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”.
In French too. “Aime ton prochain”.
It’s the same in finnish as well; the word used is “lähimmäinen”, which translates as “the one that is closest to you”. Basically implying everyone you meet
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
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It was a racial clause from the beginning. -The word wasn’t needed otherwise. -Same as the sexual clause ‘neighbour’s wife’ instead of ‘spouse’.
And context supports that:
‘Think not that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets’, ‘Do not go among the Gentiles’, ‘I have come only for the lost sheep of Israel’, ‘it is not meet to take the children’s bread and cast it to the dogs’.
I mean the Bible is pretty clear on this. In response to the question, “who is my neighbour,” Jesus answered with the parable of the Good Samaritan. In Christianity, everyone is your neighbour.
In Judaism there was a lot of debate about it historically and I don’t know where things stand now.
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Yeah jesus said didn’t come to abolish the law, but he clearly teaches things different to the teachings of the old testament so it should be pretty clear he’s adding to it.
It’s your problem if you’re not able to understand a very simple and obvious parable. There’s no ambiguity for anyone else, really.
The rest of your reply is babby’s first anti-christian rant. I’m not religious, so direct your tawdry energies elsewhere.
It’s not just “babby’s first anti-Christian rant.” There’s a reason he said “jewsus”…
If you want to make arguments, use quotes. Don’t make shit up.
Are you asking for a quote of the Parable of the Good Samaritan? Or what?
Oh, that phraise goyim/ beasts of the field/ dogs like to take out of context and twist to their favor?
In Judaism there was a lot of debate about it historically and I don’t know where things stand now.
Jews are cool with their neighbors. Zios are genocidal. It’s not that complicated.
Given that the phrase “love your neighbour” comes from the Torah, it is at least 2500 years old, predating what you mean by Zionism by millenia.
This was a poor excuse to shoehorn irrelevant modern-day issues where it doesn’t belong.
Strange, because Leviticus says
You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt:
Sojourn: “short stay, temporary residence”. -That’s if they aren’t subject to the OTs calls for genocide: Deuteronomy 20:16-17, Joshua 6:21, 1 Samuel 15:3, Numbers 31:17-18, Deuteronomy 2:34, 1 Samuel 15:18, Judges 21:10, 2 Kings 10:7. or appointed to slavery: 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.
Jesus didn’t give a shit about the old testament. Neither should anybody else. It’s like the whole point of the gospels…
‘Think not that I have come to destroy the law or the prophets’ -His sole existence is based on the OT and is referenced in the first chapter of John. You might be thinking Saul of Tarsus.
You are totally misrepresenting the last verse.
He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Jesus is being called out by the Cannanite woman and is in the wrong here.
“Do not go out among the Gentiles” is in the context of his specific instructions to the apostles at one point in time. The commission is expanded later.
You can’t pick and choose isolated verses - you’re acting like a Christian.
No, you’re acting Saulinian. -The guy that never walked with Jewsus, lost the lottery to Matthias, destroys the law, lies, and flip flops.
If you want to play context, don’t ignore that Jewsus is the same OT god that subjected women to sex slavery, certain people to brutal racial slavery, and some to genocide. -And don’t ignore all the sexist clauses in their laws and teachings.
Even dogs, beasts of the field (synonym for Gentile in Bible) are rewarded. It doesn’t mean they’re eligible for ‘salvation’.
Paul doesn’t count
But also
every verse about the Amaleks does
You pick and choose like a good little Christian. The anti semitism is always lovely touch too.
I’d love for you to give me an example of a non sexist Bronze Age society.
You defend like a dick skinning death cultist.
Imagine a society not ruled by your sexist/ racist death cult… maybe a non-sexist one! -Suprise suprise!
I love the black and white thinking. Obviously, I must be a Christian because I don’t think the Bible is nothing but “kill all unbelievers” scrawled repeatedly in blood.
C’mon Mister Logical - can you tell me what a false dichotomy is?
Are you saying that the term neighbour was chosen here so that there’s a way exclude certain people?
Exactly. It’s not like they weren’t instructed to kill and enslave elsewhere in the Bible.
Genocide:
Deuteronomy 20:16-17, Joshua 6:21, 1 Samuel 15:3, Numbers 31:17-18, Deuteronomy 2:34, 1 Samuel 15:18, Judges 21:10, 2 Kings 10:7.
Slavery:
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.
No need for irrelevant ancient texts.
The obvious interpretation is that Jesus actually meant what he said. There are no tales of Jesus enslaving people or promoting genocide.
You’re just a gross fash troll.
“think not that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets”
Typical defender can’t quote.
I promise you they hate straight white guys too, if you even express a hint of kindness.
They’re called to “love thy enemy as themselves” as well. So it’s not just their neighbors, but also the people they hold hatred for that they are called to love.
They just see the kids in their church.
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).
Trust me, it’s mostly Christians taking them out of context and denying clear statements.
That’s pretty much exactly what I was getting at
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
If you need a manual to be a good person, you aren’t a good person.
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.
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 😉
Love each other. Even trans people? “Complex nuances”
This classification is idiotic! Objectively ‘bad’. I classify this opinion as bad. Evil.
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.
So much for every state on the planet. Completely codified morality. Created and maintained by certified “bad people”.
Yeah, what’s wrong with wanting to be a good person? Are we going back to eugenics now?
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.
There’s no hate quite like Christian love.
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.
Or they can wholesale just make shit up like all the evangelical rapture crap. Hell, look at even the constitution and how that’s been stretched and colored for all of the anti-progressive rhetoric in the past.
Even when I was a religious child, I still found contradictions in the bible. But, as you know, when you were a young naive child like everyone of us and found something odd, we’re told to ignore it and just don’t think about it.
Gotta use what Jesus said, not the “bible”.
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.
Which is kind of funny, as some would say Jews of Old Testament times were expecting their coming messiah or king to be some kind of military leader. One who might lead them against the oppression of the Romans. Maybe kind of like Moses.
Not to mention the pale skin…
“then you ain’t one of mine. go on, git!” -Jesus apparently, Gospel of John chapter 13 verse 35
Show me the part where Jesus says to stone all the queers. I’ll wait.
Show me the part where Jesus says the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell. I’ll wait.
Show me the part where Jesus says conservatives are also people. I’ll wait.
Show me the part where Jesus says you can’t say fuck on the internet. I’ll wait.
I could go on forever. I would love to express how utterly fucking dumb it is to base your moral compass on one book only (which prooooobably doesn’t cover all areas of life, society, science, etc.), let alone one that was written more than a millenium ago, but I guess once you ignore everything else (such as scientific proof, actual observations, wellbeing of others) and only stick with whatever a select few people tell you, and believe it unconditionally, there’s no point bringing up logic.
I’ll be honest, this was mostly an assumption. I’m not even a Christian. So yes, agreed.
On a second read: sorry if I didn’t word it clearly; by “you”, I meant the general you, not you, personally. I also have no problem with people being religious in general, but what Brandon does in the original post is just plain harmful.
No worries, I didn’t really think you did.
Show me the part where it’s okay for priest to have relations with minor male children. I’ll wait.
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).
Show me where in the bible Jesus ever said to place actual laws of government preventing anything LGBTQ+ from taking place
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.
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.
Apologetics is a core function of Christianity, and there is plenty of evidence suggesting entire books were rewritten to serve a specific narrative. If they believed the ends justified the means, they absolutely would add contradictions, even if they believed they were sincere in their actions. Just as Christians today still continue to add their own beliefs to the existing literature.
I probably shouldn’t have used the term “organically” since the changes would be intentional and manipulative/manufactured. At a high level that is probably just human nature though so from that sense it kind of was organic.
Anyways yeah, there is nothing like a chain of custody on any of this stuff, it’s been translated between languages many, many times. Contradictions, lack of chain of custody, discarding of translation biases, all of them are problematic and are generally dismissed by those faithful. I think that’s part of the point for them, their faith covers those things. I don’t understand it but I can appreciate how it helps some people. I wish people didn’t also use it as an excuse to isolate and hate but I think that is more about humans being flawed than the concept of religion in general…
Yeah that’s fair, I suppose saying it’s on purpose would require some proof to back up that claim. I think the important part of my point though is that religious people use the contradictions in their books to commit atrocities. Thank you for your nuanced take, hornywarthogfart
Yeah your point totally stands for sure. I mostly replied because everyone I know treats the bible as some static, unchanging thing and I think that influences religious propagation because it kind of buries how such an important religious book came to be. Granted this is by design to help push the religious tenets and imply inviolability.
The council of Nicaea all but confirms your suspicion. It’s pretty strange to me that nobody (to my knowledge) in the past 1,700+ years has cared to create a contradiction free Bible. I would cut out unreliable narrators and known forgers from my version. Who knows maybe I’d even include parts of the Apocrypha as well.
Weird how you’re downvoted. Religion just isn’t a good guide to live by but that’s not your fault. Education is key.
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’ve virtually come to the same conclusion after trying to reconcile Paul’s legalism with Jesus’ teaching.
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.
But the question is about Jesus, and the references are in the new testament so it’s correct. idk, the dude is supposed to be the son of god after all…
According to the ai, they’re all going to hell
Using God’s name in vain means to misuse or misrepresent God’s name, often by invoking it for false oaths, empty promises, or inappropriately associating it with harmful actions. It emphasizes the importance of honoring God’s name and not using it lightly or for wrongful purposes.
Every fundamentalist who insists they know god’s will and can inflict it on you is in violation of this commandment
I think you’re right about a lot of fundamentalists, but you need to be careful with the “knowing God’s will” part because Christianity is based on the Bible and the Bible teaches you what God’s will is. So, in so much as someone is basing their words on what the Bible means by what it says, then they are not taking God’s name in vain. But the moment they twist what the Bible means to fit their own narrative, then they are.
And John 8 while we’re at it. He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone.
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
Well a lot of people professing to be Christians could do a lot better at loving LGBT people than they are doing right now, so I say take them up on that.
“A revolting bit of casuistry,” as Christopher Hitchens put it. The problem this justification is that homosexuality is what people are and not what they do, and hating someone’s inherent and immutable trait is the same as hating the person themselves.
Yeah, you are right.