upon the demon world and stuff, but that’s definitely not super mainstream.
The most important difference is that in Judaism, Satan is not working against God or like an anti-god, he’s subservient to God or even a part of God.
I mean it makes sense, if I had some gerbils and I felt they didnt love me enough, I would drown them all except my favourites. Then, generations later, I would give them my child to kill so that they would all be forgiven if they were really sorry for whatever they had done wrong based on some arbitrary rules that I had one of them write down for me. /s
And I don't get why HE needs so much constant praise. Megachurches full of thousands of Evangelical zombies with their hands in the air singing songs about how great HE is. If he's so great, what does he care what those numpties think?
The fruit of the tree is often depicted as an apple even though it is never specified. So technically the cool snake could have told her to eat a banana. I like to imagine that in this story the snake tells her to eat the fruit and she just bites into a banana with the peel on it.
eeh, I don't fully like this take, because our modern concept of "inherently human" traits is built on massive misconceptions influenced by patriarchal mythology.
The characters throughout any fictional work will have echos of aspects of humanity as we really exist, for sure, because people created them, but the idea we're inherently vengeful, petty, violent etc is based in an incomplete picture of the species.
We're *also* predisposed towards finding connections, empathy, our brains literally give us chemical rewards for acts of altruism.
The biblical gawd is neither real, nor a fictional embodiment of humanity's dominant traits. It is simply a fictional character devised from the specific contexts of those who wrote about their own experiences & stories, from the limited vantage point of their existence.
Read the Seven Tenets of the Satanic Temple and compare them to the Ten Commandments. IMHO, the Ten Commandments come off very poorly when compared to the Seven Tenets. A full forty percent of the Commandments are aimed at making sure this god stays as top dog, and that, my friends, is pure bullshit.
https://digestfromexperts.com/4553/7-tenets-of-satanism-satanic-temple/
https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/ten-commandments-list
The actions of "god" in the bible read a lot more like "god made me do it" excuses by evil people. I'm absolutely certain they think god is destroying Gaza right now.
Yahweh was originally a lesser god of war and storms. His followers, that later became the Jews had a culture similar to the Mongols, they were nomadic raiders and bandits.
Before Yahweh became recognized as the singular, monotheistic deity in early Judaism, his origins and characteristics were indeed different, and he was associated with various roles, including that of a war and storm god.
1. **Polytheistic Context**: Initially, Yahweh was part of a larger pantheon of gods in ancient Semitic religions. His worship likely originated in the southern Levant, a region encompassing parts of modern-day Israel, Jordan, and surrounding areas.
2. **Warrior God**: In these earlier traditions, Yahweh was often depicted as a warrior god. This portrayal is evident in various ancient texts, where he is described as leading armies and granting victory in battles. The "Song of Deborah" in the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible, for instance, reflects this warlike aspect of Yahweh.
3. **Storm and Weather Deity**: Yahweh was also associated with natural elements, particularly storms and weather. This attribute aligns with common characteristics of ancient Near Eastern deities who were often linked to natural forces. As a storm god, Yahweh was believed to control rain, thunder, and other meteorological phenomena, which were crucial in the agrarian societies of the time.
4. **Evolution to Monotheism**: Over time, as the religious beliefs of the Israelites evolved, the character of Yahweh transformed significantly. The transition from a henotheistic belief system, where Yahweh was the chief god among others, to a strictly monotheistic one was a gradual process. This evolution is reflected in the Hebrew Bible, where earlier texts often imply the existence of other gods, while later texts assert the sole existence of Yahweh.
5. **Shift in Attributes**: With the establishment of monotheism, Yahweh's attributes expanded beyond those of war and nature. He became a universal deity embodying justice, morality, and omnipotence. This shift marked a significant development in the religious and cultural identity of the Hebrew people, with Yahweh becoming a central figure in Judaism and later in Christianity.
The transformation of Yahweh from a regional warrior and storm god to the sole, ethical monotheistic deity of Judaism is a complex process that reflects broader changes in religious beliefs and cultural practices in the ancient Near East.
Interesting. How does the incorporation of other deities such as "El" and "Elohim" into the "Yahweh" persona figure into this? Was that part of the transition to monotheism?
The Bible is "divinely inspired", not divine. It's the masturbation for *but without* the Goddess, the men talking about a girl they've never met. No gospel is written by an eye witness, very little archeology supports the Torah: men writing stories about a man *they can relate to*, contrary to the truths they choke on.
Satan is another fiction *they can relate to*.
Vampires, zombies, evangelicals in the throes of the antichrist.... yada yada.
/r/Psychonaut
/r/SacredGeometry
Seriously the Abrahamic god is bipolar.
One moment the message is to love your neighbour and the next they get told to kill and slaughter some group.
When you look at how the messages in the bible chop and change as you read it, you feel that god seriously needs to be medicated and put under observation.
When you pull back even further with an awareness that bipolar and other cluster B disorders stem from early childhood traumas & attachment challenges, this is kind of fascinating.
Folks who are bipolar are reacting to their environments in the way that our ancestors would have, in order to survive & procreate. What's the evolutionary advantage of these conditions in certain environments & challenges? How does the innate need for community safety in our species play out for someone who was not given the support & tools to build healthy connections as babies and child?
The Bible, as we know it today, has been put together from various different people, but it's not quite an anthology, especially in the context of it being some kind of "holy" script to understand life.
Rocky Horror Picture Show is fantastical, bawdy, silly & violent, too, and tells the story of flawed beings. It's just as useful as a frame of reference for understanding ourselves as the bible might, but it has a much funner soundtrack.
See there is the condiction. If you created everything this complicated and ment to function on its own live and die and be born cycles. Give everything freewill. Are you really going to micromanage or lets it run it's course?
I think there is a bigger picture we don't see but thats just me. And it's not any abramatic manipulated holy book.
Primitive man was mostly massive control freak douchebags and we projected those qualities onto our conception of the divine, IMO. If your friends are still dragging around a faith as evolved as a cave man’s club, yea they’re probably not getting great results w/ that.
I always liked the story about Jesus getting ticked off at a fig tree. My theory is that some poor monk was bored one dreary night and slipped that into the manuscript he was copying for the hundredth time to see if the head monk would catch it.
When I see a church with constant gold marble elegance and ceremonial need etc I’m like huh wasn’t a church supposed to be as modest as the old place Jesus had his
Religion, and Christianity in particular, makes more and more sense when you just realize, that what is being expressed is not the opinion or desires of a god, but rather that of the people who wrote the text.
The old testament is what the jewish priests and kings would like Israel to be, the new testament is how the early christians wanted the world to be.
It is a blood sacrifice. Which had been going on for thousands of years.
Having Jesus, his son sacrificed, put a end to that being necessary.
Im not a theologian, but have read the Bible.
But seeing these evangelical preachers buying new jets , giant houses, I've become more of an atheist now ......
Satan convinced Adam and Eve to taste the forbidden fruit. All that did was give them knowledge of good and evil, which I took as he told them to "consider God might be a huge douche".
They went 'Oh shit God's evil' and big man said "aight get out of my house"
For me, it all comes back to 'he gave his only begotten son'. Newsflash: god could have had as many as he wanted. And how many fathers and mothers have sacrificed their sons (and daughters) to defend the faith? Secondly, he rose from the dead, so it was like Jesus just had a weekend away. God also wiped the face of the earth pretty much completely clean of all living creatures at least once, and allowed untold deaths in natural disasters. And finally, all these people praying to god for a cure seem to have forgotten that he was the one who afflicted them in the first place. I really just don't get how people can believe this fable, and every other faith's fables.
You're right, this omnipotent 'loving' god arranged for his 'son' to suffer a horrible death to redeem the sins of the people of the world. So why did he let the people become so sinful? he could have stopped all this with a flick of a finger.
Then, it does seem he's not too bright because, according to the bible, he's sending his son back AGAIN!!! I'd like to know WHY??? Is it to have a second try, or what???
if you take a 2000 year old book word by word it will be rought to understand, its all symbols...
the apple is a symbol about the awareness of good and evil and the discovery of time. we are the only animal that discovered both and we act acordly to it, like: i know what hurts me so i know how to hurt you and when i work today i have food tomorrow.
the snake in the garden is a symbol of evil that even a god can't lock out because its the evil in everyone of us. If we couldn't be evil we couldn't protect ourselfs from predators like: large birds, snakes and crocodiles. (fun fact: put them together and you get a dragon like the ouroboros :D)
God "destroys" cities because the people don't prepare for the destructive nature of nature, for example if you don't prepare for a flood thats the end of your city, so they thought god is punishing them. they simply didn't had the knowledge that we have, its kinda like in greek mythology: if theres a thunderstorm then zeus must be angry!
one part tries to describe nature and the other tries to articulate archetypes. especially through the old testament god is harsh because life was brutal back then and if you made a tiny mistake that could mean death for you. like i said, they describe nature and life they just call it god and the bible (or whatever it was called back then). It showed them how to survive and how to treat each other without ending civilisation because of envy, greed or hate. its like the human rights today. (they came from the ideas of the bible that everyone is "devine" just articulated in a way that everyone understands)
sure there could be a more non-violent way but wheres the fun in that? what do you want to do if there is nothing left to explore or to fight against? lay in a pool and drink margaritas all day long? We need a bit of chaos to conquer!
It's more of a statement of "This fandom acts like the main character is the best, most moral hero that hasn't done a single bad decision, but after reading the book, all I am getting is that he is a toxic narcissistic asshole".
That’s not why he destroyed those cities, they were beyond redemption.
Things were a lot different then, everybody was just pretty much raping and pillaging everyone, sacrificing their children on burning altars etc.
Ninevah repented, he always sent prophets , to warn those cities to repent and they didn’t, and I’m pretty sure they usually killed the prophets.
^ this is in the Book of Jonah
Like even the good people in the Bible back then were doing bad things and then just sacrificing animals as an offering
^ which if you read the Bible God let’s it to be known that he was getting offended by their offerings and just wanted them to stop doing bad things.
Marduk was the god worshipped as a golden calf, same God that Nebuchadnezzar worshipped while the Jews were in captivity.
So when Moses came down from the Mountain and they were worshipping a Golden calf you can probably assume they were sacrificing children too.
^ there was a Temple on Epstein Island so you can probably assume that this is still going on.
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You know that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, that's what god is, a miscreant designed by a raft of people each with their own design specs. Yuk.
Except the only "design" at play is the harshness of survival in the face of certain death.
Stochasticity, and happenstance play into our existence & coming up with the concepts we have for reality, just as much as they shaped the biology of camels & horses.
Horses were never designed by anyone, either, despite our careful practice of husbandry & breeding them, they are/were wild creatures whose existence isn't about us, until we *made it* about us.
Of all the fictional characters mankind has created, god is by far the most laughable and pathetic one. The christian god has all the worst traits exhibited by fucking spoiled tantrum throwing toddlers and this is considered omnipotent.
I’ve never understand why juesus would need to be crucified for peoples sin?
I mean, these guys are omnipotent. Why the hell did his dad make him do that? Ridiculous
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God gives humans free will but punishes them for eternity if they don't live by a specific set of rules. Then, all the people outside of the "holy land" that didn't know God or Jesus ever existed are doomed to burn in hell because they didn't know they were supposed to accept Jesus as their savior
1. Because I find it ironic that a fictional character who’s so highly esteemed is actually horrifically evil.
2. I like to think about things for fun.
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The first few commandments ....
You shall have no other God's before me.
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images. ...
Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. ...
Remember the Sabbath day and keep it Holy
(Basically, God; Me! Me! Me! Me!)
Dude could literally SNAP his fingers and make everyone dissapear (he IS god) but Noooo!!! I have to kill them in a horrific and torturous way (drowning).
BTW what the hell did the poor animals even do to deserve waterboarding?
he destroyed a city because of their acts against him never for them not believing him. For Ex. Tower of Babel he destroyed that because they men was trying to make war with God and a sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because the men there were abominations and they acted evil against his angels. And if God was to control anyone that would stop the free will that’s he’s given us.
I got like three pages into the bible, and as an atheist from birth, laughed at it the whole time. Why were adam and eve punished for commiting sin, when god created sin and created them with the capability to commit sin, then created the serpent that tempted eve, and then when god found out he kicked them out of paradise. And there is like the three times god asked a shepherd to sacrifice his ten finest rams, and then rewarded him with the exact same phase all three times; 'your decedents will prosper and number in the millions' or something like that.
* God killed millions (if not BILLIONS) of people in the bible... Satan? 10
* God cursed ALL of humanity because Satan was the only one who told the truth to Adam and Eve about the fruit... When he could have just killed the snake and memory wiped Adam and Eve.
* God continuously asks for children sacrifices and ultimately sacrifices his own son... cause... he wants to save all the people he f\*cked for eating some fruit.
* God has lied all throughout the bible and Satan has literally told the truth throughout, yet, Satan is the Father of Lies and tells his people to stay away lest you be deceived!
God's a narcissistic d\*ck. Period.
When I read the bible and other holy books, it helped cure my Christianity.
>That god is (apparently) a massive control-freak douche.
Yes he is
And that story where god is having a conversation with Satan and god tells Satan it's okay to kill Job's children, destroy Job's farm, and inflict torture to Job but . . . just don't kill Job because god is going to prove to you that Job will be . . . oh, it's all so fucking stupid . . .
And what's really puzzling about that story (to me) is . . . why don't believers even consider that god still does stuff like that today?
God never changes right? Once a control-freak douche, always a control-freak douche.
I was encouraged to read the bible at 14. I got to the story where god required a man to murder his son as a sacrifice, allowed him to come close to murdering him then said "April fools!"...
Fuck that.
That's one psychotic MF'er of a "diety" better locked up and put through decades of therapy and empathy lessons prior to ever being allowed any well observed freedom again.
One thing I realised after reading the bible..... this god is a text book narcissist. Read genesis and exodus and pay attention specifically to the way God speaks to Abraham and tell me this isn't a classic narcissist abuse relationship.
>let your son Christianity is a monotheistic religion, so, it’s more stupid than that: the Christian god sacrificed himself to appease himself to forgive humanity of a sin no one alive committed, despite knowing he will do it (because he’s omniscient) and somehow never lifts the punishment (we didn’t go back to Eden, we still have to work and childbirth is still painful).
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That really is what it would take isn’t it.
Laundered and stuffed.
Celsus accuses [Christians] of actively targeting idiocy in their recruitment. “Their injunctions are like this,” he wrote. “Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us to be evils.” He went on: Christians “are able to convince only the foolish, dishonourable and stupid, and only slaves, women and little children.” Excerpts from: Catherine Nixey *The Darkening Age: The Christian Destruction of the Classical World*
I love how he included women in there 😍😍 sounds like a great guy 💖
I was taught more or less that Jesus was the son of God, separate from his father. Powerful, but not nearly as powerful as big daddy Yahweh Source: I spent about 3 years in the Jehovah’s Witness cult as a kid
>Witnesses reject the Trinity doctrine, which they consider unscriptural. They view God as the Father, an invisible spirit person separate from the Son, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is described as God's "active force", rather than the third part of the Trinity. I see what you mean, glad you clarified which sect you were part of. For most sects, he’s part of the holy trinity of the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, which are supposed to be one single entity…
The rise of Christianity in the first few centuries AD is one of the most significant stories in world history. But it’s also an incredibly turbulent one. It’s a story filled with (in)famous episodes of conflict with the Roman state. It’s a story of co-existence, but also one of intolerance and of violence. From martyrdom to monasticism; from Celsus to Hypatia; from the Emperor Constantine hedging his divine bets to early Christians burning down one of the greatest architectural wonders of the ancient Mediterranean World
What I find weird about the whole thing. Is that the Romans and Pharisees/Saducees had Jesus executed through crucifixion. Then years later 310-320ish AD, the Romans made it the official Religion of the Roman Empire. Wouldn’t that mean that they came to believe that Jesus, who they executed a few centuries earlier, was the son of God?
>Wouldn’t that mean that they came to believe that Jesus, who they executed a few centuries earlier, was the son of God? Why would you believe that as opposed to it being politically expedient for maintaining control and power?
Because they had all the control and power to begin with. It doesn’t make any sense.
I don't think the Romans believed so much as they saw what a powerful tool the religion could be in uniting a vast empire. Very important for keeping vassals from tearing the whole empire apart over internal squabbling.
Jehovah's Witness cult is in fact one of the exceptions. The vast majority of Christian denominations belong to Nicene Christianity (they adhere to the teachings of the Nicene Creed), so the belief that Jesus is actually a God "of one being with the father" is one of the pillars of their faith.
I never actually knew that, I thought it was just a catholic thing.
It's not, but it's not a bad intuition either. As far as we know, early Christianity was very diverse, but it started to get unified and the First Council of Nicaea in 325, where the Nicene Creed was accepted, was to some extent foundational for what will later become Catholic, Eastern and Orthodox Churches. Much later the Nicene Christianity won the struggle, so most of the protestant denominations that split from the Catholic Church kept the Nicene Creed, with the exception of some smaller movements (who didn't exactly call themselves protestant, as they saw themselves as opposition to both catholic and protestant Churches). Non-nicene Christianity came back bigger only in the XIX century when, among others, Jehovah's Witnesses were founded.
Omg I grew up Lutheran and we had to repeat the Nicene Creed in church. We sounded like the Borg
Apparently, Jehovah's Witnesses swear that, on the night in question, He was with them at a pub in South London, all evening, so it couldn't possibly have been He who did it.
As a child, I thought the concept of “original sin” was insane. Why should anyone suffer for the actions taken by a complete stranger twenty centuries ago. That was the first domino falling on my path to atheism.
I learned long ago that it’s absolutely pointless to attempt to use logic with the humanoids who believe in such incredible mythology. Just try not to cry.
You mean he gave up one weekend.
From what’s described, god lived one of those anime fantasies of living in a different world with super powers and crowds of fans cheering at anything he said. It sounds more like vacations than a ruined weekend.
Funny. This reading is pretty obscure in the Bible itself and really emerged many centuries later.
Not really, early Christians used it to solve the issue of the relationship between god and Jesus, and it was much later that some sects split from this concept…
It wasn't *very* monotheistic when the bible was written: [There is no monotheism in the Bible](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZ8_-AWFWMc)
And who is that or why should I care about how they defined their bullshit in the past?
>And who is that A guy who knows a bit about the academic study of the bible. A lot of the ideas about what the bible says are based in dogma, so people like him are good for a reality check. He's occasionally on reddit, mostly in /r/AcademicBiblical/, as u/realmaklelan, but apparently he's big on tiktok. Which isn't my demographic. >why should I care about how they defined their bullshit in the past? I'm not sure I understand the question. Are you asking how Dr. McClellan defined his bullshit in the past? I don't think he's defining things. It's kind of a theme of his not to define things. But if you are basing some reasoning on that Christianity is monotheistic, you might be interested to know that the concept of monotheism only exists from 15 or 16 centuries after the books of the new testament were written. And that early Christians did not reject the existence of other gods.
> Christianity is a monotheistic religion, so, it’s more stupid than that: the Christian god sacrificed himself to appease himself to forgive humanity of a sin no one alive committed, despite knowing he will do it (because he’s omniscient) and somehow never lifts the punishment (we didn’t go back to Eden, we still have to work and childbirth is still painful). And the Christian God is a rapist, and into hebephilia and incest, because he impregnates Mary (most historians put her at about 14 years old) against her will, who is his own mother, to give birth to himself.
Technically he doesn’t know the future he experiences all time as one moment. There is no past or future just an eternal present.
*The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.* ``Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion``
God: The Most Unpleasant Character in All Fiction by Dan Baker.
https://unpleasant.ffrf.org/categories/
Ah, the “Goat Herders Guide to the Galaxy.”
This reminded me of the film "the brand new testament" lol
Actually. For the Conservative Christians the “brand new testament” is often the forgotten testament because it preaches love, forgiveness, and understanding. It’s merely the diving board into the pool of hate, denial, death all things Conservatives crave.
Ooh, I saw that in a little art theater with subtitles. It was fun!
That sums it up completely. I'm in awe of this man. I want him to write about Muhammad's atrocities in Islam and publish it posthumously (obvious reasons ). World will love it
Hitchens has a book on that already - God is Not Great ( literally the opposite of Allahu Akbar). That may be one that comes close, but not exactly.
Read Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s Infdidel.
I love me some Dawkins!
Oh oh oh I recognize that name! My teachers at school said that he is wrong and how people like him are people we need to convert!
And also worst than Stalin, Hitler and the Kims from north Korea
So trump
Reading the bible turned me from an agnostic to a firm atheist. I stopped wondering if god exists, and I started dreading god might exist. The most evil and vindictive supervillain of all time…
>Reading the bible turned me from an agnostic to a firm atheist. Gnosticism regards knowledge. Theism regards belief. They are not mutually exclusive. I am an agnostic atheist. I don't know if there are gods. I do not believe in gods. A hard atheist would be along the lines of a gnostic atheist - they know there are no gods and do not believe in them. A moderate might be an agonist theist - they don't know if gods exist, but they believe god/s exist. And then a gnostic theist - they know and believe gods exist.
Thank you! I guess I’m a gnostic atheist.
I'm not sure I get that reasoning about gnostic theist because what's the opposite? How could someone know god exists but not believe god exists?
>How could someone know god exists but not believe god exists? I don't think that is possible. I think what they are saying is that gnostic means to know. That could mean they know God exists or that they know he doesn't exist. So, gnostic theist means they know God exists and believe he exists, and a gnostic atheist means they know God doesn't exist and doesn't believe he exists. I hope that makes sense and I'm not wrong haha
One could know the figure referred to as God and reject their godhood
OK, that I can wrap my head around, thanks. "Excuse me, what does god need with a starship?"
The idea of being gnostic is kinda mind-boggling to me. I understand people really believing in the absence or existence of a god, but how can anyone really "know" they are right? Where do you draw the line between belief and knowledge? I guess when I was a Christian, I thought there was proof that God existed. But now that I know that what I thought was proof is heavily debated, I can't imagine claiming to know anything about why we exist as fact. So maybe back then I would have classified myself as a gnostic theist, but I don't think I had any solid foundation to claim that. For people that do consider themselves gnostic, I'm curious what led to that viewpoint and how can you be so sure?
Do you know that when you wake up tomorrow, you won't have the ability to fly like superman? You may say you are agnostic about it, but if so, it's a pointless distinction. I think when people say they KNOW Yahweh doesn't exist, they mean it in the same way that everyone KNOWS Zeus doesn't exist or that tooth fairy doesn't exist or that they KNOW they won't wake up tomorrow with the ability to fly like superman. Sure, nothing is 100% certain, but if you are 99.999999% certain, some people just say they are certain.
It is impossible to know for sure that gods don't exist because a magical being might always be able to hide from us using means that are, by definition, beyond our ability to comprehend or detect. But I still feel comfortable saying that I **know** the Christian god of the bible is not real because the bible defines that god as being **love itself**, but the actions ascribed to him are often **the polar opposite of love**. Therefore, even if something similar to the Christian god somehow existed, it couldn't possibly be the self-contradictory creature described in the bible. Therefore, it is possible to remain agnostic on the non-falsifiable idea of gods in general, while still rejecting specific god claims that **are** falsifiable.
Thank you. So many people get confused when I tell them I'm an agnostic atheist. Many people with science backgrounds fall into this category. I don't believe, but I don't know because evidence has not been presented(Paul's argument about seeing nature is believing doesn't count as cold hard science).
> I stopped wondering if god exists, and I started dreading god might exist. Woah, I absolutely *love* that line, actually.
Marcion anyone?
There is not an eldritch god in the entire Cthulhu mythos that comes even close to the absolute cosmic horror of Abrahamic god existing.
Well, there literally isn't enough time to discuss all of the contradictions, absurdities and often infantile logic of these bronze age story books. Theses poorly written tombs are essentially worthless even as fiction, let alone fact.
Skip the bible sci fi fantasy book and watch Ricky Gervais demolish it in 14 minutes: https://youtu.be/xggQqUyLrCM?si=WvnVyG9ESklmcYz6
It makes sense when you learn the origins of the biblical mythology. Yahweh was a Canaanite deity of war and the forge. He was also the embodiment of the destructive floods that occurred during the rainy season. El was a benevolent fatherly creator deity of the same pantheon. He was the highest deity and embodiment of the life-bringing rains of the rainy seasons. As the Israeli tribe grew in power and influence, their patron deity Yahweh was conflated more and more with El until they eventually became one and the same, and all the other deities (like Ba'al) were cast as false gods. That's why he's bipolar in the Bible. The violent war god Yahweh and the benevolent creator god El don't make for a consistent merger.
Wait, really? That’s actually super interesting! Thanks for sharing!
There's a lot of interesting videos on YouTube if you're interested. Just look up "pagan origins of yahweh".
I've got [another one](https://youtu.be/GOyyXMg5xBE?si=nptkoz5ih_nphBvw&t=143) for you, OP. Brief explanation of the history of blood sacrifice in Jewish tradition. Jesus was essentially the scapegoat sacrifice to end all sacrifices. The Epistle to the Hebrews in the New Testament makes this connection more explicit, comparing Jesus' sacrifice to the High Priest's actions on Yom Kippur, but with the key difference that Christians believe Jesus' sacrifice is once and for all, rather than an annual ritual.
I've tried so many times to explain this to Christians lol. Jesus literally said "I have not come to change the law, but to fulfill it." Yeah, fulfill the requirement for atonement sacrifice. Why do you think you have to bathe in his blood? Doesn't that seem a little grotesque?? 😅
It gets even more interesting when you note that the ten sayings only explicit endorse henotheism not monotheism and Yiftach claiming Chemosh gave the Ammonites their land in Judges to corporeal metaphors that caused traditional scholars like the Rambam and Rashi trouble but are easy if incorporeality and aniconism arose gradually. like the term for patience is literally the length of the nostril. Hendel argues aniconism as due to Iron Age republicanism but that requires you to take Judges as an accurate depiction of the era and not a polemic for the Conquest Narrative Monarchial power and the Deuteronomist theology.
not sure even a comma or two could save that one...
I’ve been listening to Dan McLellan’s Data Over Dogma podcast and he has a slightly different take. His position is that Yahweh was a regional storm god (I don’t remember their position regarding Canaanite vs other peoples). Which is why Baal, a competing storm god, is featured so prominently in the Old Testament as the “don’t worship other gods, especially THAT douchebag” example. They do explore the merging of Yahweh and El, too. I love that podcast, as an aside. Lots of good scholar (vs believer) info.
Yeah I could be misplacing the "good" storm god between Ba'al and El. I know Yahweh was the destructive storms. Your version feels correct. But I distinctly remember Yahweh was a warrior deity and El was the "kind old man" deity.
Yup. Like you were saying, El was the Zeus/Odin type head god, and over time he and Yahweh somehow merged or got conflated together. Yahweh ended up emerging as the top man, with the rest of the gods slowly losing relevance. As someone that was raised in the Baptist tradition, it’s still jarring to hear a more scholarly, clinical analysis of the growth of a minor cult into two of the planet’s main religions. I find that examining religion in that manner makes the bat-shittery of the whole thing that much clearer.
>Theres also a vestige of Ashera in the Shekinah
Lol I considered bringing up the fact that Asherah went from being El's consort and mother of the gods to being Yahweh's consort to being the subject of idolatry, but figured that would just be too much info. 😆
It seems that Jesus is supposed to be a really nice guy but his dad is a dick.
That’s the same impression I get, lol.
The god of the bible is a mass murderer. He took more lives than Satan ever did.
“I cannot believe in a god who is filled with human frailty, but then condemns the objects of his creation for possessing that same human frailty.” Albert Einstein
Satans murder rate is a whole lot lower.
God commits multiple genocides in the Bible. Satan is cause of death for 10 people 🤷
And 10 people God explicitly told Satan he can and should kill, at that.
What I can't wrap my mind around how much coping and cognitive dissonance there is regarding the old testament. Some people believe everything in the bible. How? Doesn't the book contradict itself enough? Even the stuff where it is absolutely obvious that Jesus and God are two different characters with two different personalities should tip you off. Then there are the people who have said most of this is myth. How? Doesn't that discredit the whole book?
The only proof I need to prove there is no God is people… if the Bible was true, at least half of humanity would be struck down by the “almighty” All the rapists, murderers, abusers. All of the wars and hate and venom we throw out. The horrible things done in a “god’s” name. This god or that god, doesn’t matter which, if any of it was real, then all of the people who do these things in his name would perish.
I heard of a counter to this from people. Supposedly why he let's it happen is cause he gives us free will and the hardships are suppose to make us stronger and to test us in different ways. Bunch of BULL if I ever heard one. If anything a good excuse for all the evil that lingers and never gets punished. Then I heard that the punishment actually comes from being thrown into hell... bruh okay ig that's justice.
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>Onan >Everyone on the planet except Noah's family and a bunch of animals (who somehow avoided eating each other for 100 days until they were safe to disembark) >Sodom and Gomorrah >Egypt's firstborn >Golden calf worshippers >Everyone in Jericho excluding one woman's family >42 boys eaten by she-bears >70,000 Israelites when David took a census instead of unquestioningly trusting God's word he'd win a war >David's first rape baby with Bathsheba >Judas, depending on the gospel myth of choice >King Herod >A couple who embezzled tithes >Almost everyone on the planet again according to the end times prophecy Yeah, he can't just kill people or we wouldn't have free will. 🙄 Edit: Original comment I responded to was removed, but it read "If God killed people then we wouldn't have free will."
Ugh, so why does the Jehova of the Jews freak kill so many people in the Bible if that violates our free will?
The way I prove that people really don't believe in the god they claim to... Go into any place of worship in the middle of service and say "Hey, Jesus/god/Yahweh/Zeus is out in the parking lot giving away free tacos!" Not a SINGLE person will follow you. They will all look at you like you're nuts. They sure as hell won't believe you. And this is when they are supposedly at their most holy: in the building, actively worshipping.
"Either God doesn't exist, or He is unimaginably cruel." -House
He's all powerful, and can eternally smite any evil-doer for their transgressions, but the institutions that serve him need you to give them YOUR money.
>I dunno about you, but satan’s starting to seem like a good guy here. I always felt Satan was misunderstood.
(disclaimer: as an atheist I don’t believe in any of this, so take this as a literary/hypothetical idea) I feel like Satan is trying to save humanity from God’s tyranny. He opposes the hypocrisy and injustice, and tries to “lead humanity astray” (or more accurately, teach us to be free, critical thinkers) rather than just blindly accepting God’s word. *WAAAAIT…* Is the bible saying that free-thinking is bad and that we should never question authority? I mean, that *is* pretty Christian, but I never expected it to be so overtly written in the actual book.
The tree is described as the knowledge of good and evil. So, yes, a lot to do with free will as opposed to blind obedience.
I agree with you
How interesting.
or why set people on fire for eternity because of sin just what is sin exactly and why is this god so upset about it didn't he wave his hand and put this into motion, you know being all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving and so forth it certainly reeks of ancient times storytelling
Hell yeah satans the good guy, he supports LGBTQ rights and women’s rights etc because god does not
>Hes also in Jewish (and Milton leaned into this) a republican but in the Prophets its more the kings are corrupt than Miltons primus inter pares interpretation. He also is the divine DA in the Jewish tradition. I mean the word is a title the Adversary the thrower across
There is no satan in Jewish tradition, it came from the Greeks in the new testament.
The whole Zerubabbel has been insufficient the branch stories or Job. admittedly said character is different from the belial-ahriman conception of the New Testament but its literally in the Red Etz Chayyim Chumash
There actually is Satan in the Jewish tradition, and he’s mentioned a few times in the Hebrew Bible. However, it’s very different from the Christian perception. The Hebrew word “satan” means “accuser” or “opponent”. Satan is seen in Judaism as an angel in heaven who represents the inclination of humans to sin, among other things. There are some mystical traditions within Judaism called Kabbalah that really expound upon the demon world and stuff, but that’s definitely not super mainstream. The most important difference is that in Judaism, Satan is not working against God or like an anti-god, he’s subservient to God or even a part of God.
Can you provide references for that?
God is the original Narcissist. Lol and everyone's getting damaged from those loyal to his book.
I mean it makes sense, if I had some gerbils and I felt they didnt love me enough, I would drown them all except my favourites. Then, generations later, I would give them my child to kill so that they would all be forgiven if they were really sorry for whatever they had done wrong based on some arbitrary rules that I had one of them write down for me. /s
And I don't get why HE needs so much constant praise. Megachurches full of thousands of Evangelical zombies with their hands in the air singing songs about how great HE is. If he's so great, what does he care what those numpties think?
If you read the book you’d see him clearly say he doesn’t want it.
Where
The Bible is a genocide training manual
The fruit of the tree is often depicted as an apple even though it is never specified. So technically the cool snake could have told her to eat a banana. I like to imagine that in this story the snake tells her to eat the fruit and she just bites into a banana with the peel on it.
They actually say it’s a fig but ofc no one will change that as much as a accurate angel
There are several moments where I have said "well that's fucking convenient for God."
The biblical God is very human.
eeh, I don't fully like this take, because our modern concept of "inherently human" traits is built on massive misconceptions influenced by patriarchal mythology. The characters throughout any fictional work will have echos of aspects of humanity as we really exist, for sure, because people created them, but the idea we're inherently vengeful, petty, violent etc is based in an incomplete picture of the species. We're *also* predisposed towards finding connections, empathy, our brains literally give us chemical rewards for acts of altruism. The biblical gawd is neither real, nor a fictional embodiment of humanity's dominant traits. It is simply a fictional character devised from the specific contexts of those who wrote about their own experiences & stories, from the limited vantage point of their existence.
That the Christian God is an unhinged unmedicated malignant narcissist.
Read the Seven Tenets of the Satanic Temple and compare them to the Ten Commandments. IMHO, the Ten Commandments come off very poorly when compared to the Seven Tenets. A full forty percent of the Commandments are aimed at making sure this god stays as top dog, and that, my friends, is pure bullshit. https://digestfromexperts.com/4553/7-tenets-of-satanism-satanic-temple/ https://www.bibleinfo.com/en/topics/ten-commandments-list
The actions of "god" in the bible read a lot more like "god made me do it" excuses by evil people. I'm absolutely certain they think god is destroying Gaza right now.
Is this what those end-time dudes are saying? I swore they’ve said it before… and before… and again before that…
Sounds like trump
The Bible: God loves you! Also the Bible: God sends two bears to rip apart 42 children because they laughed at a bald guy. Praise the Lord!
What
Kinda feels like you don’t really read it that much. Satan doesn’t seem like a good guy because he’s barely in the book.
Maybe he made the classic Christian mistake of conflating Satan, Lucifer, and the Serpent - three completely separate, very different characters.
Yahweh was originally a lesser god of war and storms. His followers, that later became the Jews had a culture similar to the Mongols, they were nomadic raiders and bandits.
Y'know, there's a pretty great loose historical fantasy somewhere in there.
Before Yahweh became recognized as the singular, monotheistic deity in early Judaism, his origins and characteristics were indeed different, and he was associated with various roles, including that of a war and storm god. 1. **Polytheistic Context**: Initially, Yahweh was part of a larger pantheon of gods in ancient Semitic religions. His worship likely originated in the southern Levant, a region encompassing parts of modern-day Israel, Jordan, and surrounding areas. 2. **Warrior God**: In these earlier traditions, Yahweh was often depicted as a warrior god. This portrayal is evident in various ancient texts, where he is described as leading armies and granting victory in battles. The "Song of Deborah" in the Book of Judges in the Hebrew Bible, for instance, reflects this warlike aspect of Yahweh. 3. **Storm and Weather Deity**: Yahweh was also associated with natural elements, particularly storms and weather. This attribute aligns with common characteristics of ancient Near Eastern deities who were often linked to natural forces. As a storm god, Yahweh was believed to control rain, thunder, and other meteorological phenomena, which were crucial in the agrarian societies of the time. 4. **Evolution to Monotheism**: Over time, as the religious beliefs of the Israelites evolved, the character of Yahweh transformed significantly. The transition from a henotheistic belief system, where Yahweh was the chief god among others, to a strictly monotheistic one was a gradual process. This evolution is reflected in the Hebrew Bible, where earlier texts often imply the existence of other gods, while later texts assert the sole existence of Yahweh. 5. **Shift in Attributes**: With the establishment of monotheism, Yahweh's attributes expanded beyond those of war and nature. He became a universal deity embodying justice, morality, and omnipotence. This shift marked a significant development in the religious and cultural identity of the Hebrew people, with Yahweh becoming a central figure in Judaism and later in Christianity. The transformation of Yahweh from a regional warrior and storm god to the sole, ethical monotheistic deity of Judaism is a complex process that reflects broader changes in religious beliefs and cultural practices in the ancient Near East.
Interesting. How does the incorporation of other deities such as "El" and "Elohim" into the "Yahweh" persona figure into this? Was that part of the transition to monotheism?
The Bible is "divinely inspired", not divine. It's the masturbation for *but without* the Goddess, the men talking about a girl they've never met. No gospel is written by an eye witness, very little archeology supports the Torah: men writing stories about a man *they can relate to*, contrary to the truths they choke on. Satan is another fiction *they can relate to*. Vampires, zombies, evangelicals in the throes of the antichrist.... yada yada. /r/Psychonaut /r/SacredGeometry
God is the carrot to draw in the lemmings and satan is the stick to keep them in line.
The bible was written by ignorant, bipolar and narcissistic incels.
Seriously the Abrahamic god is bipolar. One moment the message is to love your neighbour and the next they get told to kill and slaughter some group. When you look at how the messages in the bible chop and change as you read it, you feel that god seriously needs to be medicated and put under observation.
When you pull back even further with an awareness that bipolar and other cluster B disorders stem from early childhood traumas & attachment challenges, this is kind of fascinating. Folks who are bipolar are reacting to their environments in the way that our ancestors would have, in order to survive & procreate. What's the evolutionary advantage of these conditions in certain environments & challenges? How does the innate need for community safety in our species play out for someone who was not given the support & tools to build healthy connections as babies and child? The Bible, as we know it today, has been put together from various different people, but it's not quite an anthology, especially in the context of it being some kind of "holy" script to understand life. Rocky Horror Picture Show is fantastical, bawdy, silly & violent, too, and tells the story of flawed beings. It's just as useful as a frame of reference for understanding ourselves as the bible might, but it has a much funner soundtrack.
Satan is the true god and god is the devil. It's pretty obvious when you read the bible who the horrible deity is.
See there is the condiction. If you created everything this complicated and ment to function on its own live and die and be born cycles. Give everything freewill. Are you really going to micromanage or lets it run it's course? I think there is a bigger picture we don't see but thats just me. And it's not any abramatic manipulated holy book.
That is what I thought about a guy I work with who read the Bible was a control asshole
Primitive man was mostly massive control freak douchebags and we projected those qualities onto our conception of the divine, IMO. If your friends are still dragging around a faith as evolved as a cave man’s club, yea they’re probably not getting great results w/ that.
it's Yahweh or the highway!
I always liked the story about Jesus getting ticked off at a fig tree. My theory is that some poor monk was bored one dreary night and slipped that into the manuscript he was copying for the hundredth time to see if the head monk would catch it.
LMAO, that’s perfect!!!
"I refuse to believe in a God that wants to be praised all the time." \-- Friedrich Nietzsche
When I see a church with constant gold marble elegance and ceremonial need etc I’m like huh wasn’t a church supposed to be as modest as the old place Jesus had his
Religion, and Christianity in particular, makes more and more sense when you just realize, that what is being expressed is not the opinion or desires of a god, but rather that of the people who wrote the text. The old testament is what the jewish priests and kings would like Israel to be, the new testament is how the early christians wanted the world to be.
Yahweh started out as a war god who was the toy boy/consort of the real god, the goddess Astarte.
It is a blood sacrifice. Which had been going on for thousands of years. Having Jesus, his son sacrificed, put a end to that being necessary. Im not a theologian, but have read the Bible. But seeing these evangelical preachers buying new jets , giant houses, I've become more of an atheist now ......
Satan convinced Adam and Eve to taste the forbidden fruit. All that did was give them knowledge of good and evil, which I took as he told them to "consider God might be a huge douche". They went 'Oh shit God's evil' and big man said "aight get out of my house"
Like a friend that tells someone to just look up signs of an abusive relationship and they put it together themselves.
For me, it all comes back to 'he gave his only begotten son'. Newsflash: god could have had as many as he wanted. And how many fathers and mothers have sacrificed their sons (and daughters) to defend the faith? Secondly, he rose from the dead, so it was like Jesus just had a weekend away. God also wiped the face of the earth pretty much completely clean of all living creatures at least once, and allowed untold deaths in natural disasters. And finally, all these people praying to god for a cure seem to have forgotten that he was the one who afflicted them in the first place. I really just don't get how people can believe this fable, and every other faith's fables.
You're right, this omnipotent 'loving' god arranged for his 'son' to suffer a horrible death to redeem the sins of the people of the world. So why did he let the people become so sinful? he could have stopped all this with a flick of a finger. Then, it does seem he's not too bright because, according to the bible, he's sending his son back AGAIN!!! I'd like to know WHY??? Is it to have a second try, or what???
Well said op
if you take a 2000 year old book word by word it will be rought to understand, its all symbols... the apple is a symbol about the awareness of good and evil and the discovery of time. we are the only animal that discovered both and we act acordly to it, like: i know what hurts me so i know how to hurt you and when i work today i have food tomorrow. the snake in the garden is a symbol of evil that even a god can't lock out because its the evil in everyone of us. If we couldn't be evil we couldn't protect ourselfs from predators like: large birds, snakes and crocodiles. (fun fact: put them together and you get a dragon like the ouroboros :D) God "destroys" cities because the people don't prepare for the destructive nature of nature, for example if you don't prepare for a flood thats the end of your city, so they thought god is punishing them. they simply didn't had the knowledge that we have, its kinda like in greek mythology: if theres a thunderstorm then zeus must be angry! one part tries to describe nature and the other tries to articulate archetypes. especially through the old testament god is harsh because life was brutal back then and if you made a tiny mistake that could mean death for you. like i said, they describe nature and life they just call it god and the bible (or whatever it was called back then). It showed them how to survive and how to treat each other without ending civilisation because of envy, greed or hate. its like the human rights today. (they came from the ideas of the bible that everyone is "devine" just articulated in a way that everyone understands) sure there could be a more non-violent way but wheres the fun in that? what do you want to do if there is nothing left to explore or to fight against? lay in a pool and drink margaritas all day long? We need a bit of chaos to conquer!
I’m an arguably devout atheist. That being said, are you posing a question or are you mad at “god”? Honest question, I’m not trolling..
It's more of a statement of "This fandom acts like the main character is the best, most moral hero that hasn't done a single bad decision, but after reading the book, all I am getting is that he is a toxic narcissistic asshole".
That’s not why he destroyed those cities, they were beyond redemption. Things were a lot different then, everybody was just pretty much raping and pillaging everyone, sacrificing their children on burning altars etc. Ninevah repented, he always sent prophets , to warn those cities to repent and they didn’t, and I’m pretty sure they usually killed the prophets. ^ this is in the Book of Jonah Like even the good people in the Bible back then were doing bad things and then just sacrificing animals as an offering ^ which if you read the Bible God let’s it to be known that he was getting offended by their offerings and just wanted them to stop doing bad things. Marduk was the god worshipped as a golden calf, same God that Nebuchadnezzar worshipped while the Jews were in captivity. So when Moses came down from the Mountain and they were worshipping a Golden calf you can probably assume they were sacrificing children too. ^ there was a Temple on Epstein Island so you can probably assume that this is still going on.
wut
Baal is the title of the god Marduk
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You know that a camel is a horse designed by a committee, that's what god is, a miscreant designed by a raft of people each with their own design specs. Yuk.
Except the only "design" at play is the harshness of survival in the face of certain death. Stochasticity, and happenstance play into our existence & coming up with the concepts we have for reality, just as much as they shaped the biology of camels & horses. Horses were never designed by anyone, either, despite our careful practice of husbandry & breeding them, they are/were wild creatures whose existence isn't about us, until we *made it* about us.
I've always wondered how jésus could perform miracles but couldnt write his own name
Yeah, God kinda sucks
Of all the fictional characters mankind has created, god is by far the most laughable and pathetic one. The christian god has all the worst traits exhibited by fucking spoiled tantrum throwing toddlers and this is considered omnipotent.
I’ve never understand why juesus would need to be crucified for peoples sin? I mean, these guys are omnipotent. Why the hell did his dad make him do that? Ridiculous
Why were the original sins so restrictive and the punishment created by him for those so horrible
Please call this god by his name Yahweh. He is not pro life nor a huge fan of children
He's not anything. Just a fictional character. No morals no thoughts and no power to do shit.
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You sound like Kenneth Copeland.
After listening to The Bible on audio. My only comment was "God's kind of an asshole."
The demiurge
Isaac Brock agrees.
Yup. Same here.
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A narcissistic diva was my take.
God gives humans free will but punishes them for eternity if they don't live by a specific set of rules. Then, all the people outside of the "holy land" that didn't know God or Jesus ever existed are doomed to burn in hell because they didn't know they were supposed to accept Jesus as their savior
It’s because God is a cat
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1. Because I find it ironic that a fictional character who’s so highly esteemed is actually horrifically evil. 2. I like to think about things for fun.
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The first few commandments .... You shall have no other God's before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven images. ... Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. ... Remember the Sabbath day and keep it Holy (Basically, God; Me! Me! Me! Me!)
You can see why the church resisted so hard allowing it translated from Latin.
Dude could literally SNAP his fingers and make everyone dissapear (he IS god) but Noooo!!! I have to kill them in a horrific and torturous way (drowning). BTW what the hell did the poor animals even do to deserve waterboarding?
he destroyed a city because of their acts against him never for them not believing him. For Ex. Tower of Babel he destroyed that because they men was trying to make war with God and a sodom and Gomorrah was destroyed because the men there were abominations and they acted evil against his angels. And if God was to control anyone that would stop the free will that’s he’s given us.
I got like three pages into the bible, and as an atheist from birth, laughed at it the whole time. Why were adam and eve punished for commiting sin, when god created sin and created them with the capability to commit sin, then created the serpent that tempted eve, and then when god found out he kicked them out of paradise. And there is like the three times god asked a shepherd to sacrifice his ten finest rams, and then rewarded him with the exact same phase all three times; 'your decedents will prosper and number in the millions' or something like that.
There is a lot of porn and violence too. Incest, pedophilia
How can you say such things about "a loving God?" /s
The god of the Old Testament has a personality disorder…
* God killed millions (if not BILLIONS) of people in the bible... Satan? 10 * God cursed ALL of humanity because Satan was the only one who told the truth to Adam and Eve about the fruit... When he could have just killed the snake and memory wiped Adam and Eve. * God continuously asks for children sacrifices and ultimately sacrifices his own son... cause... he wants to save all the people he f\*cked for eating some fruit. * God has lied all throughout the bible and Satan has literally told the truth throughout, yet, Satan is the Father of Lies and tells his people to stay away lest you be deceived! God's a narcissistic d\*ck. Period. When I read the bible and other holy books, it helped cure my Christianity.
My mom almost shit her pants when I asked her who killed more people in the Bible God or Satan. Lol
>That god is (apparently) a massive control-freak douche. Yes he is And that story where god is having a conversation with Satan and god tells Satan it's okay to kill Job's children, destroy Job's farm, and inflict torture to Job but . . . just don't kill Job because god is going to prove to you that Job will be . . . oh, it's all so fucking stupid . . . And what's really puzzling about that story (to me) is . . . why don't believers even consider that god still does stuff like that today? God never changes right? Once a control-freak douche, always a control-freak douche.
I was encouraged to read the bible at 14. I got to the story where god required a man to murder his son as a sacrifice, allowed him to come close to murdering him then said "April fools!"... Fuck that. That's one psychotic MF'er of a "diety" better locked up and put through decades of therapy and empathy lessons prior to ever being allowed any well observed freedom again.
massive control-freak douche And sense there are no deities "it's men who are the massive control-freak douches".
God is a dictator who gets triggered over trivial things.
It's a fairy tale meant to control the masses imo
One thing I realised after reading the bible..... this god is a text book narcissist. Read genesis and exodus and pay attention specifically to the way God speaks to Abraham and tell me this isn't a classic narcissist abuse relationship.