I thought the infanticide was when Abraham almost sacrificed his son to God, then god was like .. wtf you were going to actually do it, you twisted fuck.
I mean, considering that they had no idea about penicillin and STD’s it’s pretty easy to see how keeping your junk pure would have more emphasis than being a swell person.
It’s kinda how pork was deemed sinful at a time when people had no idea about proper cooking and storing temperatures of pork (or any food.) Also, why blended linens were forbidden, because they had no idea that God wasn’t cursing them, they just used a toxic plant fiber and got rashes.
Just saying, the lack of knowledge leaves a lot of room for the imagination. Just look at QAnon.
The majority opinion among commentators is that Jephthah killed his daughter as an act of human sacrifice. There is, however, a minority opinion that Jephthah's daughter spent the rest of her life in seclusion. This is based on considerations such as weeping for her virginity would make no sense if she were about to die (although it would be sensible in light of the Biblical commandment to "be fruitful and multiply", which she would now no longer be able to fulfill). Commentators holding to the minority view include David Kimhi, Keil and Delitzsch, James B. Jordan, and Jehovah's Witnesses.
I like to think of it more as an embellished retelling of real events. For example, most historians agree that Jesus existed. Whether or not he walked on water however...
Aren't there no corroborated telling of Jesus and his exploits, other than the Bible, written decades later, and at times Josephus, a Christian historian that was even later?
A good many historians believe he never existed as such, but was simply a retelling of many older resurrection mythologies.
If anyone is interested in this topic, Bart D. Ehrman is a non-religious historian who examines the historicity of the Gospels. He has a number of informative books, including on Jesus specifically.
Mentions of Jesus in extra-biblical texts do exist and are supported as genuine by the majority of historians.[6] Historical scholars see differences between the content of the Jewish Messianic prophecies and the life of Jesus, undermining views Jesus was invented as a Jewish Midrash or Peshar
I think "Jesus was a man" is reasonably well accepted across the board. The rest, I can't comment on
Check out the works of Dr. Bart Erhman, he's a religious studies professor with a focus on the origins of the biblical texts and the growth of the Jesus story. He's also pretty active on YouTube, and he offers really interesting insights into how the story was embellished over time.
Here's a video of a discussion between Dr. Erhman and Dr. Andrew Henry, another religious studies scholar. Dr. Henry's YouTube channel offers fascinating introductions to some esoteric, foreign, or dead religions. I've been listening to his content for the last few weeks during my morning commute, and I feel like my perspective on religion has grown because of it. https://youtu.be/k2Z37xdpGpI
My personal belief is that all of it started with good intentions. A woman had a hallucinogenic vision that her son would be born of a god. People didn't believe it. A few did.
That son was born being told he was special and that big things were expected of him. People/followers gave him food and shelter wherever he went and he had an easy job as a shepherd. This gave him time to think and to preach some ideas about kindness and compassion to the sick that went against the status quo at the time. His followers exploded, since everyone has a sick relative somewhere. Stories and rumors started circulating about him to places he had never visited.
Some of these stories challenged the status quo. When he goes to one of these towns they arrest him from crimes that are greater than his actual influence. People who have witnessed his kindness to the sick preach of his miracles. Maybe even he begins to believe his own myth. His execution takes place and as his importance swells, his followers come to think of it all as some kind of divine plan -- because why would such a horrible thing happen to such a nice person?
If you're interested in births of religions, then check out how Mormonism got its start. Very very similar to how the early Christian church got going. But, since it happened in modern times, we have much better records of it.
I had read the opinion that Jesus was a compilation of multiple people. That also would explain different behavior at times. Don Juan was also like this, vs Casanova a single actual person.
as an atheist and historian, most historians agree Jesus really existed sometime between 4 BCE and 36 CE. only edgy undergrads don’t think Jesus was real haha
Weren't a bunch of non-cannon biblical scroll books among the artifacts Hobby Lobby paid the Taliban to collect & art smuggle to them for their weird ass "Bible museum"
The Taliban who at the time was actively blowing up UNESCO world heritage sites for funsies and classified as enemy combatants due to the country Hobby Lobby operates out of being engaged in an ongoing war with them?
“If you give the Ammonites into my hands, 31 whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in triumph from the Ammonites will be the Lord’s, and I will sacrifice it as a burnt offering.”
Of course there's an opinion that the Bible totally doesn't endorse human sacrifice. Because if they had to admit that it does, it means that their god is a total shit bag. And so, the twisting and contortions begin
Yes, even though the wording is ptetty obvious, that is the way most apologist--at least on the protestant evangelical side--try to spin it.
Most Christians ignore this passage for obvious reasons, but my pastor uncle once preached an entire sermon on this early on in my path out of religion, and sitting there, reading it for myself and actually considering it was yet another big example to me at the time of just how screwed up this whole book was.
People should basically ignore everything in the bible except the stuff Jesus said. Letters from dickhead to shitfuck?
No, I don't want to hear what some ancient misogynistic prick said.
Fuck the old testament too, who the fuck knows who is meant to have said all that.
There more than likely was a man we refer to as Jesus, and basically his sentiment was that we should treat each other the way we want to be treated. That's the gospel, right? The golden rule as Larry David would say.
That philosophy by itself would solve the world's problems.
Think about it. If we all did that together, only acted in a way we would want others to act, it would solve basically every problem we have that could be solved by humans.
He was 2000 years ahead of his time, right?
More than that actually, because we still aren't doing that now, are we?
The only thing holy/beautiful/otherworldly about the bibles is that message.
Shame it has been corrupted and abused. Organised religion existed before and after Jesus and its only purpose is to control and dominate people.
Christians were hunted/killed and when that didn't work the ruling roman emperor cleverly decided to bastardize the whole religion by 'adopting it' and then merging it into the Roman religion, full of hierarchy and symbolism, as a means of control.
It worked and we ended up with the Roman Catholic church (fuck the pope, fuck that organisation more than any other, they cover up pedophilia, if you're a Catholic and need Jesus in your life then find another way of doing it.)
Basically I guess I'm saying you can ignore everything except Christ's philosophy and still be a christian. You don't even need to be certain he existed, it's fine to live by a fictional character's philosophy (although historians generally agree there was an actual guy)
It doesn't matter if Jesus was a prophet, a genius, a literal god incarnate abomination to physics or an alien, he had the solution to mankind's problems.
Anyway, sorry for the rant, today I encountered yet another self professed christian who treated people like shit, it made me angry and I needed to vent.
He was definitely not okay with it. There are multiple verses where God forbids human sacrifice (Deuteronomy 12:30-32, Leviticus 20:1-2, 2 Kings 16:1-4) The book of Judges is a book with multiple stories that point out the overal theme of the book which is that when left to their own devices, humans do absolutely terrible things. Whether or not Jephthah sacrificed his daughter is debated (some thinking she just remained unwed), but ultimately either way it was not condoned by God. Just because someone does something and claims it’s “for God” doesn’t mean God approves of it.
Reminds me of when God annihilated (or explicitly allowed the Devil to annihilate) Job's children and grandchildren to test his faith and made up for it by giving him more wives than before so he ends up with more children and grandchildren compared to before. And all the while, God and the Devil were spectating his suffering like they were watching the Truman Show. When I first read the Book of Job in my early teens, I was like, "Damn, God didn't give a fuck about Job's original descendants."
9 “Does Job fear God for nothing?”(Y) Satan replied. 10 “Have you not put a hedge(Z) around him and his household and everything he has?(AA) You have blessed the work of his hands, so that his flocks and herds are spread throughout the land.(AB) 11 But now stretch out your hand and strike everything he has,(AC) and he will surely curse you to your face.”(AD)
12 The Lord said to Satan, “Very well, then, everything he has(AE) is in your power, but on the man himself do not lay a finger.”(AF)
Then Satan went out from the presence of the Lord.
Like my guy, you just got played by the devil. It’s the oldest trick in the book
I’ve always had it interpreted at my church I went to when I was younger that dying wasn’t so bad through the Christian lens. I mean you just get to chill with the homie JC so it wasn’t so bad. And then at the end of the book of Job it says something along the lines of “he lived with his 14 descendants.” Even tho 7 were dead. So it was like the 7 he had that were alive and the 7 in heaven, bibles wild yo
God didn’t give a fuck about anyone. He mass murdered almost every living thing on the entire planet, raped and impregnated a married underage virgin and allowed is own son to be tortured to death.
I remember doing the readings at church when I was going through catechism and had to read job to the packed church service. 14-year old me, not prepping whatsoever for a clearly important thing, dropped a ‘Jesus Christ’ at around the end of my reading (iirc it was the end of chapter 1) and was never asked to read again. My parents were not impressed with this ‘performance.’
I mean, there's that whole story with the plagues and Carlton Heston that includes marking your door with sheeps blood so that God knows not to kill your firstborn... as he then proceeds to kill the firstborn of everyone else.
Oh that had nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with power and obedience, because god is the biggest, most narcissistic megalomaniac ever written. They had to mark the doors solely to prove that they were obedient to his word, or he'd kill their firstborn too. Just take a look at his idea of eternal paradise: eternally singing praises to him. He's a psycho.
It's weird really. We can look at all the other mythologies and see the crazy stuff people told themselves to warrant the existence of their gods, but not this one. No, this one is totally legit and not a myth despite having the same inconsistencies and homicidal tendencies the others did!
Whenever I run into a crazy bible thumper I always tell them that 'We all are atheists, but I just believe in one less God than you. The same reason that you dismiss all other possible religions is the same reason why I dismiss yours'. I believe I read that in a Hitchens book.
It doesn't stop them from calling me a Satanist or bitch or tell me I'm going to hell, not that I care. But it does give me some small sense of satisfaction.
Whenever I run into a crazy bible thumper I always tell them that 'We all are atheists, but I just believe in one less God than you. The same reason that you dismiss all other possible religions is the same reason why I dismiss yours'. I believe I read that in a Hitchens book.
It doesn't stop them from calling me a Satanist or bitch or tell me I'm going to hell, not that I care. But it does give me some small sense of satisfaction.
That's the difference between learning about a myth, and having it indoctrinated into you by your entire culture. It shapes your entire worldview when its something you grow up around, and tearing down these false realities is super difficult if not impossible when they're part of the foundation that your reality is built on.
It makes no sense until you realize that so much of how we think about and interact with everything and everyone else is based upon culturally and personally constructed narratives that don't have to necessarily match up with the physical world. So long as something works as a social glue and provides a sense of purpose, or even just distraction to fill time, it can become a part of this construct. And then challanging it as fake or non legitimate belief creates all sorts of inner turmoil and forces confrontations with existensial dread and so on, its no wonder religion and some odder things stick around. Challanging someones faith is literally challanging their view of reality.
Whenever I run into a crazy bible thumper I always tell them that 'We all are atheists, but I just believe in one less God than you. The same reason that you dismiss all other possible religions is the same reason why I dismiss yours'. I believe I read that in a Hitchens book.
It doesn't stop them from calling me a Satanist or bitch or tell me I'm going to hell, not that I care. But it does give me some small sense of satisfaction.
Whenever I run into bible thumpers I tell them I worship the devil. Most act like I just asked them to pass the salt. Very little to no reaction. Ha-Ha!
The bible is derived from a mix of much earlier religions, fables, etc, and sometimes these coopted stories were turned around to alienate the prior religions, eg snakes were considered symbols of fertility and symbols of a good harvest because they ate vermin yet when Christianity came about they turn snakes into something evil (see adam & eve).
The point wasn't to show God you were obedient. The point was to show yourself you were obedient to God, to make sure you knew you were his feckless slave. The point was your hands shaking in fear, covered in the congealing blood of livestock you couldn't afford to lose, as you defaced your home in a desperate attempt to appease the Wrath of a loving, gentle God, and knowing you would do even this in your terrified subservience to him.
The true moral of most human action in biblical stories isn't proving subservience to God, it is proving subservience to God to oneself by one's own horrible actions.
One correction, Jews didn't and largely still don't view their God as supremely gentle and loving-that is veeery Christian New Testament God. To the original peoples there was zero values dissonance, their god was a powerful dangerous violent jealous being not so different from many of the other deities of the region and times. "You will have no other gods before me" and all that.
I know this is reddit, so not the place for deep theological discussions … but the question of an omniscient god and human free will has been hotly debated in the abrahamic religions.
I don’t believe any of this stuff but I still think it’s pretty fascinating; you’ll find much more nuanced takes on the topic on wikipedia or google than on here.
That was the roman catholic church solution to the cathars.
TBF, that would happen anyway, because the cathars were antinatalists (because of obvious religious reasons). Which btw was another encouragement to kill them, cause the proles are for procreation - as this recent supreme court of fascists news reaffirms. It's a big no no to disrupt the supply of low wage slaves because it dilutes power in a society.
This is called 'adaptive decay' (or at least I call it that) in writing. Lots of authors + shit culture = end up with 'superman is a dick' websites and religious orders.
You forgot the part where the Pharaoh surrendered and tried to release the Jews multiple punishments ago but God decided to harden his heart to justify the punishments
The gist of the story is God wants to personally take revenge against 10 Egyptian Gods. The Pharaoh had surrendered with the first apocalyptic punishment and let the Jews go, but God specifically hardened his heart so that God has an excuse to mete out the next apocalypse
If God came for my first born I would beat his head in. Any God. All the Gods. Don’t matter. You would think my house is a KFC all the two pieces with a biscuit I’m serving up.
Don't forget the book of Kings 2 where two she bears tear 42 kids to shreds.
2 Kings 2:22-24
21st Century King James Version
22 So the waters were healed unto this day, according to the saying of Elisha which he spoke.
23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel. And as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him and said unto him, “Go up, thou bald head! Go up, thou bald head!”
24 And he turned back and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the Lord. And there came forth two shebears out of the wood and tore forty and two children of them.
Imagining siching two shebears at a bunch of kids because they were roasting you for being bald. It's such a sudden and over the top story it's just straight up hilarious
There is so much stuff in the Bible you would never believe is from the holy book of a major religion. Reading the Bible is the fastest way to become an atheist. If they're still devout after reading it, well, you'll know who to avoid.
Reading the Bible is the fastest way to become an atheist.
100% what happened to me. Right around my confirmation (16) I decided to get serious about my Catholic upbringing. They even gave me my own bible.
I feel asleep for a few nights reading it, and right around where Noah got off the boat and was immediately instructed to start building altars to sacrifice animals to, I was starting to wonder wtf I was reading.
Then I got to a bit where Noah cursed and entire bloodline because he got drunk and caught in a compromising position. The whole parable read like a complete miscarriage of what I consider moral.
Within a few weeks I had lost religion like a baby tooth. Good riddance.
Raised Catholic, and had both one of those brightly illustrated "my first bible" things and a New American Bible (I think) that my grandmother gave me because I was a prodigious reader. So there i was, 8 years old, reading the Bible cover to cover on my own. I remember sitting in the living room while the rest of the family was watching football, reading the Bible, and getting to the story of Onan. This version did not use the word "seed", but rather a word my child self had never seen. So I set the Bible down and loudly asked everyone in the room, "What's semen?"
I think that was the last time I ever voluntarily read the Bible.
That's fantastic, and also a brilliant proof to the point that the Bible is not a kid-friendly book if you don't pick and choose which parts to share and which to exclude.
There are text and picture books for kids that lay out catholic doctrine in addition to straight bible stories, they just don't call them bibles generally
Like, is the bible thing not a thing for Catholics?
I mean, yes, the personal connection to God versus a priest as an intermediary is like the primary difference between Catholicism and Protestantism. Included in that is whether you interpret the Bible on your own or rely on the clergy to do it for you.
Which is why it isn't a problem for Evangelicals if this guy gets his way. Sure they'll hiss and spit, but they don't read the thing anyway, all they need is a pamphlet with highlights.
I was raised in the church, loved books, and was bored in church in Sundays for years. Actually read more than a few chapters of the Bible.
I wanted to try and understand and grow, so I questioned everything. Turns out you're not supposed to do that. There are no good answers and pastors/preachers pick and choose what to teach you.
I still hate church and am now an Atheist.
Revelations was metal though and it def sparked my interest in horror and apocalypse genre things lol.
It's possible to still be religious, but not in the believer of the most literal words.
For example, there are people who choose to believe that the bible was written in a more dramatic, tragic pattern, like shakespear's 'comedies' (which in time became pretty much horror).
Or that the people writing it were paraphrasing from other people, like how Confucius never actually wrote down his words-he hated writing his proverbs, he believed that students should practice and commit to memory.
I've also seen some people who decided, screw the words, I believe that God is all loving, I will preach it and the guy who wrote it was on mushrooms.
"A" major religion? All three "major" religions are Abrahamic. The Koran borrows heavily from the old testament and the Torah is practically the old testament, which is where most of the barbaric stuff is found.
Also, this may be news to some, but most Christians don't really abide by the old testament, other than believing some of the main stories, probably because their guy doesn't "really" make an appearance in that part.-though his guys say that he said that it was all about him-
Also, it's actually all kind of messy, hence the thousands of years of wars.
It's worse than that. God explicitly told Abraham to sacrifice his son by stabbing him to death. Just as Abraham was about to do it, god said "uh, I changed my mind."
But yeah, god ordered soldiers to smash babies against rocks. Also, God had an an angel murder every firstborn son in Egypt.
Not quite. Unfortunately, God’s reaction was quite different lol. Abraham was highly praised by God for being willing to do it, even though at the last second God stopped him doing it. It was a loyalty test to see if Abe was willing to put God before his own child, and dear old Abe passed with flying colours 🥳 /s
No, seriously, he was praised for being willing to kill his own child. It’s seriously fucked up.
If you read the story of moses then it was the god that forced the pharaoh's heart to harden so that he could show off all his amazing abilities, which included killing all the first borns.
There's also Exodus where Pharo supposedly orders the death of all baby Hebrews and where the Holy Spirit itself goes through the city and snuffs out every firstborn child that isn't Hebrew.
There’s another passage in Kings where 42 children tease Elisha about his bald head. Elisha then asks God to send 2 bears who kill the boys. Good stuff.
The infanticide was a few places. The most famous one is probably where God personally tells Israel to massacre all the men, women, children, infants, and even animals and fruit trees in Jericho. The kid's version usually stops after the wall falls down and skips on to the next thing.
Too bad people don't understand what the Bible actually teaches. Issac, Abraham's son was an adult at the time and went willingly with his father. Yes! Abraham would have done it. If not, then the l lesson would never have been learned. It's called faith. Something too many today have zero knowledge about.
The message of Abraham offering Isaac is a similitude of the coming sacrifice of God and his only begotten Son. Jesus Christ.
When you're a prophet and God commands you to do something, I suggest you do it. That event, the offering if Isaac by Abraham, and subsequent story has been passed down through the ages and is an unimpeachable testimony of the coming Christ offered up by his and our Eternal Father for the sins of the world.
Today, faith needs to increase by belief, humility and prayer, fervent prayer. The day will come when each of us may have our own Abrahamic test. Will we approach that test with faith? Or ridicule?
Too bad people don't understand what the Bible actually teaches. Issac, Abraham's son was an adult at the time and went willingly with his father. Yes! Abraham would have done it. If not, then the l lesson would never have been learned. It's called faith. Something too many today have zero knowledge about.
The message of Abraham offering Isaac is a similitude of the coming sacrifice of God and his only begotten Son. Jesus Christ.
When you're a prophet and God commands you to do something, I suggest you do it. That event, the offering if Isaac by Abraham, and subsequent story has been passed down through the ages and is an unimpeachable testimony of the coming Christ offered up by his and our Eternal Father for the sins of the world.
Today, faith needs to increase by belief, humility and prayer, fervent prayer. The day will come when each of us may have our own Abrahamic test. Will we approach that test with faith? Or ridicule?
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u/arbitrageME Apr 27 '22
wait what? is that a thing?
I thought the infanticide was when Abraham almost sacrificed his son to God, then god was like .. wtf you were going to actually do it, you twisted fuck.