There’s Noah way God would do something like that.
I don’t understand why people say “I trust God”. He had his own son nailed to a cross, FFS.
People in the middle ages got it right. “I do what God tells me because he scares the crap out of me.”
I’ve been reading through the old stories for the first time in my life, and in my view, you can only read them through the lens of a series of allegorical lessons intended to warn about consequences that do take place in the real world, and those consequences can be beyond lethal.
History will wipe your entire bloodline out if you make bad enough mistakes. Ask the Hitlers.
If I run into someone actually named Hitler, he’s probably not related to Adolf, but wishes he was…
That’s because for someone who requires evidence before belief there’s rarely been major unexplained phenomena to convince them of the existance of said power from any source.
I can imagine even the most cognizant person running into problems with assigning things to a god without civilisations aggregated knowledge of concepts like atomic principal, meteorology, astrology, germ theory, social studies.
Imagine seeing tornados, or super cell storm structures, flooding, plague, tsunami’s, all without a hint of understanding of weather, or germs, or global tidal movements, knowledge that’s only been globally accessible to the common man in literally the last 30 years.
The normal person’s aptitude to reject god comes down to the ability to understand and explain anything that would prior be considered an unexplainable phenomena, which relies entirely on their grasp of the combined knowledge derived from all civilisations past.
Education resolves superstition.
That’s the beauty of Christianity.
The Bible is so full of contradictions that you can get it to fit any worldview you want.
“Tattoos are a sin.”
“Dad, you have a tattoo.”
“Yeah, but Jesus forgave me.”
I kind of want a “Leviticus 19:28” tattoo, but a bunch of idiot Christians will think I’m one of them.
I live in a neighborhood with lots of these Christian types. They don’t want “those gays” because Bible but Jesus forgave them for their divorce. They don’t want pride flags on people’s shirts but they wear clothing of different fabrics and different colors other than white because “those laws of God’s aren’t important because Jesus.”
It is just as cognitive trick to make people feel ok about their sins while still getting to point fingers at the rest of the world.
And really … how peaceful are people that think anyone not “with them” are going to suffer eternally ? What they mean is that they are going to torture you in this world while feeling fine about torturing you.
Only if simultaneously being willfully obtuse and ignorant.
For example, in Mark, Matthew, and Luke, Jesus forbids those going out to minister from brining a purse or money.
This necessarily prevents monetary collections.
So why is the church okay with taking your money today?
In part, rationalized by Paul’s arguments in 1 Cor 9 against the earlier Christian community there that don’t think it’s appropriate to profiteer off ministering.
But then even more, at the last supper in Luke, Jesus explicitly says “Hey guys, remember when I said not to carry purses? Let’s reverse that and now definitely carry purses.”
Except this addition to the last super in Luke-Acts is missing in Marcion’s version of that gospel, which is probably preserving the earliest extant version of it.
So while yes, you could in theory fit Jesus in the NT to agree with Paul that churches and those ministering have a right to profit from it and should definitely collect money from people (like they do in Acts 5 where an older couple who holds back money are both struck dead before Peter) - an even halfway critical eye should see that the historical Jesus was far more likely to have been against such practices given the widespread accounts of his ban, the earlier attitudes in Corinth, its embarrassing nature to be added in after already collecting money, and the late nature of the reversal.
And to see that much like biological evolution, ideas evolve over time too, and the version of Christianity we have today isn’t necessarily the one closest to the original form, but simply the form that was most adaptive through the fall of the Jerusalem temple, the endorsement of Rome, etc.
So yes, few people might know or see it this way, but that is largely because they don’t bother looking into their preconceptions and would rather believe a superficial picture that agrees with what they think they know (and I’m not only talking about Christians here either).
Yeah a lot of people miss things like context, knowledge of the time period, and a proper understanding of theology when they talk shit about the Bible. I’m not Christian myself, but a close friend of mine is Catholic, and after hearing his clarifications on supposed Biblical Plotholes and how much more complicated the subject is… Well it definitely made me start squinting at oversimplifications concerning theology with a little more scrutiny.
Also there have been many problems with text being lost in translation or altered like several letters by Paul were merged at some point by a scribe and it was copied over as is.
Not only hasn’t read the bible. Also hasn’t seen The Ten Commandments which definitely shows god creating a deadly plague. Charlton Heston would like a word.
Or Prince of Egypt which has one of the best soundtracks and great animation. I’m not a Christian but even I know about the damn plague that got those little Egyptian kids.
I was raised Christian, and i was considered a superstar in Sunday school because I knew the Bible stories better than most of the ‘teachers’
It’s honestly a good book to be fairly well versed in. You can cut through so much right wing bullshit with that knowledge. And it’s fun to call them out on it.
Hell, not only does YHWH kill many innocent children, a big part of the story is how he literally brainwashes the pharaoh to have an excuse to do so. YHWH explicitly “hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might shew these my signs before him”
Or seen The Prince of Egypt. “The Plagues” is one of the best tracks on a hell of a soundtrack.
The ten plagues of Egypt:
