• Jax@sh.itjust.works
    0·
    2 months ago

    Oh, are we still acting like everything bad that’s ever happened is the U.S.’ fault?

    I need to really get on top of tagging people. I’m going to have so many mean things to say come midterms.

  • SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Jesus wouldn’t have had politics we would find legible to us today, because the political landscape is contingent on the material conditions of a given place and time.

    It’s certainly interesting that the Bible is a series of documents written on the margins of empire, and that might inform how to think about it today. But Jesus himself would have had political opinions that do not map onto our modern, post-French Revolution, ideas of “left vs right”.

  • Triumph@fedia.io
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    2 months ago

    Early Christianity was nothing anyone would recognize today. It was more like if Diogenes was blissfully happy instead of being a little shit.

    • NSRXN@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Early Christianity was nothing anyone would recognize today. It might have been more like if Diogenes was blissfully happy instead of being a little shit.

      we can’t really understand the social influences that shaped individual experience and personality in an age with such low literacy. whatever we know is a pixel in a 4k video.

      • Triumph@fedia.io
        0·
        2 months ago

        I meant “little shit” as a single descriptor, which I believe is apt (in modern parlance). I concur that Diogenes was a great and wise “little shit”.

  • BarneyPiccolo@lemmy.today
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    2 months ago

    I have long ago reached the end of my tolerance for religious nonsense. I will not engage in any serious discussion about religious fairy tales. If I want to discuss fictional world building, I’d rather talk about Lord of the Rings, or Star Trek, or Star Wars, all of which are far more interesting works of fantasy fiction than any religious lore.

    We have to stop allowing religion to be an influential force on our government. If people want to embrace religion in their personal lives, that’s their free choice to make, but they should be considered the oddballs that they are, and should be dismissed as serious political candidates, since they proudly believe in, speak to, and get advice and guidance from imaginary beings in their head.

    That weirdo should not be making decisions about the future of our country. It’s like the olden days, when they would take the ravings of a schizophrenic as messages from God.

    • Aniki@feddit.org
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      2 months ago

      you know, religion used to be an abstraction of politics, kinda, in the medieval ages. not sure what changed.

  • borokov@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Jesus today: “For god sake, I kept saying to these 4 retards that men have to find the way by themselves and they basically wrote an How To you guys blindly followed for the last 2000 years ?!”

  • potoooooooo 🥔@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    Jesus was a pro-banking, pro-capitalism, pro-rich, pro-slavery asshole based on the parable of the talents in Matthew 25:

    14 “For it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. 15 To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. 16 He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. 17 So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. 18 But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. 19 Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. 20 And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ 21 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 22 And he also who had the two talents came forward, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me two talents; here, I have made two talents more.’ 23 His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ 24 He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, 25 so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ 26 But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? 27 Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. 28 So take the talent from him and give it to him who has the ten talents. 29 For to everyone who has will more be given, and he will have an abundance. But from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away. 30 And cast the worthless servant into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

    • btsax@reddthat.com
      0·
      2 months ago

      I’m not religious anymore and I’m not making a defense of Christianity, but before all of this the Bible explains that when Jesus comes and starts teaching, he’s going to teach in parable (metaphor) so most of his teaching needs to be seen through that lens. So this should more properly be seen as a teaching saying to take your gifts (compassion, love, wisdom) out into the world and use them to become a better person. There’s also some deeper meaning here that usury was frowned upon at the time so this would have been a very provocative thing to use as a metaphor.

      Of course the main way that people corrupt Christianity is by taking things literally, and if you do that you can take any meaning away you want. That’s how you get a branch that literally only exists to promote the institution of chattel slavery (Southern Baptist) along with pacifist, community-centric, anti-slavery Quakers. And how people are OK with driving BMWs to church and engaging in the crusades and thinking Trump was sent by God. It’s all in there if you want it to be, which makes it easy to exploit.

      Oh also if you haven’t read The Parable of the Sower and The Parable of the Talents by Octavia Butler, I highly recommend those

      • eestileib@sh.itjust.works
        0·
        2 months ago

        I was also trained in the use of exegetical BS to contradict the clear meaning of the text.

        The Bible is a Roman imperial project, commissioned by an emperor.

        • stickly@lemmy.world
          0·
          2 months ago

          Ah yes, the Romans commissioned “The Bible” as if there aren’t 450+ versions in print in English alone with wide variations of included, excluded and revised content. I’m so glad that you personally were able to find the clear meaning of the text in a book that has entirely passed through 3-5 languages and been through a 2000 year whirlwind of competing theological and political forces. Shut it down everyone, this guy solved it

  • ashenone@lemmy.ml
    0·
    2 months ago

    Just speaking as someone who grew up in a hyper conservative cult, I think sowing cognitive dissonance in the minds of religious youth is a great way at getting them to realize they are being taught bullshit. Hearing that Jesus’s views didn’t align with the views that had been forced upon me made me want to read the Bible and make my own decision about God and religion. I started my read fully expecting to end up with deeper faith and ended up crashing out and losing all religious belief, which was my first step towards me being a leftist today. All because of people pushing back on what Jesus would think of religious conservatism.

    • FrChazzz@lemmus.orgEnglish
      0·
      2 months ago

      This. I went through a similar thing, but wound up in a different place (grew up in fundie-leaning Southern Baptist world with a pastor that turned out to be a sexual predator and abused people I am close to; decided to revisit the Bible and all that and wound up a priest in the Episcopal Church). Regardless of how folks end up, breaking people free from their control is paramount. If a meme manages to dent the armor, so be it. And if it annoys OP, they can always just mute it and move on. I do it a lot with posts that are openly hostile to my beliefs.

  • 1984@lemmy.today
    0·
    2 months ago

    Jesus could be here now and he would be seen as a conspiracy theorist.

    Could be David Icke for all we know. But doesn’t matter does it…

    • chunes@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Pretty much any famous person from the past wouldn’t matter one bit if they lived today.