Religious people all share one common trait: they’re hypocrites.
I reject the idea that there is a correct way to read the Bible or worship Jesus. I certainly prefer liberation theology to prosperity Gospel, but I cannot say that one is doing Christianity better than the other.
I used to be Christian and I had all kinds of ideas about what was correct Christianity. I abandoned all that when I realized that those conceptions were much more about me than they were about Jesus or the Bible.
And I think that’s true of the practicing faithful. Some are good, some are wicked, but the difference isn’t in how they read the Bible, it’s who is reading the Bible.
Ask Martin Luther
How else are we hey going to pay to shuffle the pedo priests from church to church to evade getting locked up.
Religion is the oldest scam in history.
This reminds me of a very old joke I heard from a zizek lecture I think.
How can we be sure that Judas didn’t really betray Jesus Christ? Whatever one thinks about the Jews, they know the value of the things they sell, so no Jew would have sold a god for mere 30 silver talents!
(I hope this isnt offensive to anyone, although i don’t think theres many religious people on Lemmy)
Also.
Two Jewish men pass a Catholic church on which a large poster addresses non-Catholics: “Come to us, accept Catholicism, and you instantly get $30,000 in cash!” While walking away, the two friends become engaged in a debate about whether the offer is meant seriously. A week later, the two friends meet again in front of the same church, and one of them confides to the other: “I still wonder if that offer is serious.” The other replies condescendingly: “Ah you Jews, all you think about is money!”
Let me know if people want this deleted and I’ll do it. Don’t wanna be a provocateur today.
Two beggars are sitting side by side on a street in Rome.
One has a cross in front of him; the other one the Star of David. Many people go by and look at both beggars, but only put money into the hat of the beggar sitting behind the cross.
A priest comes by, stops and watches throngs of people giving money to the beggar behind the cross, but none give to the beggar behind the Star of David.
Finally, the priest goes over to the beggar behind the Star of David and says, “My poor fellow, don’t you understand? This is a Catholic country; this city is the seat of Catholicism. People aren’t going to give you money if you sit there with a Star of David in front of you, especially when you’re sitting beside a beggar who has a cross. In fact, they would probably give to him just out of spite.”
The beggar behind the Star of David listened to the priest, turned to the other beggar with the cross and said: “Moishe, look who’s trying to teach the Goldstein brothers about marketing.”
Good religious people generally keep it to themselves unless specifically asked lol.
“Good religious people” aka friends and enablers of pedos.
You are the company you keep. Especially the ones being evangelical about putting their religion into politics and forcing others to live under their dichotomy.
You don’t give a crap about children or stopping pedophiles. You just need a blanket you can throw over everyone so you have a reason to be MAD. lol
Otherwise it’s hard to point at someone enjoying religion privately to themselves and say “that guy need to stop”
Get a life weirdo. You can’t just shout pedophile every time you don’t like something.
The founder of gateway church getting outed as pedo is the least surprising of the only recent events where once again it’s not the trans or drag queens touching the kids.
Curious how many kids he helped connect to priests via his gateway.
What tans or gay people do in the privacy of their own home is theirs too but that’s not stopping the religious nut jobs from invading that privacy and pushing their cult into the lives of other and politics. You fucking hypocrite.
How about you get off your knees and stop defending the pedos and their fucking cult.
No one who cares about molested kids throw around the word pedophile as much as you do. If anyone is helping pedophiles it’s you. You are trying your damned hardest to blur and obfuscate what a pedophile actually is. You’re out here crying wolf as loud as you can and it’s hurting the victims smugly claim to be worried about. You’re a fool.
Im not connected to any of those people buddy. You can stomp your feet and cry all you want but you can’t force me to believe what you believe. It doesn’t matter how pissy you are about it.
Oohhhh go on Ted Cruz, defend your cults and pedo grooming centres harder dipshit.
Come on. Tell me what’s different when poor old innocent religious people want their privacy for their religion but actively invade the lives of gay and trans people just wanting to live? What about their rights to privacy. Or do you only care about freedom to worship made up shit.
You hypocritical buffoon.
So all you do is strawman arguments? Cool.
I have no issues with trans people and this whole conversation started because I mentioned I DONT bring it up to people unless they directly ask me.
I don’t invade peoples lives. Maybe Ted Cruz does but I’m not Ted Cruz. Are you Adolph hitler? He hated Jews so you must hate Jews?
Keep defending your genocide I guess.
The truth is the only one trying to force their control on people’s lives here is you. I mentioned I’m religious and you just can’t tolerate that. You made it your mission to force me to stop being religious. You failed, but that’s your goal. To force your believes onto other people. That’s you’re goal, not mine.
This is extremely xenophobic.
There are several passages that suggest money & Christianity aren’t aligned. Several passages in Acts talk about the disciples selling everything after Jesus passes and living as a commune with no private property. It says they sold & shared everything together.
There’s the camel & needle proverb. There’s Matthew 25:32. There’s multiple passages that speak of selling what you own and giving it to the poor. There’s Jesus throwing the merchants out in the temple.
When did Christianity become like this? Probably when power saw it could abuse faith, so hundreds/thousands of years ago. Your instinct is great, and you should challenge Christians. I mentioned Matthew 25:32 because it seems so diametrically opposed to what many Christians in power say. We’re supposed to care for the homeless, the immigrant, the prisoner—that’s what this book says.
James 2:15 states that belief is not enough. Belief without works of faith is empty, the same as no faith at all. People telling you they are a Christian while behaving otherwise should be made aware of this passage.
I say this as a Unitarian Universalist. I study the Bible to inform my beliefs, but they are not defined by them. I do think Jesus has been commodified and warped, and the people in power who tell us we’re a Christian nation in the US have lost sight of scripture. They quote the Old Testament and ignore John 13:34.
I also studied all this so when ICE / this government comes for me, I’ll have my receipts. Maybe it won’t matter, but speaking truth to power is important. If so many people believe this book, why do we act like we do? It’s power’s fault, not religion.
Note, I was an atheist for 20 years. I know all about the ills of religion. UU is not like my Catholic Church growing up. If you haven’t been to UU or a Quaker org, it’s worth your time.
I appreciate seeing the Quaker love on Lemmy! (UUs are awesome too, in my experience!)
It’s a great community and shares a lot with us. More people should know about faith communities doing the good work in the world, rather than swindling their congregations for mega churches with elaborate shows, while telling people “empathy is not Christian.” It’s absurd what’s happening in those congregations right now.
It’s power’s fault, not religion.
I was with you until this.
Religion is a set of beliefs, typically in things beyond what we can falsify (hence faith). It’s not inherently powerful to believe people should be treated with respect. A belief in democracy is a belief in giving others equal power to our own (part of my UU faith).
Unitarian Universalism holds very little power in the world. It’s a beautiful faith tradition. Sure, there are powerful religions, but again, that’s power, not religion.
The 1100s is when an Italian merchant made up a story about the “eye of the needle” being a gate in Jerusalem that a camel could juuuuuuust about squeeze through if the owner bowed their head or something.
Is that lie really that old? Goddamn…
It is, but it’s not any older, which is one of the reasons it’s clearly made up. No one talked about it for over 1000 years then suddenly a guy with something to gain suddenly knows this “fact” about a place he’s never been, and no one else outside of his vicinity can remember it.
Note Jesus didn’t disdain giving alms, but said the poor widow gave more than rich men, who also flaunted giving. Women and orphans were the beneficiaries of these funds as well, I am guessing, as temple upkeep and scribes, priests maybe, etc.
He was enraged at the selling of animals for sacrifice. I can’t imagine it was for usurious rates.
You’d have to further research it on sites that specifically address Jewish law, preferably from Aramaic and Jewish translations. I have fur babies hindering me rn
Most Christians don’t really care what the Bible says, regardless of how much they like to pretend they do.
they dont care, because dont read it at all, or they read and choose a specific passage and forget everything else. i notice thier preaching almost never uses bible verses, its almost always guilt tripping people.
It’s not like the church wants to point those parts out and the followers sure aren’t reading the thing.
it became a thing because the catholic church was (still is) actually the leftovers of the roman empire, and acted like an empire as a result (the only reason they dont today is because they no longer have the power to crush nations). this lends false legitimacy to others trying to use Christianity as a platform for personal gain.
Because religion, particularly Catholicism/Christianity, are giant grifting operations who promise you better positions in heaven by giving money.
For me the explanation is simple: there is no logic within religion. Note that the bible says to love one another but also says that slavery is OK and that gay men should be stoned. These things conflict with one-another; you cannot be kind if you have slaves and stone other people, and you cannot have slaves and stone people if you are kind. It is physically impossible to follow all the rules in the bible. Many of its followers do not realize this, so their critical thinking skills are either lacking or damaged from all the BibLe gOoD thumping that they received from a young age. And because their critical thinking skills are damaged, many do not realize the obvious problem with giving money when jesus was, according to the book, not condoning this.
These aren’t christians. The money behind jesusism is absurd. I am beyond quite confident that there would be no appreciation in that camp. Aaaaaand the absolute last thing Jesus is gonna wanna do is see a fucking cross. Are you kidding me? The fuck is wrong with people.? A lotta sick fucks ot there for sure. I’m sure Jesus has better things to do than reminisce about 2,000 some years ago. I don’t think it was a pleasant experience if’n my history stands correct.
Why couldn’t we have just done this in the first place?
These aren’t christians.
They absolutely are.
Those absolutely are. Just because they don’t fit into your made up subcategory of Christianity that you put yourself into does not mean that’s not what the majority of this religion cult is.
I don’t identify as Christian. I didn’t make up a sub category. If one does their research, one can understand how the merging of evangelical Christianity and the republican party has been fusing tighter & tighter together for over 50 years. Christian nationalism grew exponentially under Reagan in the 80’s. Unfortunately many of the non evangelical/ nationalist christians are too afraid to separate the wheat from the chaff when it comes to theological differences. I believe blanket statements about something as complex as religion as in the previous comment are indicators of a well groomed ignorant public. Wait a second. It’s a bot. Whatever.
Until they grow a pair and separate themselves from the cults they are a part of then yes they still are Christians and friends and enablers of pedos.
Religion is the largest source of ignorance and grooming that they blame on gay and trans people.
Sunday schools are grooming centres for the people in charge like Robert Morris
Oh look, it’s not a gay or trans person?!? It’s the church, again! What like the 700th time this year?!How about you get off your knees and stop defending the pedos.
My username is a DBZA reference if you’re not just using your ignorance as an excuse like a good religious sheep.
I am not gonna argue with a bot. You are correct. I am a stupid ignorant fool. You win. Are you happy now? I really hope you are. Probably a neckbeard, someone with severe mental issues (perhaps well diagnosed). When one is is severely depressed and unhappy with themselves, they act out in ways that make them feel empowered no matter how sad and bitter they truly are. What a great forum to let it all out. I am so glad that you are enlightened. Is there anything else useful and necessary that you would like to share before I claim this as a W in my book? Seems like someone has some personal issues that haven’t been dealt with. I do hope you get the help you need to overcome such angry and hostile views. I wish you the best and hope you can see that I am a pariah because I am fool enough to believe in grace, hope & even redemption. I don’t support any religion at all. In fact, I am a devout Daoist. It is one of the most woo woo schools of thought out there. It was the Hippieish esoteric anti belief against Confuscius. Somewhat similar but coming from waaay different places. Anyhow, good luck with everything.
Bwahahaha lotta words for not arguing with a bot.
You devout nutjobs are so fucking far up your own ass, playing psychologist and calling people neck beards. How fucking original. Take your grace, hope and redemption and shove it with your woo woo bullshit back up into Narnia where that make believe nonsense belongs.
Please don’t procreate or vote. Thank you 😘
That’s because if you practice from the Scriptures, you don’t become popular. The Scriptures, when you read them and understand what they tell you to do (83 commandments still in effect today, feasts and festivals [not necessarily Jewish ones], the Sabbath [for me, lunar Sabbath], etc.) make you realize that you’ve been fooled big time, and that you need to change yourself.
