Christianity is a man made religion shaped to control people in which you are supposed to “worship” a really high authority that cannot be questioned.
sounds like the government
Are their non man made religions I should know about?
I feel like dogs would have a good religion. I wanna subscribe to that.
if one uses the broad meaning of “religion” then i’d say unorganized ones aren’t really manmade, like hunter-gatherers just vaguely assuming the moon is “a spirit or something i guess” isn’t comparable to christianity or islam.
Nah, that’s actually exactly comparable to Islam and Christianity.
A difference exists in that those sentiments has less implications for daily life. People sharing spiritual speculation about the greater universe with the humility to recognize they have no way of knowing better than anyone else, fine.
I’m not bothered by the faith in something beyond what we can see in and out itself. But the bits where self asserted alignment to a silent but divine authority as a way to decide value and authority among people… There’s the problem.
I do not question the authority of someone’s God, I question the authority of the people claiming that God agrees with them.
I like the part where they worship me.
Most evenings, I sit on my front porch overlooking a quiet pond, and play my guitar for an hour or so, accompanied by birdsong. That’s my religion.
Ironically, the cross is a symbol of unjust suffering. Something which the more prominent wearers like to inflict on others.
No, it represents how Jezus died for our sins, so that we can be free to sin as we please.
thank u jesus for letting us do trig
Everything about Christianity is basically backwards from what Jesus actually fucking said.
No idolatry is the first commandment for a reason. People that worship the idol of the cross have already failed to learn what the religion was to teach.
Basically, look at Republicans. They absolutely worship the flag yet at the same time defile everything the country supposedly stands for.
10 commandments are old testament, new testament says love your neighbor was the most important one.
It also says that Jesus says that none of the old testament laws are abolished.
“You think if Jesus comes back he ever wants to see another fucking cross? Thats probably why he hasn’t come back yet. ‘Nope, they’re still wearing crosses.’ That’s like walking up to Jacky Onassis wearing a rifle on your lapel. ‘Just thinking about John, Jacky.’” finger guns
- Bill Hicks
The Roman/Western imperialist mind can only worship pain and suffering?
Not christian, but I would assume the cross is a reminder of Jesus dying for our sins.
You would be correct. My church growing up did NOT use crosses, instead remembering his life and not his death. That always made more sense to me.
Not hating on your church or anything, but isn’t his death the whole point? Like if he didn’t die in that manner and then theoretically come back, he’d just be some guy. There’d be no need for the religion. I feel like his death makes the whole thing come full circle. It’s not just about being good, it’s about then being willing to sacrifice for the good of everyone.
I think the point was living by his teachings and remembering his sacrifice, but without glorifying or worshiping the object of his torture and death.
Yeah, that makes sense. Do you mind me asking what kind of church you went to? Was it nondenominational or did it have a denomination?
I grew up Mormon.
I kinda of knew with the whole cross thing. I think the Mormons are pretty unique amongst Christians for this point of view. Also the denial of the triunion and the whole God coming down in a physical form to fuck his daughter to make Christ.
I have always thought that choosing the cross as the universal symbol of Christianity is the most twisted and sad thing in the world.
That is why I prefer the Ichthys. It represents Jesus’s high point, when he performed a miracle for the all the people. For me, it’s better to remember people at their best than at their worst.
Referenced by my favorite Philip K Dick novel VALIS, the symbol of early Christianity: Fish cannot carry guns.
deleted by creator
It also means that! The fish and the loaves, the fisher of men, the fish that Jesus ate after his resurrection. It is a symbol with a very broad meaning.
deleted by creator
I can’t speak for everyone, but when I wear a cross it’s in reference to Matthew 16:24
Then Jesus told his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?”
To me the cross is symbolic of finding the courage to live our lives motivated by a radical love in order to overcome the fear of death and pain.
It’s like Goku once said while fighting to save the world “this is the power to go further beyond”
That’s definitely the intended meaning of wearing a cross, and a really powerful and important scripture.
It’s worth remembering though that ‘cross’ isn’t the word that Jesus said here but the Greek word recorded is stau·rosʹ which means execution or torture stake and the cross wasn’t a contemporary use for impailment by the Romans, primarily because a stake was a much more painful death than a cross.
The cross was a pagan idol for many centuries before Jesus death and was later rolled into the account of Jesus’ death by the later Christian Church to help with the conversion of those pagans.
Do you have any sources on the claim that it wasn’t a cross and was changed later for pagans? The scripture references “coming down” from the cross which to me would imply the one we typically think of.
Also from https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impalement,
"I see crosses there, not just of one kind but made differently by different [fabricators]; some individuals suspended their victims with heads inverted toward the ground; some drove a stake (stipes) through their excretory organs/genitals; others stretched out their [victims’] arms on a patibulum [cross bar]; I see racks, I see lashes … "
Sounds like Seneca, a figure from exactly this time period confirms the type of cross we think of.
Do you have any sources on the claim that it wasn’t a cross and was changed later for pagans?
No they do not.
There are writings from around ~200 talking about how the letter T and Tau look like the execution cross. And it changed to the modern version over time. Around the same time where the word “σταυρός”(cross) apperas in the New Testament.
Another good piece of evidence I just thought of is the oldest known depiction of Jesus: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexamenos_graffito
It seems the claim might originate with Jehovah’s Witnesses in modern times.
Potential problem:
The Greek word that is, in basically every English translation rendered as ‘cross’… does not actually specifically mean ‘cross’.
The word is stauros.
What it literally means is roughly a wooden ‘pole’ or ‘stake’, and was colloqiually used at the time to just refer to any configuration of wooden poles upon which one would be crucified… which, while yes, were often in the shape of a cross, they also often weren’t… maybe a T, or an X, or just a straight pole.
It was also used… I don’t think in the New Testament, but other Greek writings from the same time… to just mean large pieces of worked wood used in construction, even just ‘a tree’.
The English ‘crucify’ is built on the assumption that it was an actual cross. In greek, the verb for ‘crucify’ is stauroo, unconjugated; ‘to fasten to a stake or pole.’
… Its kind of like how ‘Matthew’ incorrectly translates the Hebrew word almah into the Greek word for ‘virgin’, when he quotes Isaiah 7:14 in Matthew 1:22-23, to say that Jesus’ birth fulfils prophecy.
Almah, in Hebrew, just means ‘young woman’… basically, of marriage age, so for the time, that would basically be… post-puberty, roughly 14, up to maybe early 20s.
It can mean ‘virgin’, but it does not specifically, necessarily mean ‘virgin’… in roughly the same way in English, right now, a ‘young woman’ could be a vrigin, is probably more likely to be a virgin than an old woman, generally speaking… but it absolutely does not categorically mean ‘virgin’.
I feel though like wearing a token cross in honor of being told to take up a more literal cross seems like paying lip service to a very serious call to action with very low actual stakes.
Like being told to stand up to the guns of an army to stand firm for justice and then wearing little rifle pendants instead claiming that means you look to live your life consistent with that principle even as you start well away from actual fighting.
You may personally of course live your life consistent with the values and that is just a symbol, but it’s broadly a symbol that has been cheapened by casual overuse, and to some extent corrupted by folks using it as a symbol of their alignment to God and implied divine authority granted by that association.
It’s a bit like being told to go out into the world and tell everyone about your religion, and you do it by taping a cardboard sheet to your front and back with “Jesus is Lord” written on it.
Haha, I can actually get down with that. Anyone crazy enough to do that is probably a genuine person who’s willing to engage with the insanity of existence.
I was joking, though. There are actually people who wear sandwich boards with religious messages on them, specifically to fulfil the call to proselytise.
They often stand near shops.
I almost respect people who really try to talk to me more for actually fulfilling the spirit of it, rather than the letter.
The American Christian message: Act like Jesus and we will crucify you too.
Not a religious person here, but I think it’s a metaphor, where we all are carrying a cross, like jesus did, but smaller… and lighter…
So not like Jesus at all then
holly molly, you are not a person of metaphors, right?
I think we all can get a metaphor, but when someone lives a super safe and convenient life keeping they’re head low even in the face of some things with sticking your neck out over… and then wears a cross to claim they too carry a cross like Jesus just because they put on a little trinket…
That metaphor in context cheapens the concept. Particularly as the meaning is somewhat inverted. The “cross” was for people that went against authority. Now the cross is more aligned with following authority. The executionor may wear a cross while they definitely kill the person using anything but crucification.
They only wear tiny crosses if they also have tiny Jesus on them. The lesson of the crucifixion pain can only manifest if everything is to proper scale.
I bicycle past a catholic church that has a banner that says “JESUS WELCOMES YOU WITH OPEN ARMS” and a drawing of Jesus nailed on the cross. I’m like … wait a minute, is that actually a joke? Jesus’ arms are open because they’re nailed to a piece of wood?
Haha, that made me chuckle. As did this when I saw it on lemmee…
just another example of Christians cherry picking what they what to use from their religion and using it out of context to better serve their agendas.
It was inherited from Zoroastrianrism.
the whole point of Christianity is that Jesus sacrificed himself to absolve humanity of the original sin. The cross represents the sacrifice.
Highly suspicious that we elected this representation of this sacrifice without written approval by Jesus himself, ey?
LIES THEY USED DIE FISHE SYMBOL IN ITS EARLIER LIFESPAN!!!
If God is all powerful then why not just absolve us from the sin?
If this sacrifice was required, then he is not all powerful or he is into torture pron.
I’m not an expert in the Bible, but I don’t think it really ascribes omnipotency to God. I think it’s better to understand it as God being able to do all that can be done. So He may have limitations, but they are such that no other being can do something that He is unable to do.
From that sense, He is not able to save humanity freely, but he can set forth a process through which He can achieve this goal with some cost. I.e., He can create a divine being (that is either Himself in whole, Himself in part, or a direct descendant of Himself depending on your interpretation) that is able to spread His message and display an act of extreme self-sacrifice.
I don’t really understand exactly what the sacrifice did or what needed to be fixed, but I do think the stories make a lot more sense if you accept that God has some limitations. For instance, I assume it’s fair to believe that Noah’s flood was his first attempt to fix the problem (by killing everybody except for the most righteous of His creation), but it failed because He can’t do everything and doesn’t know everything. But the story of Jesus was His next attempt to sort things out.
But that’s just me thinking about them as fictional stories that really need to be edited rather than a divine and infallible truth.
Except earlier it said to have no idols. The cross is an idol. You can appreciate a sacrifice without using the tool that caused such sacrifice as a form of worship. If you rather jumped in front of you and died to a gun shot, he sacrificed his life to save you and you would be appreciative. Would you then wear a gun necklace around your neck to show you love your dad and the sacrifice he made for you? By sanctifying his murder weapon?
And yet having sacrificed himself, he’s now back hanging out with his Dad in heaven and having a great time. That’s not a “sacrifice”, it’s more like a bad time at summer camp.
It was a bad three-day weekend.
Yeah, but all that comes from Paul not Jesus himself.
Yeah, none of that makes sense. How much do you have to disengage your intelligence to somehow believe in that baloney enough to actually rule your life by it? Seriously weird.
Christianity is just another weird death cult. I never understood why the Romans had an issue with him until I learned that Jesus was literally proselytizing that people were going to raise from the dead. I am not talking about the afterlife, he was saying that people are going to unalive and his kingdom would be on this earth with everyone who died coming back to life.
Fucking whacko to say the least and then sure enough his cult had him come back to life like he said everyone else would. Sooo yeah they were fucking crazy and so is everyone who thinks a ancient book contains all the answers. Hint: it doesn’t.
Of course he liked crosses! There was even that one cross he used to hang at.
Nailed it.
Jesus is lord.
Cross defeats Jesus.
Cross is lord.
its because the roman empire hijacked the religion and after their collapse the leftovers (Catholic church) forced an entire continent into 1000 years of oppression.
Be more specific. Constantine did it, he blended Christianity with the Roman religion in the most convenient way possible
