That was a huge plot point in the new South Park.
Jesus hates American "Christians"
Submitted 3 days ago by return2ozma@lemmy.world to [deleted]
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Comments
MTZ@lemmy.world 3 days ago
ohshittheyknow@lemmynsfw.com 3 days ago
It was also a huge plot point of the Bible.
MTZ@lemmy.world 3 days ago
But America wasn’t a thing or even an idea when the Bible was written.
(I totally get what you are saying, though.)
BandanaBug@piefed.social 3 days ago
Could you point out where?
ZkhqrD5o@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’m European. My mother tried to get me into Christianity. When I was 7 or 8 I asked “If God created everything, then who created God?” I got no answer, ever since that moment, I didn’t want to be religious. My mother tried until I was 14. It failed.
Also, I find american Christians weird. They twist and contort Christianity into something to suit their ideological needs, racism, homophobia, capitalism, nationalism, unilateralism, etc.
Starski@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
That’s not just Americans that do that… That’s pretty much anywhere with any religion.
glorkon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
And don’t forget, those are the people who tell us atheists that “without the Bible, where do you get your morals from?”
Well, we can see what these biblical morals are - you mentioned it: homophobia, racism etcetera. It makes people hateful, while claiming it is charity and compassion.
Religion poisons everything.
Demdaru@lemmy.world 2 days ago
FFS I hate that. “Religion poisons everything” no! No it doesn’t! Think if christianity wasn’t a thing they wouldn’t find something else to twist? After all it’s not like any other good thing got twisted, no? Communism, patriotism, charity, heck, even local communities?
Christianity says: Do not do to others what you don’t want done upon yourself. No matter if sinner or faithful, treat all with respect (nagging about becoming christian is ok tho, sadly). Do not fall for greed, lust or pride.
American “Christians” aren’t Christians, same like most of the local Patriots are actually Nationalists and Communism is mostly used as a another tool for simply stealing power.
I know I am pretty much shaking my fist at the sky here, sorry, but I really needed to let it out ._.
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Well, sorta.
You also see plenty of people delegating their sense of Good and Evil to for example political leaders.
A great example is people who would look at what’s going on in Gaza putting aside politics and going “yeah, knowingly killing tens of thousands of children is objectivelly bad” but as soon as their favorite political leaders start opinating about it, all of the sudden they’re all “I don’t believe that’s a Genocide” (even after the UN officially deemed it a Genocide).
I’ve seen it happen in the country were I live - people who previously admitted that what was happening was bad, suddenly when their favored rightwing politicians took an interest in it and sided with Israel, start voicing quite different opinions which ape what those politicians are saying.
As I see it the problem isnt specifically Religion or Politics, it’s people with high Tribalism (hence easilly swayed by the leaders of their tribes, such as religious or political tribes) and lacking or with a very weak moral compass.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 days ago
“If God created everything, then who created God?”
There’s a lot of places where one can poke holes into faith/the concept of a God, but I don’t think this is one.
The reason being that God’s existence doesn’t actually change anything about the question or the answer. You can rephrase it as “If everything came from the Big Bang, what came before the Big Bang and what created the preconditions of the Big Bang?”
So you could use the same argument to “disprove” literally any world view, including science, or even hypothetical scenarios like the simulation theory (“If we live in a simulation, who is running the simulation?”).
But you can not only “disprove” every potential answer to “where does everything come from”, but you can also rephrase the question to “If atoms are made of quarks, what are quarks made of, and what are their components made of?” or to “If there’s an end to the universe, what is outside of it?”
If you are smart enough though, you will see that none of that is actually disproving anything, because if you rephrase the question further it becomes “Why don’t we know everything?” and that’s a rather simple-minded question to ask. One befitting of a 7 or 8 year old, but not really of an adult.
Before the circumnavigation and the discovery and charting of all of the world, people also didn’t know what was on the other side of the planet and still it would have been dumb to doubt what we knew (e.g. that the British Isles existed) only because there were large white spots on the map elsewhere.
Bigfishbest@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The answer that any person who has thought about it and not rejected the idea is: If a being that has created and shaped our universe exists, it exists (at least partly) outside of our universe. Like a programmer doesn’t have to follow in his life the limitations of his code in programming, such an entity’s existence would be so far outside our modes of thinking that “who created him?” would simply fall flat as a question.
To begin to answer such a question one would have to have some knowledge of the plane of existence where the divine resides, and as that is outside the realm of what we can understand through physics and the natural world we live in, the question becomes unanswerable.
The question then becomes, can something exist on another plane of existence? The answer is of course, we can’t examine anything outside our universe, so, the answer must be, we don’t or can’t know.
I suppose then, the next question becomes, do you want to believe that there is something /someone outside the natural universe that gives meaning to our existence?
squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The question itself doesn’t really make sense, because it just boils down to “Why don’t we know everything?”.
The same question would lead to the same answer (“We don’t know”) if we ask it about e.g. the Big Bang. “If everything was created by the big bang, what created the big bang?”
It also applies literally in every field where we don’t know something yet (“What’s beyond the stars/beyond the universe?”, “What are quarks made of?”, “What’s past infinity?”). We don’t even know what’s in the dark at the edge of the solar system. Judging by orbits and gravitational patterns, there’s likely an entire large planet that we don’t know of because it’s too far from the sun and thus too dark.
It would be idiotic to summarily dismiss every field where there are things we don’t know, and where there are edges to our knowledge that are so far away that we cannot know or understand them.
SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social 2 days ago
But, here’s the kicker, if we don’t know anything about this other plane of existence, then how can we know that our universe couldn’t spontaneously arise from it without the intent of a creator? That’s the crux of the question: We have a mystery about the origin of our existence, and “solving” the mystery by saying, “God did it,” is just sweeping the mystery under the rug and pretending it’s not there. What OP was able to see at 7 or 8 years old was that the mystery was still there, but with an unexplained extra step added.
tomi000@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Christianity (and most religions) always has been a way for people to cope with their fears and guilt. ‘what happens after we die?’ -> ‘its heaven dont worry’. ‘Am I a bad person?’ -> ‘no Jesus died for you dont worry fam’
njordomir@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It sounds like we were similarly inquisitive children, perhaps to the point of making adults uncomfortable.
My European mother is the reason religion didn’t fuck me up worse than it did. I was also forced to go to church as a kid, but even within our own family there were differences in thought and opinion that still managed to exist in civil dinner table discourse. My mother seems to have gone through her own questioning process, it just didn’t take her to extreme atheism but rather she arrived at more of a mystical Abrahammic monotheism. When I was older, I fell into the trap of religion on my own (Evangelical Christianity) and it’s changed the course of my life significantly in both good and bad ways.
A decade to a decade and a half later I’m mostly over it. I’m comfortable with my current belief system and I live life openly and honestly with 95% of people I meet. If I had to describe myself I’d call myself a self-rolled Buddhist-Atheist.
I’m not envious of those Christians with enough of a conscience to realize what’s going, but who are reliant on “American Christians™” for their community, support, spirituality/philosophy/introspection. They have difficult and painful decisions ahead of them. You can only ignore your conscience for so long, but the first to defect will be shunned and hated and will likely lose their entire social circles. That happened to me. They will also be susceptible, as we all are, to similar tactics and abuses as those doled out by their former religion. You don’t leave and suddenly become a mastermind at spotting abuse of power and become immediately immune. If anyone reading this falls into that category, I would recommend finding a nice, non-religious hobby where you see people from different walks of life on a regular basis. Bicycling groups, social dances, gardening collectives, etc. People are pretty nice outside of the bubble. You’ll be okay.
Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world 3 days ago
It’s not that you’re not supposed to care, it’s that you’re supposed to despise with blood thirsty hatred the out group, and take pleasure in their suffering.
MAGA christians are fucking evil. I’ve experienced a few of these people firsthand. They’re cruel as fuck to their core.
sobchak@programming.dev 2 days ago
They often operate on the “just-world fallacy” too. I.e. if people are poor, starving, arrested, deported, raped, it’s because they deserve it.
Bosht@lemmy.world 2 days ago
‘Its all part of gods plan sweetie’. Had my mom feed me this line when I wanted to help a homeless person
nomy@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
“Yeah part of Gods plan is me helping him Mother. Now be a good woman and obey like the book says you should.”
camelbeard@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Sometimes I wish I could do that, just ignore all logic and believe what you want.
So those people starving in Africa? Oh no God’s plan.
People getting killed in Gaza? Also God’s plan
That Kirk guy getting shot? Evil left, nothing to do with God.
Immigrants trying to find a better life in a different country? The worst people, nothing to do with God.
Aunt Marget died of cancer? Poor Marget, she was just unlucky,
It did not help she had no health insurance? No thats not it, that’s communism
samus12345@sh.itjust.works 2 days ago
But if something bad happens to them, it’s because God is “testing them.”
shane@feddit.nl 2 days ago
Maybe evangelicals who preach the prosperity gospel believe in “just world”? However in the Book of Job it is made pretty clear that doing everything God asks of you doesn’t help you at all, and might even be a reason that you get shit on. Jesus repeatedly says that his kingdom is not on earth. Anyway…
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Reminds me of being a pastor’s son at ~5 and asking the Sunday School teacher if Satan could be saved, since God wants everyone saved. I was sincere–it troubled me that there was a creature that was without hope. Now I understand I should be happy that fucker is burning eternally. He should’ve never messed with God! That’s just normal adult stuff! You live and learn!
survirtual@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Buddhism has a more Christian example of Christ-like behavior concerning a “living being Satan”. That is to say, if “living being Jesus” was real, he would be a Bodhisattva, perhaps akin to Kṣitigarbha.
In the story, Bodhisattva Kṣitigarbha vowed:
“Until the hells are empty, I will not become a Buddha.
Only when all sentient beings are saved will I attain enlightenment.”
It is a vow to never abandon any being regardless of their state.
I like that idea. Boundless love and compassion doesn’t stop at the bounds of some hell. It is boundless. It has boundless time, so it will spend an eternity reaching out to even cyclic hells.
njordomir@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m a Buddatheist who grew up with both cultural Catholicism and later Christian Evangelicism.
I like how this hints at the nature of the self. If I leave someone behind am I not also leaving myself behind?
For me, ethical acts are those that increase the freedom of the self and others. We all suffer. That’s a fact of life. If we dissolve our concept of the self and acknowledge our link to others and the world itself we can see ourselves more as threads going through human experience. If we are kind to ourselves and “others”, we have a better chance at reducing that suffering.
Imagine the time a stranger forgot their wallet and you paid for their coffee. A version of that experience could still exist in that person’s mind long after you die. It could get blended with other experiences and reinterpreted. It could be told as a story to a friend who was inspired by the act. The cascading effects of that person being properly caffeinated on that day could have world changing effects. In a similar way, I carry the shared experiences of my own ancestors and even strangers who have shared their stories with me. They are still alive as a small part of me because my true self is humanity or even some animating life force of the universe or something like that and the name that people call me just refers to the limited perspective and incomplete view I have of existence. Essentially I see existence as blinders limiting my perspective like a race horse, but the true self is a satellite view of the track. When I act, I do so based not only on my experience, but the collective experience of every perspective and experience that has been conveyed to me in every way, but I am still one human body, in physical space, subject to time. I hope that when I die, those blinders will be lifted and I’ll exist as pure conscious perception of everything that ever was is and will be. Able to see through anyone’s eyes, in any time. To feel any and every feeling felt my an animal or human. To view the entirety of existence as a completed masterpiece from outside time itself.
You can probably see why I like the Buddhists.
I find that when you acknowledge the interconnection of things compassion becomes easier.
I hope that people rediscover that within themselves and others.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Nice. I like 99% of what I’ve encountered from Buddhism.
scala@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Of course! Because heaven and hell are made up and facts don’t matter!
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
Lucifer never even actually kills anyone in the Bible, whereas Yahweh commits literal genocide on multiple occasions.
It should also be noted that the serpent never even told Eve that she should eat the fruit, just that she COULD.
Side note that always puzzled me… 1) why would God create a tree that has fruit that teaches you the difference between good and evil? 2) why would Jesus put this tree in the garden in the first place? 3) why would you ever think that the people who have no concept of right and wrong (before eating the fruit) are going to be able to resist it? And finally, 4) WHY IS KNOWING THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GOOD AND BAD A BAD THING??M
It’s all just so fucking idiotic that it hurts my brain.
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 days ago
The biggest one for me was, “Why doesn’t he want them to know they’re naked?”
He gets all pissy because Satan ruins his perverted, non-consensual peep-fest and decides to curse literally everything for all time. Fucking gross.
dual_sport_dork@lemmy.world 2 days ago
If we believe that the various Satans (in the original Hebrew, literally “adversary,” and rendered without the definite article so there are probably multiples of them) are in fact one and the same with the Devil (singular), this link-up doesn’t even occur until the Book of Revelation which is firmly a new testament thing and wholly unsupported by any of the old testament or ancient Hebrew sources from which it’s derived. Making all the assumptions required on basis that this is so, then whoever he was killed a lot of people in Revelation. But not until then.
In old Hebrew tradition, the Satans are sort of the prosecuting attorneys for god. They work for him in order to tempt the faith and righteousness of various people. Several mortal people are also given the moniker of “Satans” when they’re working against the interests of god or various other individuals.
Meanwhile, the notion that Lucifer is also one and the same with the Devil or any kind of Satan is a much later interpolation made when the church(es) of the era wanted to insert a bogeyman into their religion and they needed a justification for it, some time in the AD 200s. Lucifer is identified as the king of Babylon, a mortal, when he has attracted god’s ire in his sole appearance in Isaiah 14. The situation has become so warped that his name was finally removed in the New International Version of the bible and he’s simply referred to as the “morning star, son of the dawn.” (Isaiah 14:12, if you want to go have a look.)
Modern pontificates will also insist that the king of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 is also somehow the Devil, which is dubious. Even if he were, and god were speaking allegorically for precisely half of his rant as we are thus demanded to believe, god smokes him at the end of the passage anyway so it’s a moot point.
AquaTofana@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Holy shit, I’m not religious at all, but 5 year old u/potoooooooo is the CUTEST fucking thing.
Ugh, children really are innocent/wholesome, and its the adults around them that inject poisonous ass ideas into their minds.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I was “raised Christian.” The top reasons I despise religion is the a) hypocrisy from top to bottom, b) a person can go through life wrecking others others in ways that may be devastating, permanent, and/or traumatic that they have to live with forever and are supposed to just accept it like some mind of lesson from god, yet the person who does all the damage gets to go to heaven if the ask for forgiveness in just the right way.
Yeah, the whole “love each other and forgive everything” lessons of my youth have been replaced by “fuck you, I’m getting mine” christians.
CatDogL0ver@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Actually American Americans are the “Pharisees”. They just hate to be called to be called out by Jesus.
They act like Pharisees. They talk like Pharisees. I hope they will be judged like Pharisees.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Does anyone actually think these pseudochristians are actually pure in any way?
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Of course, everyone will be judged eventually. Pretty sure it says that in the Bible too.
nosuchanon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Yeah, the whole “love each other and forgive everything” lessons of my youth have been replaced by “fuck you, I’m getting mine” christians.
Ah yes, the Boomer Christians.
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 days ago
You need to read your Bible more often if you think you’re the first person to have noticed that.
I recommend Isaiah 30:8-17.
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Lol, the Bible is full of contradictions that are all rationalized and interpreted by the wants of the individual and leader. No desire to dig into that any more than I already have.
HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 days ago
point B was my favorite part of The Brothers Karamazov.
Pacattack57@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Ya you nailed it. Good people are punished and bad people rewarded.
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
What’s even weirder is being raised by Christians, taught to hate the blacks and mistrust the Jews (using the usual inappropriate slurs at every opportunity), never going to church outside of a few Easters, and growing up slowly learning that your parents were full of shit and they never actually read the book they said was so super important.
GreenShimada@lemmy.world 3 days ago
I’ve never understood things like pervasive distrust of Jews, but blanket approval of all things done by Israel because Jewish people are “God’s chosen people.” It’s so much mental gymnastics to selectively justify hating Muslims and any Jew living in a large city, and completely ignores the point of the NT, which was to not make the religion tied to blood lines.
WanderingThoughts@europe.pub 3 days ago
like pervasive distrust of Jews
Historically that’s a manufactured thing. Christians were not allowed usury, charging interest on loans. Jews didn’t have that limitation. One solution they came up with was barring Jews from doing other jobs and forcing them into the money lender role, with the Christian landlord asking for their cut in fees. That gave Jews a reputation for being distrustful greedy bankers.
ultranaut@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Israel is integral to their eschatology. They can’t have Armageddon without certain conditions being met. Supporting Israel is intended to facilitate the the creation of those conditions.
Wilco@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
They hate jews but worship a jew. So fucking weird.
Aljernon@lemmy.today 2 days ago
There are alot of American Christians who are obsessed with End Times Prophecy which Israel plays a big part in.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It makes sense if you don’t think of it from the viewpoint of principles and ideals.
Antisemites are in general all for zionism. Antisemitic Brits were the ones who made Israel possible in the first place, and even the Nazis supported the creation of Israel. Because it’s not about the Jews having their own country where they can (supposedly) live in peace, safety and freedom, but it’s about Jews moving far, far away.
And with Israel being a western “outpost” pretty much in the centre of the Muslim world, there’s a secondary effect: If Israel and the Muslim countries around it are fighting, that hurts Muslims without causing too much trouble for people living e.g. in the USA.
(These are obviously not my views. I’m just trying to explain why many antisemites are pro Israel.)
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
It’s tied into revelations (which these people tend to revere more than any other part of the Bible). There’s some bullshit about all the Jews returning to Israel being the start of the end of the world so that everybody can go straight to heaven do not pass GO do not collect $200. So they don’t actually care about the Jews of Israel they just want to go straight to heaven so they want all the Jews to “go home”.
shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
If they identified as Christian but never read the book or rarely go to church, what connection do they have to the religion and why do you feel they wished to impart it on you?
MelodiousFunk@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
Hierarchy. The invisible sky wizard makes the rules, and if we don’t follow them we burn. And so on down the line, priests, pastors, presidents (unless they’re black, hoo boy did that send them over the edge), police, parents. Do as you’re told. Do not question authority. It’s practical preparation for school and the workforce at least.
Meanwhile, all of my birthday parties were keggers because the weather was nice and the adults liked to party. And I was at most 4 years old when I learned that I shouldn’t touch the small squares of mirror. Or the plastic film canisters.
There’s nothing quite like the smell of hypocrisy in the morning. Overflowing ash trays and last night’s beer cans when you’re trying to eat breakfast comes close though.
squaresinger@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Funnily, you see similar things with e.g. Americans who lived for generations in America, but still identify as Irish, German and so on.
My wife’s late grandma had a daughter who moved from Germany to the USA at age 18. Her children never lived in Germany. Some of them have learned a bit of very rudimentary German. None of their children (the cousins of my wife) learned German in any meaningful way and they maybe visited Germany once or twice as children. One of these cousins (the second generation born in the USA) now had a kid (third generation born in the USA) and they called their kid “Schaefer” to “honour their German heritage”.
“Schaefer” is a misspelling of the word “Schäfer”, which means “shepherd” and is, if anything, exclusively used as a last name in German (German countries are quite strict about what’s a first name and what’s not). There’s actually a registry of first names that were given to children in Germany, and the name “Schaefer” doesn’t occur once over the last 80 or so years that this registry covers.
So they identify as “German”, even though they never had any meaningful contact with the country and couldn’t even be bothered to google whether the name they chose to “honour their German legacy” was actually a German first name.
TLDR: People identify as all sorts of garbage, because it makes them feel cool or makes them feel part of something, even if they have no clue about or interest in what they identify with.
Aneb@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I literally told my mom that I was affected by doge spending cuts in multiple ways that make my current life unmaintainable. I can’t afford a 400% in my insurance premium. I use buses and doge cut the grant to my city that kept them fully operational; my city cut routes and reduced buses on the routes they tried to keep on top of freezing the wage for their workers for 4 years of the worst inflation America will see. And she’s just like “I’ll vote for Trump again, at least he is not a woman”
InfiniteHench@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This was one of the fundamental experiences of whiplash that shot me straight out of the Christian community. Giant pile of child-fucking hypocrites.
beejboytyson@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Meh for me it was the child fucking.
pfr@lemmy.sdf.org 2 days ago
I’m an atheist, but I would probably guess that those type of Christians aren’t real Christians at all. It seems to be common in America for people to associate “traditional family values” with Christianity. Which very basically translates to racism and homophobia. So they hide behind Christianity like they’re holyier then thou. These people aren’t Christians, their bigots with disassociative disorders.
xav@programming.dev 2 days ago
I don’t agree when you say “racism and homophobia”. American Christian values are racism and homophobia and misogyny.
its_kim_love@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
You can be all of those things and be Christian.
MehBlah@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Oh I was raised by bigots. Both full narcissists. Its why democrat and republican mean nothing to me. My democrat dad switched to a republican without changing one racist bigoted opinion. Made sure everyone knew how generous he was. Only he was generous when no one was around to see. Then he was cruel and mean. When I stopped being his victim he disowned me. Of all those christians he was hanging around ninety percent of them were just like him. They were incrediblly mean to people and always justified it using the bible. If their afterlife were a real thing then they wouldn’t be that way. The reason why they can be that way is that they know its all a scam. If jesus ever existed that jewish dude wouldn’t be someone they cared for.
I long for the day they are taxed for their donations and then we will see how christian they are. Whats left might be worthy of my repsect. But I doubt it.
null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 days ago
Yeah so I was raised in a reasonably devout household, and I’ve never really been able to resolve this.
Its related to the fundamental attribution error - we judge others by their actions but ourselves by intentions. Except its more than that because religion creates this us vs them dynamic, where anyone who is “us” has good intentions, but anyone who is them does not.
Let’s suppose a “good” person is one who performs acts of altruism, has integrity, and a high level of emptiness self awareness.
In my experience these “good” people are a small part of any group. Any race, creed, city, social group, whatever.
With that in mind, I don’t think religion makes people good - rather its a system of beliefs that allows people to perceive themselves and their friends as good.
Really I think this explains why religion is so prevalent. Ultimately being “good” isn’t a very good gig. Imagine doing destitute because you’ve spent your life performing acts of altruism. OTOH if it merely allows one to form a cohesive group of “good” people, i can see how that would be perpetuated.
funkajunk@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Ain’t no love like Christian hate!
TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Social media, that’s why. The brain being cooked in dopamine all the time by algorithm and fake news fries the brain. People forgot how to be nice.
elbiter@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Christianity is OK, until it interferes with a billionaire’s interest…
Valorie12@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Literally so hard this. I was raised by christians and they were disappointed when I turned out to not be a christian adult. I literally tried to point out the hypocrisy of them teaching me to always treat others with respect and to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” but being hardcore right-wingers and trump supporters, being racists af and hating trans and queer people. They still don’t seem to get it.
zebidiah@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
I’ve often wondered if I would have grown up to be as vehemently atheist if I had grown up in a place without american “christians”
Raiderkev@lemmy.world 3 days ago
South Park just tackled this very issue. Don’t worry, Jesus is a chud now
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Helps if you read it as “care about others[immediate friends and neighbors]” not “care about others[foreigners, minorities, and other faiths]”
Ministers love to talk about charity when they’re passing around the collection plate. It never comes up on tax day.
njordomir@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Last night’s Southpark kind of hinted at this topic a little bit. I’m curious to see where they take it, but I won’t post any spoilers here because I don’t know who has seen it.
oopsgodisdeadmybad@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
Man, I think I was an atheist for years before I actually knew it. I disagreed with several things without even noticing for a long time. I’d skip going to church, (hell I would show up sometimes for the beginning and leave just so people would know they saw me that day). I hated LGBT people for a good chunk of it. That kinda stopped after I met some.
Then when someone close to me came out as trans, I didn’t even blink or feel weird about it. But the old beliefs still kinda hovered there for a while still.
That shit is hard to shake when it’s indoctrinated as bad as it was, mostly because of the fact that the fear of hell is reeeeal. It took a movie bringing up the fact that something that I believed was original to the Bible has been around well before it got put into the Bible. That finally shattered holding onto it, and everything else has been catching up ever since.
I’m finally becoming someone I’m not ashamed of.
That started 9 years ago. I still have a group of friends to get back to that tolerate me back then somehow and I need to reintroduce the new me.
itisileclerk@lemmy.world 1 day ago
I am sorry but Americans are not Christians. I am atheist since I was born, never beleived but I am living in Christian country (ortodox) and what I am seeing, Americans are Christians only in self proclamation. Nothing in Protestant churches (they are not even that) is Christian. It’s pure transactional, and unhuman at it’s core. And they are lucky that Jesus doesen’t exist because they would burn in hell (together with me as an atheist). So, in a nutshel, American christians are atheists that use religion for justifying all those sins that they are not supposed to make. And this is the ugly truth.
ethaver@kbin.earth 3 days ago
...and that's how I converted to Gnosticism.
Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 2 days ago
supply side jesus.
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
yeah, in jesus’s image, right. I wonder if jesus gave a fuck about other people…
undergroundoverground@lemmy.world 2 days ago
This is almost exactly what brought me out of christianity. I was institutionalised into it from birth. So, I always just glossed over the most obvious problems that people would bring up. If anything, it entrenched me further.
However, I started realising that I had more love and compassion for people than, not just christians, god claims to have, by their own admission.
How can I love a stranger than an all loving God?
It was all downhill from there.
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 3 days ago
It sounds like all the positive things Christians say about themselves for are just marketing
FenrirIII@lemmy.world 3 days ago
And my mother wonders why I’m agnostic
PearOfJudes@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
Most Christians (I say most because I have met some good ones) only speak out on the bad things the bible says (eg anti gay) and do nothing on what Jesus says about rich people (“its harder for rich people to enter heaven than a camel through the eye of a needle” etc.) Jesus literally told so many parables of old rich men who couldn’t give up there wealth to worship Jesus, and for being the head of such a largely hateful group, actually didn’t say anything bad against gay people, abortion, trans people and was in fact welcoming of gentiles (Equivalent to immigrant or foreigners to his audience.)
lunatique@lemmy.ml 2 days ago
I’m not even a Christian and even I know Jesus wouldn’t hate anyone let alone CHRISTIANS, even if they are ignorant. But this post is even more ignorant
Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 2 days ago
How is this a shitpost?
Nobody@anarchist.nexus 3 days ago
Jesus was a manual laborer who became homeless to travel and preach his message. He made a point to spend time with lepers and the dregs of society, tax collectors being the worse of them all, because they served the occupying army.
His message was for everyone to love each other. It wasn’t open to interpretation. He made no exceptions. The less fortunate and oppressed were even more deserving of love and support from individuals and from the community.
shawn1122@sh.itjust.works 3 days ago
And yet, 2000 years later, here we are.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Thats what happens when people decide to interpret. Suddenly Jedus is white, despite that making NO sense, and the bible gets a sequal full of contradictions.
Medic8teMe@lemmy.ca 2 days ago
The problem is that you actually read the Bible. These “Christians” never have.
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Apparently they even have apps now that will pull out random quotes from their Bible to justify their attitudes.
cheers_queers@lemmy.zip 2 days ago
This isnt entirely true. In the fundie circles i grew up in, it was heavily encouraged to ready the bible cover to cover as many times as possible, on top of that required to memorize entire chapters. They know whats in there and they dont care. Thats even scarier imo.
DarkAri@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 days ago
You know how the Romans collected taxes in there less “Roman” providences? They have rich guys a contract to basically raise taxes and the rich guys payed up front what was owed for their division of it. Then they were allowed to collect taxes beyond what they paid the Romans to make a profit. This is mainly why they were hated so much. Many people might imagine some official going around and collecting taxes fairly, but the reality was they were operating much more like a Mafia extorting protection money out of people, and taking more then most people owed, often to peoples ruin or near ruin. You can also imagine how nepotic this becomes. People who have loyalty to the dominant ruling class would often catch a break, while those disfavored by the dominant faction would often be harassed.
MacNCheezus@lemmy.today 2 days ago
Well that would certainly explain why the tax collectors get such a bad rap in the Gospels.
AtariDump@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Image
Rothe@piefed.social 2 days ago
It was open to interpretation from the very beginning. Exemplified in the fact that the four canonically approved gospels (we will ignore all the non-canon gospels) are contradicting each other in various ways.
Fine if you choose the interpretation in your comment, but perhaps it would be even better not to let your life be ruled by what random persons made up in their fan fiction 2000 years ago?
buddascrayon@lemmy.world 2 days ago
I’m sorry but in which one of the “canonical” Gospels does Jesus say fuck the poor and love yourself more than anyone else?
camr_on@lemmy.world 2 days ago
None of the four gospels are in contradiction at all with what Nobody@anarchist.nexus said. Not sure what your point is