this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2024
643 points (91.4% liked)
General Discussion
12058 readers
243 users here now
Welcome to Lemmy.World General!
This is a community for general discussion where you can get your bearings in the fediverse. Discuss topics & ask questions that don't seem to fit in any other community, or don't have an active community yet.
🪆 About Lemmy World
🧭 Finding Communities
Feel free to ask here or over in: !lemmy411@lemmy.ca!
Also keep an eye on:
- !newcommunities@lemmy.world
- !communitypromo@lemmy.ca
- !new_communities@mander.xyz
- !communityspotlight@lemmy.world
- !wowthislemmyexists@lemmy.ca!
For more involved tools to find communities to join: check out Lemmyverse!
💬 Additional Discussion Focused Communities:
- !actual_discussion@lemmy.ca - Note this is for more serious discussions.
- !casualconversation@lemm.ee - The opposite of the above, for more laidback chat!
- !letstalkaboutgames@feddit.uk - Into video games? Here's a place to discuss them!
- !movies@lemm.ee - Watched a movie and wanna talk to others about it? Here's a place to do so!
- !politicaldiscussion@lemmy.world - Want to talk politics apart from political news? Here's a community for that!
Rules
Remember, Lemmy World rules also apply here.
0. See: Rules for Users.
- No bigotry: including racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, or xenophobia.
- Be respectful. Everyone should feel welcome here.
- Be thoughtful and helpful: even with ‘silly’ questions. The world won’t be made better by dismissive comments to others on Lemmy.
- Link posts should include some context/opinion in the body text when the title is unaltered, or be titled to encourage discussion.
- Posts concerning other instances' activity/decisions are better suited to !fediverse@lemmy.world or !lemmydrama@lemmy.world communities.
- No Ads/Spamming.
- No NSFW content.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It’s not the Bible that’s the issue, but our current understanding of it.
The Bible is generally broken into the laws, the histories, the lamentations, and words of promise all in the Old Testament and then the words and actions of Jesus and His followers in the New Testament.
For Christians, the laws aren’t so much hard laws as much as they are “Tips for a Better Life, featuring the Prequel Stories”. The New Testament is what makes Christianity, and those texts primarily focus on the Grace of God, which is - hastily summarizing here - “All ‘sin’ requires the shedding blood, but I’ve already done that and forgiven everything, so just do your best”.
Different gospels say different things about the same events. Different letters are written to different ancient churches by different people about many different issues. Different texts and histories are included or discarded dependent upon how any particular sect of Christianity worships. The Bible is a collection of the words of people who are driven by God for their purpose at their time, and so it is always going to be subject to adaptable understandings.
All this is because mortal, imperfect people are in charge of interpreting, translating, and communicating the words of an entity that “exists” outside the confines of matter, energy, space, or time. As time continues, our understanding of the word adapts and changes.
This sounds like a great argument for not taking anything the Bible says seriously at all.
There’s nothing that forces you to take anything spiritual “seriously”. It’s up to you to make that decision for yourself.
The Bible says you should, and most churches say you should.
Or seriously enough to think about it, not just swallow everything. Christianity is a religion who praised critical thinking for centuries because the Bible is a book which should be studied. It was written by intelligent people who made a point to let contradictions and diverse points of view in order to let the reader decide.
Only for as long as nobody knew any better. It’s also a religion that put people like Galileo in jail, for daring to think differently. And burn them alive at the stake. Unless we forget the Spanish inquisition, or the crusades?
Galileo was Christian as much as the Pope who condemned him.
Moving the goalposts, are we?
How so?
Now it’s feigned ignorance…