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Problem is that when they see “love they neighbor” they look around and only see straight white folks, so they assume everyone else is excluded for some reason
When I was in Sunday School, we were given a strict (Catholic Catechism) definition: Your neighbor is anyone you meet. It doesn’t even specify any “human.” My mom always brought home that point whenever animal cruelty was discussed.
Of course, my parents who taught me that lesson are still Catholic and yet super proud of my identity. Very chill with my trans spouse. Even marched with me at a local pride event.
Maybe they’re the exception but “love thy neighbor” does still have tangible meaning to some folks.
I’m glad to hear that they are so supportive, that’s awesome! I hope my Catholic parents are as accepting when I come out to them as trans
Yeah might be a translation issue. In the german version it’s not “neighbour” but rather “the one next to you”.
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In French too. “Aime ton prochain”.
I love your parents btw
Me too. Very much.
Race science was created specifically so that they could see non-white people as non-people. This was done so that Christians could (just barely) hold onto their belief system while committing all of the atrocities of the colonial era.
I actually just happened to be reading a relevant part of Lies My Teacher Told Me that quotes Montesquieu (French philosopher who influenced the US founding fathers):
It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men, because, allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow that we ourselves are not Christian.
Do they see “love thy neighbor?” I think many ignore that part entirely
Suddenly, Republican Christians: “You can’t just take quotes from the Bible out of context and apply them to your argument! 😠”
Trust me, it’s mostly Christians taking them out of context and denying clear statements. For example, Charlie Kirk spun: ‘but what did the original word for slave mean in the Bible’. Well context actually defines the word for us:
Leviticus 25: 44 “‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. 45 You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. 46 You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life, but you must not rule over your fellow Israelites ruthlessly.
I’ve never seen a Christian effectively argue context by showing context (as above).
Me, 89% of the time when I see or hear Christians use this statement.
What do you do the other 11% of the time?
5% of the time it’s this. The remaining 6% is whatever.
funderstandable, thank you for the explanation
Romans 1:26-27 “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.”
Clearly homosexuality is wrong according to the bible. Sorry, you simply aren’t going to convince a fundamentalist to agree let LGBT folk be, when you have quotes like this in the book. Saying “jesus said love” isn’t going to do it. Best strategy is the one that has been working. Education, so that people don’t take religion so seriously or literally.
Clearly homosexuality is wrong according to the bible.
There is no “the bible”. It’s a subjective collection of texts. While lots of people worship Paul as if he were a god, he’s not actually Jesus.
Dude this is what I’m SAYING all the time. The only possible valid collection of the Christian Bible is the parts quoting Jesus. Everything after is fan fiction and blatant manipulation.
You don’t have to study Christianity deeply to realize it is wrong. I was like 8 years old in catechism and remember thinking “Hey wait a minute… Jesus keeps saying not to worship him, isn’t that what we’re literally doing? Shouldn’t we all be some form of Jewish if we want to follow Jesus’ words?”
I mean… there’s a substantial difference between agreeing with a lifestyle, and persecuting that lifestyle. I assume you aren’t currently picketing churches and harassing religious people, for example. The Bible is clear that an abundance of things are sinful, but Jesus consistently sets an example of loving prostitutes and tax collectors and Roman soldiers and everyone else Jews of that day hated.
So what this tweet is claiming is absolutely valid, the New Testament is immensely clear you should love everyone, and you shouldn’t give “fundamentalists” a biblical pass for ignoring one of the most fundamental points the Bible makes, in hopes that they’ll be willing to completely discard religion. They should be educated on their own damn book, and it’s perfectly reasonable to call them on that.
I blame that damn council of Nicaea for grouping so many random books together. As far as I’m concerned Marcion’s writings are the only cannon I would recognize. But seeing as it’s almost completely lost, I’ll have to be satisfied with ONLY the books of Luke and Acts from the Lexham English Bible translation.
If I’m feeling particularly frisky I’ll include the infancy gospel of Thomas and the gospel of Judas…
To me, it seems that every other book in the currently accepted biblical canon was written purely out of Apologetics. “oh shoot I need to justify my opinion… Oh look I found a new book that fits my agenda” then they said “Contradictions? No, [insert book/verse here] was written for X target audience so it doesn’t apply here. My book is relevant to you!”
Bonus content:
Spicehoarder’s Heretic Bible - First Edition:
- Luke (LEB)
- ACTS (LEB)
- Infancy Gospel of Thomas
- Gospel of Judas
Please, dick going up a butthole fits too perfectly for it to not be natural. Same goes for sucking. What they are referring to is the Roman practice of grooming children. Having a sexual relationship with a boy you adopted is unnatural.
You’re right, the Bible is full of contradictions, which I believe is fully on purpose, so that the devout can point to all the times God says love and say “look, my religion is one of love, my God is a god of love!” And then use that to justify committing all the other heinous act condoned in the Bible.
We won’t ever know for sure but treating the contradictions in the Bible as intentional is probably giving more credit to the people who initially created it than they deserve.
More likely, they just just didn’t really plan it out and instead shit was added piecemeal over time ultimately leaving a lot of contradictions.
Anyways, it seems much more likely that this happened organically rather than being intentional.
“then you ain’t one of mine. go on, git!” -Jesus apparently, Gospel of John chapter 13 verse 35
Did that have to be an image of text that breaks accessibility, searchability, and fault tolerance for no compelling reason while making the web less usable?
Do you always ask rhetorical questions in response to the way a person presented their discussion rather than the substance of what they were discussing?
The thoughtless presentation is exclusionary to classes of people who can’t read it when the effort to copy & paste the text would have been about the same with vastly better results. All the other defects compound the problem.
Accessibility is about people: for those who don’t know by now, a brief introduction and a quick video on this specific issue.
there can be more than one topic being talked about on the internet!
Transcription for those who need it:
Matthew 5:43-48 New International Version
Love for Enemies You have heard that it was said “Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.” But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
Wow tax collectors catching strays even 2000 years ago.
Publicani were really hated. Roman Empire had a tax farming system where private individuals paid the taxes in certain area out of their own pocket and then tried to make a profit by collecting the taxes from that area to themselves. Made it so that the state didn’t have to concern itself with the actual collection and got a guaranteed sum. But it also made it so that it was beneficial to the publicani to try and squeeze as much taxes out of the people to either not have loss or to have maximum profit. Though the term publican covers more than just tax collectors.
Apostle Matthew was a publican.
I find it sad to fall back on 2000 year old literature to justify our behavior.
When someone uses the Bible to justify their hate or bigotry, it’s very easy to throw back in their face. They never believed any of it — especially not anything that radical leftist Jesus taught — it’s a tool that represents whatever they want for their manipulative, selfish, self-centered purposes. What is written there doesn’t matter. It never did.
Watch as they dismiss you anyway, with greatest hits like:
- “That’s not what {$DENOMINATION} teaches.”
- “That’s just heretical.”
- ”So your interpretation is right but everyone else is wrong?”
- ”You’re taking it out of context”, especially after you just added context to a thing they were deliberately taking out of context.
- “Even the devil can quote scripture.”
“Even the devil can quote scripture.”
Oh the irony… you’re killing me with that one.
They will usually respond with “hate the sin not the sinner” or something like that, idk but never give good reason why being LGBTQ is a sin
There’s no hate quite like Christian love.
The Muscular Christianity movement of the mid 19th century really took issue with this. Back then church attendance was 4:1 women to men and manly men were having trouble maintaining interest because Jesus’ message was “too loving and gentle” so not very manly. They started redefining Christianity according to “manly” virtues, particularly they kicked all the women out of their administrative roles in church, started building sporting complexes next to churchs and reframed the old thinking of physical vigor being a form of vanity to instead being a sign of moral and spiritual excellence.
I’m not kidding but they even changed the appearance of Jesus, commissioning art work where he was depicted with broader shoulders and a more defined chest, signalling readiness for action.
Modern toxic masculinity is a “despiritualized” adaptation of Muscular Christianity.
Attempting to use the bible as a source for good just doesn’t work because they are always exceptions and hateful rhetoric in other bible chapters they can point to.
I think John might have had a bit of a crush on Jesus, given that he was very interested about whenever Jesus said ‘love’. Maybe he was hoping for a confession?
As far as the Bible goes, John was good. Great opening, and an overarching theme of “just be nice”.
Fuckin pussy
?
Being nice to people is woke
ngl if “be nice” is woke then i dont want to be anything elss
Sometimes I think there’s no way someone could miss how sarcastic I’m being. And yet every time I’m proved wrong.
You gotta throw in the /s
Tone doesn’t carry well over text.
Show me the part where Jesus says to stone all the queers. I’ll wait.
so, as a gay man i agree with the sentiment however
If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.
it’s real easy to find references, but part of that is shoddy biased (or just ignorant) translations… part of it is selective interpretation (guess we can wear mixed fabric and eat pork… and what was that about the camel and the eye of the needle? i’m pretty sure it applied to billionaires)… and that’s all with the assumption that the bible wasn’t just written by a bunch of people that saw a way to make a (figurative) buck
finding a statement that supports pretty much anything you’re doing is pretty easy… this is how we got the crusades and witch trials after all, despite thou shalt not commit murder
That’s Leviticus.
Leviticus is Old Testament. If you actually read the Bible and follow its teachings, a Christian is not supposed to be following the Old Testament. That’s why it’s the “old” testament and now there’s a New Testament that is supposed to be followed instead of “Old Testament 2: zombie boogaloo”. The Old Testament is there for context. The whole idea of the New Testament is god came down to look upon his world as one of his creations, went “this shit’s kinda fucked” and started handing out new rules to make the place a little less fucked. It’s a real shame that most Christians haven’t read the Bible and depend on old guys in strange buildings to tell them what a book says, world would probably be a lot cooler if these people could be bothered to fucking read.
“Love one another” is not a complicated line full of subtext and what-ifs. You don’t need an old dude at the front of a crowd to tell you what it means, unfortunately there’s very few actually good Christians out there so now we’re here.
Anywhere, here’s a few great lines to throw at shitty people who use the Bible as cover for being bastards:
1 Timothy 2:12
I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.
This one was particularly good at convincing my Bible thumping aunt to leave me alone when I told her I was bisexual and an athiest. She started lecturing Bible verses at me and I hit her with Ye Olde “Shut up bitch”
Mathew 6:1-34
_Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. _
I think that Jesus’ meaning was “love one another unconditionally” regardless you are foreigner, woman, LGBT person, or an outlaw. Jesus was a leftist (and of course just a historical person, not a deity).
a historical person
That’s up to debate.
In almost the same way that the earth being round is up for debate
Ok, serious mode.
There’s actually no mention of Jesus or the things he seemingly has done outside of religious texts. It was already ca. 150 A.D. just hints that doubtfuls should look it up in roman writings.
A roman historian (Gaius Suetonius Tranquillas) mentions records thatBecause the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus, Claudius expelled them from the city.
but no proof for that either and it’s Rome.
Some historians think thus, that the workings of Jesus were just an allegory driven a bit further (Similiar to how Moses is just Gilgamesh/Atrahasis epos series remixed).There is just about as much historical texts pointing to Jesus as there are to Socrates and Spartacus. Like Jesus, neither of them wrote anything themselves. The writings about Socrates come largely from people he taught. The writings about Spartacus come from two different sources who were doing it over a century after he was dead, and the two have a glaring contradiction in the middle of the story.
This highlights the whole problem with the “Jesus don’t real” position. It lacks understanding of how history is pieced together. If you’re putting the bar of evidence that high and apply it fairly across all historical sources, you end up deleting a whole lot of history. That is clearly not the intent of the argument, but that’s what happens.
It sometimes gets even worse than that by misrepresenting things. For example, “this was an important part of the Roman empire and a center of learning. We should be overflowing with sources”. Nope, not at all correct. Judea was a backwater, and it’s amazing we have literally any sources at all on a rando peasant preacher like Jesus. He was a nobody who happened to get popular long after his death.
If you think this is all fundie-supporting nonsense, read it again. Fundies don’t make arguments like “he was a nobody who happened to get popular later”. That’s not at all helpful to their position. Same with many of the other arguments involving the historical Jesus. They’re not at all complementary to treating the Bible as literal, inerrant truth from beginning to end. The same historians arguing this stuff will also tell you that, in all likelihood, his body was tossed in a big pit with a bunch of other hung criminals, because that’s just how the Romans did things.
There’s actually no mention of Jesus or the things he seemingly has done outside of religious texts
Of the sparse selection of texts that have survived over 2000 years, there are a number of Roman histories that mention Jewish Messiahs cropping up during this period up to and around the Siege of Masada, which ended the First Jewish-Roman War.
Past that you can play the “if you excluded…” game with Greek philosophers, Roman emperors, Renaissance artists, hell you can do it with US Presidents.
Everyone from Socrates to Barack Obama is “cast into question” when you throw away the evidence you don’t like.
The fact that “Christians” as a religious movement appeared at this time, and that we have an abundance of visual art, transcribed texts, and even physical structures dedicated to him just never seems to matter.
Some historians think thus, that the workings of Jesus were just an allegory
This reminds me of the endless debate surrounding whether Shakespeare was a real person. It’s flogged to death, because you can casually assert “the evidence was written by liars”.
It is not, earth is a oblate spheroid.
Oblate Spheroids are round
If you need a manual to be a good person, you aren’t a good person.
So much for every state on the planet. Completely codified morality. Created and maintained by certified “bad people”.
If you think you can classify ‘good’ and ‘bad’ people in a oneliner you are incapable to deal with the complex nuances of our reality.
It’s the religion that classifies as good or bad, heaven or hell. We are talking about that, get a hint.
And yeah, generally, goodness has to come from the heart or it’s selfishness. Even if you account for the complexities of the human mind.
Oh, another oneliner.
Yes. At one side i liked the thought of making fun of my own statement by making it a oneliner itself.
And now you had a choice to decide respond to the content of what I said or the point out the form. Luckily you do not need a manual to decide which choice was good or bad 😉a one liner implies simplicity, which is why they’re bad at capturing complex situations… you know what is simple however? saying “that’s complex”… a one liner that admits what you don’t know is simple without hiding complexity: the complexity is captured with the admission of the unknown
you know what is simple however? saying “that’s complex”
It’s surprisingly nuanced
I agree.
Thank you for your comment. For me the broad statement that a manual is unnecessary or even a sign of being a bad person when you need one is way to simplistic.
Why have we defined constitutions, civil laws and declared what are to be considered to be human rights? Because it can be difficult to sense the border between protecting yourself, family, minority group or culture and doing actual harm to the rights and freedoms of people around us. To find the courage to truly listen and consider other opinions and beliefs and protecting the ‘sanity of mind’ by ignoring or denouncing the other.
Then it can help to have some guidelines. Either from religious sources, constitutions, humanistic principles or just knowledge from historic events and their impact.
Explaining this to my son’s kindergarten teacher.
Just purge all the selfish 5 year olds now! They’ll never learn if they haven’t figured it out already.
Yeah, what’s wrong with wanting to be a good person? Are we going back to eugenics now?
