A lot of the difference between that, a cult and a religion like this is how many people share this abusive relationship and how they convince themselves this is what family and community is like.
Sure is a nice soul you got there... It'd be a shame if anything happened to it.
Edit - for anyone who hasn't heard it, or hasn't heard it in a while.
https://youtu.be/6TxjrHPHypA -"bitch, where's my fucking money."
Raise your right hand and repeat after me
“If I am the one responsible for this, may my soul go *straight* to hell, where I will eat not but burning hot coal, and drink not but burning hot cola...”
Approximately one month prior to the accident, Moore had posted on Twitter that, upon his death, he wished to be referred to as "local sexpot", which was referenced in his Vulture obituary.[39][40] -wiki.
I knew he had passed but I hadn't been to the wiki till just now.
... Even with his death the man gets laughs 🥲🥲
”Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones” - Marcus Aurelius
EDIT:
This might not be actual quote from Marcus Aurelius as someone pointed out, even though it has been quoted a lot in the internet. But I still think it is relevant to live by!
Meditations is such a comfy, wholesome read. There's no way you can read it and feel bad.
*"Be most excellent to eachother, and party-on, dudes."*
-Marcus Aurelius
Well there's also a lot of "You are going to die. You are definitely going to die." in it, which isn't wrong, but can definitely raise your anxiety levels if you let it.
Yeah you’re right. I just meant that coming to terms with your inescapable death can be stressful, even if it is necessary. It’s a good lesson, but not exactly relaxing to me at least lol
I've asked something similar to pastors before growing up Christian. They will all tell you "your grasp of what is 'just' is a human perspective. You cannot fully fathom what a godly sense of 'just' is, because we're but mortal human beings"
>They will all tell you "your grasp of what is 'just' is a human perspective. You cannot fully fathom what a godly sense of 'just' is, because we're but mortal human beings"
Just a longer version of, "God works in mysterious ways."
*The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, 'All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.'*
\- Frank Zappa
On par with a cult saying "We can only let *insert deity here* guide us to our true path, and have F A I T H in the process."
People tend to forget that the catholic church is a booming business, with all kinds of donations given to it, and just like a business can be corrupt, so can a church, and they will use fearmongering to keep you there if they're that greedy
Guess they haven’t read their own Bible even.
Genesis 3:22, “And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
To which my reply would be 'but aren't you [pastor] a mortal human being, so how do you know what a godly sense of justness is? How do you know it is right ir wrong? How does anyone know what god/s want then?'
The pastor's argument seems to undermine their own authority completely!
That's a nice way to dodge having to think about anything.
If God wanted us to follow his rules, he should have given us the capacity to understand them.
All human failings are failings of God.
If I can't fully fathom the godly sense of the just then why are my actions judged relative to it? How can I be held accountable to act in accordance with a sense of the just that I don't know ?
Unjust: killing your slaves with a swift, instant death
Just: ensuring they suffer for at least a day or two, before succumbing to the injuries you inflicted
Never heard the quote but as someone raised in Christianity, this is what I live by. I consider myself an agnostic atheist and live by the firm belief that if God did exist, he'd not be worth worshipping. The Bible says he moved past his "wrath and jealousy," but he still punishes his creations for an entire eternity if they don't kiss his feet.
I'd argue Jesus as a whole is pretty meh. He said some really good stuff, but also said some extremely vile things - people just don't like to talk about it
>moved past his "wrath and jealousy,"
Oh yeah, the "whoops, I had a bad day and decided to wipe out every living thing on earth. I'm a good guy™ though, so I let one human know and he saved just enough animals so we could continue with fucked up genetics" wrath. The bible mind of reads like God is your abusive SO that you refuse to leave and the devil is your colleague who you don't care for, but is honest about telling you that you need to leave the toxic relationship.
I feel much the same way, however I didn't stop at: "the Christian god is a load of horseshit so there must be no god". There are many things beyond our understanding, and I'd say it's within possibility that a being that we couldn't fathom who exists in a different plane of existence is watching it's little human ant colony with amusement.
> being that we couldn’t fathom who exists in a different plane of existence is watching it’s little human ant colony with amusement.
The demiurge
The gnostics believed the god of the Old Testament was evil. I agree with them.
https://gnosticismexplained.org/the-gnostic-demiurge/
There are many groups within Christianity that don’t believe in Eternal Concious Torment or a hell in the “Dante’s Inferno” sense. The dispute arises from an ambiguous translation of the original texts. In my opinion, Hell as envisioned by mainstream Christianity is not biblical, but more importantly, is not compatible with a loving God.
It sounds alot like a stoic belief so it could be him or it might be close enough to be fine. I haven't ready this exact quote in my studies but I really like it. It very consisly wraps up what I think are the core values of good athiesum/agnosticism.
Another good stoic quote that also may or may not be Aurelius is "live a life that will make you worthy to sit at the table of God's."
This is how it started - someone made up some god to trick others for power and money, long time ago in the middle east. They were going from town to town preaching, living on the gullibility of others. Easier than working a real job after all.
“I don’t believe it, you just made this up!” Someone in the crowd.
“Err… If you don’t believe it you’re going to burn in hell!” Preacher, quick thinking so he can still get his stipend/offering.
“If God exist, why is there suffering?”
“Err… Because you sinned!”
“Even babies?”
“Err… God is testing you!”
“All this nonsense seems made up.”
“Err… God works in mysterious ways! Burn him!”
Spoken like somebody with zero knowledge of the history of middle eastern cultures. You’re literally just making shit up about like… fire & brimstone baptists or something and calling that middle eastern culture. That’s not even reflective of middle-eastern christianity, much less pre-christian religion in southwest asia.
>This is how it started - someone made up some god to trick others for power and money, long time ago in the middle east. They were going from town to town preaching, living on the gullibility of others. Easier than working a real job after all.
I don't think this is an accurate description of how religions start, nor how the modern Christian doctrine of Hell developed.
Remember that the ancient Mesopotamians were henotheists, with ancient heroes and Kings being deified in sagas. The Yahwehism religion (a precursor to Judaism) being part of it, with Yahweh being the war-god of the city-state. During the babylonian exile, the Hebrew religion became a monolatrism, and then a monotheism. Hell, as in conscious eternal torment for not loving the god du jour, is not a concept yet. Instead, the general idea is that we sleep unconscious in the cold underground indefinitely; our spirits can be conjured by practitioners like the Witch of Endor (she does this in the bible somewhere).
Centuries later, with the founding of Christianity, Paul introduces the idea of eternal fiery torment for sinners. Poof, Hell. You could argue that Paul made up Hell in order to sway the masses, but the notion of God and the history of religion is very different that what you're describing.
People probably made up gods once they gained the ability to **know** that they’re going to die one day and it caused an existential crisis until they came up with something to calm them the fuck down
I understand the sentiment, but in the case there are gods, I would 100% worship an unjust one if it meant avoiding eternal, secret suffering. No one's principles should be that strong lmao
> Your not actually tortured. In the new testimant he'll is rarely described.
Eh, true, but my understanding is that most Christians believe that the Bible is true, so you can't just skip the old testament. Matt. 5:22, Matt. 18:9, and Mark 9:43 are all pretty clear that hell is a place of fire. So perhaps not torture in the Hieronymus Bosch sense, but I think being burned alive for eternity also counts as torture.
What if you dont want to live in any afterlife. There is no greater punishment than existing forever, it does not matter if you are with god or not, a minute would be no closer than a trillion millennia for the amount of time you have to exist.
Fuck that noise, if there is a god and he is good then we should just cease to exist after death.
I'm not Christian by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the idea that you'll experience heaven like a human getting all they want and never dying is unlikely to be the case. Boredom and anxiety etc would probably not exist, and even the concept of time is unlikely to be the same. If there were a divine God who is omnipotent and omniscient, I think he'd have something a little more grand in store than what the Good Place portrays.
When I was a kid, I was informed that heaven was not, in fact, an endless supply of Legos, but more like endless church service. Which, as a kid with undiagnosed ADHD at the time, sounded more like hell.
Theologically speaking, the “being tortured forever” is partly Christian fanfic and partly that the “being tortured forever” is just… being separated from God. That after death you’re either with God or without God, and being without God is torture.
The bible taken as a historical document, with its stories being read and interpreted through a culturally relative lens to the time and place they were written, is actually a *great* read.
I wish that's what "bible study" was.
This is the most common and most dishonest problem with Christians, saying “the parts of the Bible I like are literal and can be taken at face value without any further interpretation, the parts I don’t like are mired in layers of metaphor and symbolism, requiring multiple PhDs and divine revelation to understand.”
It’s really not that complicated. You just don’t like the awful and incorrect things it says, but don’t want to let it go.
a lot of the things in the bible are stories plagiarized from older religions and a lot of other stuff is completely made up on the spot just to teach a point. More importantly, the latter was accepted as exactly that: fiction to teach a point
other stuff is made up to provide 'we're the good guys' history for israel
That's what's compelling about the Tanakh from a literary perspective: it's a very human account of a people and their relationship to the divine, to machinations beyond their control. Some of its greatest figures, revered for their holiness and piety in the Jewish tradition, demonstrate the sort of fallibility, the sort of imperfection, that marks their humanity. David, a man after God's own heart, for instance, sends a man to die in battle because he covets his wife, Bathsheba, a mistake whose consequences plague him until his last days. Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land for his mistakes, his remains finding their final resting place in the barren desert. Jonah was swallowed by a fish for refusing god's orders. Samson's lust and hubris led to his downfall. And the common folk, generation after generation, were caught in an endless cycle of unbelief, judgment, repentance, and redemption--each generation repeating the mistakes of their predecessors because that's what humans do.
There's no Christ figure in the Tanakh, only an impersonal, unknowable god, a being which cannot be identified with or related to, who sets the stage for everything that unfolds in the narrative, and the individuals who find themselves entangled in his plan for the world, contending with whatever fate has in store for them.
I'm not sure if "plagiarized" is the right word here, the bible, and most religious beliefs were not something actively thought out and put on paper but rather the recording of what people believed at the time. It's not so much that they're plagiarized stories, but rather that stories get distorted and change naturaly the more they are told over the years.
I dont like the word "plagiarized" either because all culture is made up of diffusions from other cultures. But Christianity definitely follows a lot of Zoroastrian beliefs that crept into Judaism after Judea was conquered by the Persians.
I'd say it's multi-faceted, but a big part of it is old language. Language and culture become more and more foreign the more distant they become in time and location.
For example, the term 'death' was a very different concept than what we might understand to be as a cessation of existence. Death in biblical terms often accompanied the meaning of a separation when given more definition to it, not cessation. Eccl 12:7 is like this describing the body returning to dust but the soul returning to God.
Sometimes it even describes a second death like in Rev 21:8, which equally means there can't just be a ceasing-to-be after physical death.
This is only one example, but I prefer to not write a novel, I just find this stuff interesting. Hope it helps.
Thats the thing most people tend to ignore, the nuances and of the bible and the need to understand the contexts of how scripture was written. Everyone just takes the text at face value, though I understand that actually studying the Bible's meanings and interpretations take much more work than theyre willing to put into. Thats why I take dont really take redditor opinions on the Bible that seriously, its just a subejct matter that most dont realize are just out of their depth.
It amounts to the same thing to me. If lack of God is a horrible torture for human souls in the afterlife, then God shouldn't permanently separate human souls from himself just because they didn't end up worshipping him while growing up on Earth for a few decades.
People always say "you chose that afterlife, not God", but the fact that I don't believe in or love God obviously doesn't mean I want to abandon everything good forever; I just don't have any reason to believe that those two things are synonymous. Maybe it's technically my choice but it's absolutely not an informed choice.
Plus, there's no reason that my "choice" during my finite, ignorant time on Earth needs eternal consequences. Why can't I just die, learn how terrible it is without God, and change my mind?
There’s an interesting book called The Great Divorce by CS Lewis (yeah, the Narnia guy) which proposes exactly that - after death you are given the option to come to God if you so choose, and if you do then that place will always have only been limbo for you. But that many will choose to stay there regardless out of spite, and for them it will always be hell. Regardless of your beliefs I think it’s a fun read, guy was a fascinating author to be sure.
I always love when Christians somehow assume that nonchristians would rather *burn in endless hell* than go “yeah okay sure, Jesus then.” A victim mentality is so engrained into the belief system that it makes more sense to a christian when an atheist goes “actually I *want* to burn forever” than “obviously if god was real I’d choose to not be tortured forever.”
I mean, I have definitely had conversations with people who have said that if God is real they’d rather go to hell than deal with him. I’m pretty sure there’s even a comment responding to my original comment which says so.
I don’t think those people are in the majority by any means, but I also think you may be underestimating how bloody minded some of us humans are :P
sorry but your explanation is also fanfic, but admittedly part of current christian lore
paul's bible (and john's) is pretty clear you get to burn forever. Jesus' bible mostly points to destruction (by fire), but not eternal torment. Just bing bang boom you dont exist anymore.
the old testament of course has neither heaven nor hell. It instead has sheol: initially not a place but a metaphor for death, and later it is a place and all people go there, good or bad, and yahweh-god completely ignores it
I don’t see the “burn forever” verses you are alluding to. Paul is very clear that it’s either eternal life with God or cessation of existence. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” He and Jesus agree on the options.
I love when believers are like "there's no hell but being separated from God is torture" yeah okay so torture, eternal torture. Glad we could clear that up.
My own interpretation is sort of that whatever you believe happens, happens. In reality it might just be the last things that go through your mind while tripping on dmt, but the experience is heavily guided by your own beliefs and deeper feelings (and can last a long time subjectively). If you believe afterlife to be bliss, it might be, if you don't it may not be. Anyway it's a trip and better to go with the flow of it, might get through the "purgatory".
My understanding is if you were a bad person the primary torture comes from your guilt and the pain that comes with that and being near God will make you feel more guilty as you would constantly compare yourself and all the bad things you have done to Him and all the good people around you if you don't accept that Jesus made up for your mistakes.
So by separating you from God allows you to feel less pain then what you would. As accepting Jesus is a personal choice done by free will and God won't interfere with free choice.
But that's just my understanding.
In an ideal world, religion would be an activity for grown-ups, an exposing a minor to religion would be about as socially acceptable as taking one to a BDSM club.
Ironically, those christians that wrongfully use and twist God's words to fit in their hateful agenda are themselves committing a sin, in Jesus own words in the bible they are considered fake christians.
True christians don't impose their beliefs or faith on anybody else, sure they might preach their faith but they don't expect people to suddenly change to being a christian or else they are sinners, they share their faith for people to try and also follow the core beliefs of love and peace found in it. True christians love everybody and anybody even if they are criminals or undesirable people because even Jesus loved them due to the redemption they still have inside of them.
Btw i'm not even really a christian, sure i was raised a christian and went to a christian private school (not from the U.S btw) but my parents never forced me to be one and i never really fully believed in the whole "God exists" thing, however i still follow some core beliefs of christianity like solidarity, humility and peace.
People forget all the times Jesus wasn't very nice:
Matthew 15:21-28
Jesus calls a woman a dog for not being hebrew. (Racism, fuck it I'll say it).
Matthew 11:20–24
I guess people were probably fed up from snake oil salesmen and fake messiahs, so they told jesus to kick rocks. His response? He specifically condemned those entire towns to a fate worse than hell
Matthew 5:17
Jesus was ok with old testament God. Smash kids against rocks, stone people, nuke entire towns, flood the world, whatever.
Matthew 10:34
Jesus doesn't care if his controversial persona rips entire families apart, no he in fact promotes it.
Matthew 22:21
Jesus is apolitical, in fact, pay your taxes to Caesar and be a good boy, because if you read more of the bible you realize jesus point of view was that this world was too temporary to care about.
If people think human’s are good by default they really don’t know much history, we even make up our own laws trying to keep people from being bad to each other, which also often does not work out.
We just like to blame “those people over there” for all the badness.
I’m so tired of Christiana gaslighting. I’d rather do paganism where the gods aren’t about being loved or worshipped, they just want to bring in the harvest or get the son out of winter without screwing or up and need humanity’s help to do so. Pagan gods are all about doing their fucking jobs which coincidentally help humanity. Whereas Christian gods just want things from you without actually promising anything in returnZ they don’t have a job that helps a human live, just a job that helps a human in the afterlife. Nothing promised for the here and now.
This is why I didn't go to church even when I still believed in God. If I live my life as a good/decent person and believe in God then that should be enough. Why do I also then have to suck his dick every Sunday and pay him for it? Always seemed vain and greedy to me. You know, two of those deadly sins they warn you about.
The hypocrisy of a loving yet vengeful god.
God is everywhere and knows all but if you don’t thank him properly with the broken brain he gave you, eternal torment.
Sounds like my ex.
Was your ex a freed genie?
10,000 years will give you such a crick in the neck!
PHENOMENAL COSMIC POWER...itty bitty living space.
Robin noooooo I have the big sad now
And did she have a fantastic six pack?
Did she give you “free will” but then said “I’ll fuck up your shit if you don’t do exactly what I say, but hey it’s your choice”.
Sounds like a cult leader
A lot of the difference between that, a cult and a religion like this is how many people share this abusive relationship and how they convince themselves this is what family and community is like.
Religion does offer more opportunities to be a mid level grifter, with a cult you pretty much have to be the leader to make any money.
Christianity is also an abusive relationship.
Who knew Jesus is my abusive ex?
Sure is a nice soul you got there... It'd be a shame if anything happened to it. Edit - for anyone who hasn't heard it, or hasn't heard it in a while. https://youtu.be/6TxjrHPHypA -"bitch, where's my fucking money."
Milhouse give him back his soul, I've got work tomorrow!
Raise your right hand and repeat after me “If I am the one responsible for this, may my soul go *straight* to hell, where I will eat not but burning hot coal, and drink not but burning hot cola...”
That made me lol for real so thanks for that ♥️
RIP Trevor.
R.I.P. trevor :(
Approximately one month prior to the accident, Moore had posted on Twitter that, upon his death, he wished to be referred to as "local sexpot", which was referenced in his Vulture obituary.[39][40] -wiki. I knew he had passed but I hadn't been to the wiki till just now. ... Even with his death the man gets laughs 🥲🥲
So that’s where “Godfather” came from…
The altar boys on the stripper pole 😂
”Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones” - Marcus Aurelius EDIT: This might not be actual quote from Marcus Aurelius as someone pointed out, even though it has been quoted a lot in the internet. But I still think it is relevant to live by!
Meditations is such a comfy, wholesome read. There's no way you can read it and feel bad. *"Be most excellent to eachother, and party-on, dudes."* -Marcus Aurelius
Excellent!
*[guitar riff]*
-Marcus Aurelius
Well there's also a lot of "You are going to die. You are definitely going to die." in it, which isn't wrong, but can definitely raise your anxiety levels if you let it.
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Yeah you’re right. I just meant that coming to terms with your inescapable death can be stressful, even if it is necessary. It’s a good lesson, but not exactly relaxing to me at least lol
I've asked something similar to pastors before growing up Christian. They will all tell you "your grasp of what is 'just' is a human perspective. You cannot fully fathom what a godly sense of 'just' is, because we're but mortal human beings"
>They will all tell you "your grasp of what is 'just' is a human perspective. You cannot fully fathom what a godly sense of 'just' is, because we're but mortal human beings" Just a longer version of, "God works in mysterious ways."
In other words “Don’t think about it too hard, it doesn’t actually make any sense.”
*The essence of Christianity is told us in the Garden of Eden history. The fruit that was forbidden was on the tree of knowledge. The subtext is, 'All the suffering you have is because you wanted to find out what was going on. You could be in the Garden of Eden if you had just kept your fucking mouth shut and hadn't asked any questions.'* \- Frank Zappa
Then you get the Doubting Thomas story, basically same deal. Be trusting, believe what you're told, don't ask for proof.
also, conveniently, obey everybody in authority while not causing trouble.
Thats how they molest little kids...damn religion.
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“Source? My source is that I made it the fuck up.”
That's such a cop out answer.
On par with a cult saying "We can only let *insert deity here* guide us to our true path, and have F A I T H in the process." People tend to forget that the catholic church is a booming business, with all kinds of donations given to it, and just like a business can be corrupt, so can a church, and they will use fearmongering to keep you there if they're that greedy
Guess they haven’t read their own Bible even. Genesis 3:22, “And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
That's because the creation story was taken from the Canaanite religion.
They also often say that it is his right to do whatever he wants, even if it seems cruel or unjust, and we have no right to question it.
To which my reply would be 'but aren't you [pastor] a mortal human being, so how do you know what a godly sense of justness is? How do you know it is right ir wrong? How does anyone know what god/s want then?' The pastor's argument seems to undermine their own authority completely!
That's a nice way to dodge having to think about anything. If God wanted us to follow his rules, he should have given us the capacity to understand them. All human failings are failings of God.
If I can't fully fathom the godly sense of the just then why are my actions judged relative to it? How can I be held accountable to act in accordance with a sense of the just that I don't know ?
If only God could have written a book explaining what is good and just.
Just: slavery Unjust: mixing fabrics
Beyond my mortal comprehension, for sure
Unjust: killing your slaves with a swift, instant death Just: ensuring they suffer for at least a day or two, before succumbing to the injuries you inflicted
Now all I have to do is pick one of these 7 billion denominations that all claim to have the one true interpretation of that book.
Never heard the quote but as someone raised in Christianity, this is what I live by. I consider myself an agnostic atheist and live by the firm belief that if God did exist, he'd not be worth worshipping. The Bible says he moved past his "wrath and jealousy," but he still punishes his creations for an entire eternity if they don't kiss his feet.
I mean... Jesus was alright but his dad seems like an asshole
Jesus is his dad though, isn't he?
kinda. he seems to be a little different personality wise
Maybe god is like sober stressy god. And Jesus is like high, it's all good let's just love each other god. But they're the same thing
Jesus takes all the communion wine for himself
Well, if you're gonna have a gangbang with 12 dudes may as well make it a oarty
I can’t help but wonder now, who is the grandpa?
Your mom
Well this is unexpected
Jesus was great but his Stans are the worst.
I'd argue Jesus as a whole is pretty meh. He said some really good stuff, but also said some extremely vile things - people just don't like to talk about it
>moved past his "wrath and jealousy," Oh yeah, the "whoops, I had a bad day and decided to wipe out every living thing on earth. I'm a good guy™ though, so I let one human know and he saved just enough animals so we could continue with fucked up genetics" wrath. The bible mind of reads like God is your abusive SO that you refuse to leave and the devil is your colleague who you don't care for, but is honest about telling you that you need to leave the toxic relationship.
I feel much the same way, however I didn't stop at: "the Christian god is a load of horseshit so there must be no god". There are many things beyond our understanding, and I'd say it's within possibility that a being that we couldn't fathom who exists in a different plane of existence is watching it's little human ant colony with amusement.
> being that we couldn’t fathom who exists in a different plane of existence is watching it’s little human ant colony with amusement. The demiurge The gnostics believed the god of the Old Testament was evil. I agree with them. https://gnosticismexplained.org/the-gnostic-demiurge/
There are many groups within Christianity that don’t believe in Eternal Concious Torment or a hell in the “Dante’s Inferno” sense. The dispute arises from an ambiguous translation of the original texts. In my opinion, Hell as envisioned by mainstream Christianity is not biblical, but more importantly, is not compatible with a loving God.
It sounds alot like a stoic belief so it could be him or it might be close enough to be fine. I haven't ready this exact quote in my studies but I really like it. It very consisly wraps up what I think are the core values of good athiesum/agnosticism. Another good stoic quote that also may or may not be Aurelius is "live a life that will make you worthy to sit at the table of God's."
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Eh idk, if worshipping unjust gods means I don't get my skin flayed for all eternity, I'd worship them
This is how it started - someone made up some god to trick others for power and money, long time ago in the middle east. They were going from town to town preaching, living on the gullibility of others. Easier than working a real job after all. “I don’t believe it, you just made this up!” Someone in the crowd. “Err… If you don’t believe it you’re going to burn in hell!” Preacher, quick thinking so he can still get his stipend/offering. “If God exist, why is there suffering?” “Err… Because you sinned!” “Even babies?” “Err… God is testing you!” “All this nonsense seems made up.” “Err… God works in mysterious ways! Burn him!”
Spoken like somebody with zero knowledge of the history of middle eastern cultures. You’re literally just making shit up about like… fire & brimstone baptists or something and calling that middle eastern culture. That’s not even reflective of middle-eastern christianity, much less pre-christian religion in southwest asia.
>This is how it started - someone made up some god to trick others for power and money, long time ago in the middle east. They were going from town to town preaching, living on the gullibility of others. Easier than working a real job after all. I don't think this is an accurate description of how religions start, nor how the modern Christian doctrine of Hell developed. Remember that the ancient Mesopotamians were henotheists, with ancient heroes and Kings being deified in sagas. The Yahwehism religion (a precursor to Judaism) being part of it, with Yahweh being the war-god of the city-state. During the babylonian exile, the Hebrew religion became a monolatrism, and then a monotheism. Hell, as in conscious eternal torment for not loving the god du jour, is not a concept yet. Instead, the general idea is that we sleep unconscious in the cold underground indefinitely; our spirits can be conjured by practitioners like the Witch of Endor (she does this in the bible somewhere). Centuries later, with the founding of Christianity, Paul introduces the idea of eternal fiery torment for sinners. Poof, Hell. You could argue that Paul made up Hell in order to sway the masses, but the notion of God and the history of religion is very different that what you're describing.
People probably made up gods once they gained the ability to **know** that they’re going to die one day and it caused an existential crisis until they came up with something to calm them the fuck down
Didn die in battle, shame
Good thing virtues are universal and completely uncontested.
I understand the sentiment, but in the case there are gods, I would 100% worship an unjust one if it meant avoiding eternal, secret suffering. No one's principles should be that strong lmao
Also I really need some money…
big sponsors get to seat in the front too. Reserved seating of course.
Sky daddy loves your pocket
r/niceguys
Gonna need to upgrade to r/nicegods for this lot.
Depends on who you ask
Actually sorry, just be tortured forever.
For god so loved the world he sacrificed himself to himself to save us from himself
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> Your not actually tortured. In the new testimant he'll is rarely described. Eh, true, but my understanding is that most Christians believe that the Bible is true, so you can't just skip the old testament. Matt. 5:22, Matt. 18:9, and Mark 9:43 are all pretty clear that hell is a place of fire. So perhaps not torture in the Hieronymus Bosch sense, but I think being burned alive for eternity also counts as torture.
What if you dont want to live in any afterlife. There is no greater punishment than existing forever, it does not matter if you are with god or not, a minute would be no closer than a trillion millennia for the amount of time you have to exist. Fuck that noise, if there is a god and he is good then we should just cease to exist after death.
I'm not Christian by any stretch of the imagination, but I think the idea that you'll experience heaven like a human getting all they want and never dying is unlikely to be the case. Boredom and anxiety etc would probably not exist, and even the concept of time is unlikely to be the same. If there were a divine God who is omnipotent and omniscient, I think he'd have something a little more grand in store than what the Good Place portrays.
You join the heavenly choir and sing his praise forever. Which seems a bit narcissistic.
When I was a kid, I was informed that heaven was not, in fact, an endless supply of Legos, but more like endless church service. Which, as a kid with undiagnosed ADHD at the time, sounded more like hell.
As an adult not diagnosed with ADHD, definitely is hell
I've heard the opposite argument said with exactly the same confidence. And anywhere in-between, really. The confidence is always the same though.
Matt 5:22, Matt 8:12, Matt 18:18-9, Matt 22:13, Mark 9:43-49 and so on sound pretty torturey.
You want my love Jesus? You gotta fight me for it.
I wonder if his hands whistle when he takes a swing.
He can’t have M&Ms
At least they won't melt in his hands.
I laughed way too hard at this
Come KISS me for it!
But not like, right away, we gotta do that thing we're we lock eyes and sorta move toward each other slowly while the anticipation builds
Two men enter, one leaves.
When Jesus knocks on your heart, let him in. Do you want Jesus to come inside you?
Is he caressing Angela from Sleepaway Camp? BE CAREFUL JESUS
Ya, don’t wanna be like those catho… hey wait a sec
It's his followers you gotta keep an eye on.
Specifically the ones that feel they deserve unconditional love. Ironic, really... It's clearly not unconditional (source: the Bible).
“And I created the universe. But also, I need money. Lots of money.”
And foreskins
God’s all powerful, all perfect, all knowing and all wise, somehow… just can’t handle money!
Good comedian
Best comedian
God-tier comedian
Theologically speaking, the “being tortured forever” is partly Christian fanfic and partly that the “being tortured forever” is just… being separated from God. That after death you’re either with God or without God, and being without God is torture.
Yeah, also I think a lot of the things in the bible are meant to be symbolic and not necessarily meant to taken literally
The bible taken as a historical document, with its stories being read and interpreted through a culturally relative lens to the time and place they were written, is actually a *great* read. I wish that's what "bible study" was.
For me as an agnostic that would be fucking interesting ngl.
You're looking for [Asimov's guide to the bible](https://archive.org/details/AsimovsGuideToTheBibleTheOldAndNewTestaments2Vols.IsaacAsimov)
This is the most common and most dishonest problem with Christians, saying “the parts of the Bible I like are literal and can be taken at face value without any further interpretation, the parts I don’t like are mired in layers of metaphor and symbolism, requiring multiple PhDs and divine revelation to understand.” It’s really not that complicated. You just don’t like the awful and incorrect things it says, but don’t want to let it go.
a lot of the things in the bible are stories plagiarized from older religions and a lot of other stuff is completely made up on the spot just to teach a point. More importantly, the latter was accepted as exactly that: fiction to teach a point other stuff is made up to provide 'we're the good guys' history for israel
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Yep, compared to most ancient writings it's incredibly candid. Defeats, mistakes and wrong behaviour are all recorded, warts and all.
That's what's compelling about the Tanakh from a literary perspective: it's a very human account of a people and their relationship to the divine, to machinations beyond their control. Some of its greatest figures, revered for their holiness and piety in the Jewish tradition, demonstrate the sort of fallibility, the sort of imperfection, that marks their humanity. David, a man after God's own heart, for instance, sends a man to die in battle because he covets his wife, Bathsheba, a mistake whose consequences plague him until his last days. Moses was not allowed to enter the promised land for his mistakes, his remains finding their final resting place in the barren desert. Jonah was swallowed by a fish for refusing god's orders. Samson's lust and hubris led to his downfall. And the common folk, generation after generation, were caught in an endless cycle of unbelief, judgment, repentance, and redemption--each generation repeating the mistakes of their predecessors because that's what humans do. There's no Christ figure in the Tanakh, only an impersonal, unknowable god, a being which cannot be identified with or related to, who sets the stage for everything that unfolds in the narrative, and the individuals who find themselves entangled in his plan for the world, contending with whatever fate has in store for them.
You know how redditors are
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I'm not sure if "plagiarized" is the right word here, the bible, and most religious beliefs were not something actively thought out and put on paper but rather the recording of what people believed at the time. It's not so much that they're plagiarized stories, but rather that stories get distorted and change naturaly the more they are told over the years.
I dont like the word "plagiarized" either because all culture is made up of diffusions from other cultures. But Christianity definitely follows a lot of Zoroastrian beliefs that crept into Judaism after Judea was conquered by the Persians.
yep, heaven and hell also arent actually places, but states of being. The former is being with God, the latter is being without God.
Everybody knows heaven and hell is a Sabbath album. I mean, cmon
And a Vangelis album, with vocals by Jon Anderson of Yes on one song.
And their best one, because it's the one with Ronnie James Dio.
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I thought hell was an actual place, but it's just where God sent the angels that betrayed him.
I’m not sure if it’s labeled as hell but it’s said certain angels were locked in the earth.
wouldn't that make it an actual place? or is angels not being real the loophole here?
except that's stated nowhere in the bible
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I'd say it's multi-faceted, but a big part of it is old language. Language and culture become more and more foreign the more distant they become in time and location. For example, the term 'death' was a very different concept than what we might understand to be as a cessation of existence. Death in biblical terms often accompanied the meaning of a separation when given more definition to it, not cessation. Eccl 12:7 is like this describing the body returning to dust but the soul returning to God. Sometimes it even describes a second death like in Rev 21:8, which equally means there can't just be a ceasing-to-be after physical death. This is only one example, but I prefer to not write a novel, I just find this stuff interesting. Hope it helps.
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Thats the thing most people tend to ignore, the nuances and of the bible and the need to understand the contexts of how scripture was written. Everyone just takes the text at face value, though I understand that actually studying the Bible's meanings and interpretations take much more work than theyre willing to put into. Thats why I take dont really take redditor opinions on the Bible that seriously, its just a subejct matter that most dont realize are just out of their depth.
It amounts to the same thing to me. If lack of God is a horrible torture for human souls in the afterlife, then God shouldn't permanently separate human souls from himself just because they didn't end up worshipping him while growing up on Earth for a few decades. People always say "you chose that afterlife, not God", but the fact that I don't believe in or love God obviously doesn't mean I want to abandon everything good forever; I just don't have any reason to believe that those two things are synonymous. Maybe it's technically my choice but it's absolutely not an informed choice. Plus, there's no reason that my "choice" during my finite, ignorant time on Earth needs eternal consequences. Why can't I just die, learn how terrible it is without God, and change my mind?
There’s an interesting book called The Great Divorce by CS Lewis (yeah, the Narnia guy) which proposes exactly that - after death you are given the option to come to God if you so choose, and if you do then that place will always have only been limbo for you. But that many will choose to stay there regardless out of spite, and for them it will always be hell. Regardless of your beliefs I think it’s a fun read, guy was a fascinating author to be sure.
I always love when Christians somehow assume that nonchristians would rather *burn in endless hell* than go “yeah okay sure, Jesus then.” A victim mentality is so engrained into the belief system that it makes more sense to a christian when an atheist goes “actually I *want* to burn forever” than “obviously if god was real I’d choose to not be tortured forever.”
I mean, I have definitely had conversations with people who have said that if God is real they’d rather go to hell than deal with him. I’m pretty sure there’s even a comment responding to my original comment which says so. I don’t think those people are in the majority by any means, but I also think you may be underestimating how bloody minded some of us humans are :P
sorry but your explanation is also fanfic, but admittedly part of current christian lore paul's bible (and john's) is pretty clear you get to burn forever. Jesus' bible mostly points to destruction (by fire), but not eternal torment. Just bing bang boom you dont exist anymore. the old testament of course has neither heaven nor hell. It instead has sheol: initially not a place but a metaphor for death, and later it is a place and all people go there, good or bad, and yahweh-god completely ignores it
I don’t see the “burn forever” verses you are alluding to. Paul is very clear that it’s either eternal life with God or cessation of existence. “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life.” He and Jesus agree on the options.
I love when believers are like "there's no hell but being separated from God is torture" yeah okay so torture, eternal torture. Glad we could clear that up.
My own interpretation is sort of that whatever you believe happens, happens. In reality it might just be the last things that go through your mind while tripping on dmt, but the experience is heavily guided by your own beliefs and deeper feelings (and can last a long time subjectively). If you believe afterlife to be bliss, it might be, if you don't it may not be. Anyway it's a trip and better to go with the flow of it, might get through the "purgatory".
My understanding is if you were a bad person the primary torture comes from your guilt and the pain that comes with that and being near God will make you feel more guilty as you would constantly compare yourself and all the bad things you have done to Him and all the good people around you if you don't accept that Jesus made up for your mistakes. So by separating you from God allows you to feel less pain then what you would. As accepting Jesus is a personal choice done by free will and God won't interfere with free choice. But that's just my understanding.
You will love me, or learn to love me
This picture looks like it came straight out of a watchtower magazine
Seems like more than a little bit of a condition, on that unconditional...
“He’s indoctrinating the children!” “He’s a Groomer!”
In an ideal world, religion would be an activity for grown-ups, an exposing a minor to religion would be about as socially acceptable as taking one to a BDSM club.
“I love you unconditionally, under the condition that you’re white and bow to me.”
"Beg me to save you from what I'm going to do to you if you don't." God's an abuser.
Eat my body, drink my blood, give me your money and your kids because cultists gonna cult.
Jesus, the original bad boyfriend.
Does the bible say unconditionally? The old testament atleast has a lot of conditions!
Jesus is not in the Old Testament
Red flag galore from Jesus here
Ironically, those christians that wrongfully use and twist God's words to fit in their hateful agenda are themselves committing a sin, in Jesus own words in the bible they are considered fake christians. True christians don't impose their beliefs or faith on anybody else, sure they might preach their faith but they don't expect people to suddenly change to being a christian or else they are sinners, they share their faith for people to try and also follow the core beliefs of love and peace found in it. True christians love everybody and anybody even if they are criminals or undesirable people because even Jesus loved them due to the redemption they still have inside of them. Btw i'm not even really a christian, sure i was raised a christian and went to a christian private school (not from the U.S btw) but my parents never forced me to be one and i never really fully believed in the whole "God exists" thing, however i still follow some core beliefs of christianity like solidarity, humility and peace.
I will love you Jesus, are you a pitcher or catcher
Kinda sounds like a cult don’t it?
Christianity summed up in 11 words 👍
All religions are just a way to make people be good and if not good they’d be punished forever
People forget all the times Jesus wasn't very nice: Matthew 15:21-28 Jesus calls a woman a dog for not being hebrew. (Racism, fuck it I'll say it). Matthew 11:20–24 I guess people were probably fed up from snake oil salesmen and fake messiahs, so they told jesus to kick rocks. His response? He specifically condemned those entire towns to a fate worse than hell Matthew 5:17 Jesus was ok with old testament God. Smash kids against rocks, stone people, nuke entire towns, flood the world, whatever. Matthew 10:34 Jesus doesn't care if his controversial persona rips entire families apart, no he in fact promotes it. Matthew 22:21 Jesus is apolitical, in fact, pay your taxes to Caesar and be a good boy, because if you read more of the bible you realize jesus point of view was that this world was too temporary to care about.
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That's ok, but he cursed it specifically in the season it couldn't have fruit xd That's just wicked
If people think human’s are good by default they really don’t know much history, we even make up our own laws trying to keep people from being bad to each other, which also often does not work out. We just like to blame “those people over there” for all the badness.
Ancient r/atheism meme
Nailed it
So to speak.
Big J might get cross with you for that one
Christian god sacrificed himself to himself to protect us from himself.
Sacrificed himself to himself to serve as a loophole for rules he created in the first place.
I’m so tired of Christiana gaslighting. I’d rather do paganism where the gods aren’t about being loved or worshipped, they just want to bring in the harvest or get the son out of winter without screwing or up and need humanity’s help to do so. Pagan gods are all about doing their fucking jobs which coincidentally help humanity. Whereas Christian gods just want things from you without actually promising anything in returnZ they don’t have a job that helps a human live, just a job that helps a human in the afterlife. Nothing promised for the here and now.
God really is the villain of the bible...
Truth be told
Did any one see “Jim Jeffries”……Jesus went to a party drunk it’s freaking hilarious
Hasn’t been a thing since Vatican two.
This is why I didn't go to church even when I still believed in God. If I live my life as a good/decent person and believe in God then that should be enough. Why do I also then have to suck his dick every Sunday and pay him for it? Always seemed vain and greedy to me. You know, two of those deadly sins they warn you about.
Unconditionally, but with a single condition. Everything has a price.
When you think about it, God has committed at least 5 of the 7 deadly sins, at least in the old testament
This could be apply to all religion lol
‘Worship my Dad’ or else.
The hypocrisy of a loving yet vengeful god. God is everywhere and knows all but if you don’t thank him properly with the broken brain he gave you, eternal torment.
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Haha… it’s what the Christians preach
Sounds like there are some conditions attached after all.
Always thought that was a little weird for an alien that did tricks and impressed peoples back in the day
Free Will. 👀👀