I’m not religious and have plenty of issues with organized religion in general but I do support any Christians who aspire to live by the teachings Jesus actually preached. And it’s always good to see someone like this Reverend here, willing to call out conservatives who wear their supposed piety on their sleeves while espousing bigoted, selfish, reprehensible beliefs.
It’s so God damned rare these days. Literally the only positive religious group experience I have had my my adult life was the day after the first George Floyd riots, I spent 8 hours on emergency overtime at my dispatch center. The next day I was out in the area and a local mosque decided to go around cleaning up broken glass and boarding up looted stores because “our brothers and sisters are hurting”. I wish more people acted that way.
The only pastor from my parents church who had any interest in helping the community ended up getting ousted over a differing interpretation of some Bible verse or other. I had stopped going for almost a decade by then so who knows.
Now they’re more interested in remodeling and expanding the church building to make it more gaudy.
You know, like Jesus said when he helped the merchants at the temple maximize their earnings potential, “rule of acquisition #10, bitches!”
Relevant link. https://youtu.be/ANNX_XiuA78?si=2eZJ1t5Gn5bmj52K
the teachings Jesus actually preached
Except that we really don’t know what those would have been, and there’s a pretty decent likelihood that many of the most popular sayings like “blessed are the poor” and “easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle then a rich man to get into heaven” were additions after Paul and what later becomes the canonical church shift their splinter of the tradition to start collecting money from people.
“Want salvation? Too bad you have all that money - maybe we can help you out with that.”
For example, in apocrypha that has a decent chance of also dating to the first century, it depicts a Jesus ridiculing the very idea of prayer, fasting, and charity as necessary for salvation, instead characterizing it as a birthright for all people and those who give money to the church as being like people who take off even their clothes to give to someone else in order to be given what is already theirs.
This is arguably an even more transgressive tradition and version of Jesus than the one Paul offered up, and was more in keeping with the pre-Pauline attitudes about “everything is permissible for me” and the resistance to his rights to profit as an apostle discussed in 1 Corinthians.
There’s a significant survivorship bias in modern Christianity - for example, a tradition that changed the prohibition on carrying a purse and collecting money from people when ministering (Luke 22:35-36 - absent in Marcion’s version which was likely the earliest copy) was more likely to survive and thrive than ones that had limited fundraising capabilities as originally directed.
So while yes, he may have been all about helping the poor and downtrodden, it’s also entirely possible that a lot of it is a load of BS meant to separate fools from their money by an organization claiming to do those things on people’s behalf (you’ll notice in the Epistles vs gospels that Paul, who is supposedly collecting money for the poor back in Jerusalem, mentions a gift of a nice aromatic in Philippians 4:18, and then in the gospels written later on there’s a scene where Jesus is given an expensive aromatic and chastises those who criticize him for accepting it rather than selling it and giving the money to the poor).
Personally, I prefer the nuance in something like saying 95 attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Thomas: “If you have money, don’t lend it at interest. Rather, give [it] to someone from whom you won’t get it back.” There’s a bit more nuance in that this addresses not an obligation for everyone including those struggling with money to give to the poor via the church but rather the inherent wisdom of recognizing the diminishing returns on personal wealth for the rich and the value in directly enriching one’s environment rather than hoarding a resource you can’t take with you (the point of the parable in saying 63 in the same work).
So while I’m inclined to think that a historical Jesus probably was against hoarding wealth stupidly given the overlap between unique extra-cannonical and canonical sentiments, I’m quite wary that the extreme degree of bleeding heart asceticism we see promoted canonically is much more than a sales effort by a parasitic organization that went on to build the Vatican off its back.
Yeah I went through a phase of reading biblical history when I had my faith deconstructed, and you quickly realize how many different Christianities there were. As well as the political context for why these sort of ideas were able to spread in this specific part of the world at that time in history. I think the version of the story told in Jesus Christ Superstar actually does a decent job with the structures of authority and their conflicting interests. To me Jesus was likely a very charismatic “nobody” who gained a following by expressing sentiments that were kind of already floating around, until it caused a problem for the authorities who needed to keep the peace or risk Rome intervening. Whether Jesus actually said what’s in the Bible isn’t important, we know people thought he said that stuff and that it resonated strongly with many. We can infer things about people at the time based on what they ascribed to Jesus.
Whether Jesus actually said what’s in the Bible isn’t important, we know people thought he said that stuff and that it resonated strongly with many. We can infer things about people at the time based on what they ascribed to Jesus.
Eh, the above mentioned sect of Christianity claimed he was talking about indivisible properties of matter and naturalism as a greater wonder over intelligent design, with the sower parable (the only one with a 'secret ’ explanation in the first canonical gospel) as actually being about the naturalist origins of all life and the universe while inadvertently using the language of Lucretius’s “seeds of things” from 80 years earlier to do so (who even described failed biological reproduction as “seed falling by the wayside of a path”).
I think we too readily cede the authority over what a historical Jesus might have been trying to say to the revisionist version that snowballed into a beast torturing and executing people for even possessing competing versions of Christianity and directly accepting money in exchange for promises of salvation and propping up tyrants over the masses.
For example, here’s another saying from the above tradition:
Jesus said, “Let one who has become wealthy reign, and let one who has power renounce .”
Weird that the council of Nicaea at the prompting of an empire largely governed by those who were born into power and held it until death didn’t decide to canonize that tradition, no? But could you imagine the Roman empire maybe motivated to be executing a guy that was saying it?
Also weird that Paul seems vaguely familiar with this connection between gaining wealth and ruling in 1 Corinthians 4:8 as pre-existing his first letter to Corinth where he later accused them of accepting a different gospel from superapostles and where they later depose the presbyters appointed by Rome:
Already you have all you want! Already you have become rich! You have begun to reign—and that without us! How I wish that you really had begun to reign so that we also might reign with you!
Except that we really don’t know what those would have been
when people say “the teachings Jesus actually preached”, they usually mean “the canonical teachings from the bible”.
Which is a pet peeve.
Also, given the highly contradictory nature of the Bible, that’s not saying much.
He also told people to sell their cloaks and go buy swords canonically at the last supper in Luke, explicitly going back on things he had allegedly said earlier.
My favorite interpretation of the Bible is basically it’s a collection of stories from medieval times. It was rough back then I mean if you fell in the mud, your life was over. You’re trapped and no one is helping you, your kindling won’t be warming your family tonight.
And then this dude comes along and a hand comes in view. You flinch at first, I mean why not kick a dog while he’s down? But no, the hand grabs your arm and pulls you out of the mud. Nobody saves your life! This man is, this good man is a saint! His story is written.
A few decades later another man collapsed in the sun and another nice guy gave him some water. His story is written.
Another few decades later a different guy is low a few cattle and sheep and his neighbor, maybe someone who was moving to Egypt, just fuckin’ gives you his whole flock. His story is yadda yadda yadda.
Jesus is just a collection of society’s niceties. Why else do you think these people were living for 900 years!? “Sonny boy your great great great great great great great grandfather from 50 years ago only survived because Jesus pulled him from the mud!”
In short - the stories of Jesus’ deeds was never just one person. I mean, literally the guy whose skeleton they have sure, but in terms of the Bible these stories existed long before Jesus came along, then more stories got added after him too, many attributed to him retroactively.
That sure sounds like something somebody who’s never seen a bible and who doesn’t have a basic knowledge of any time before 50 AD might believe.
Again with the Gnostics? Haha. How is the thesis going? Wishing you luck!
Both of your points are assumptions all of us, I would guess, were taught in graduate school. The earliest editors of “Gnostic” texts thought that they were dualistic, escapist, nihilistic, involving “esoteric ideas about aeons and demiurges,” as you yourself write.
As my former teacher at Harvard, Krister Stendhal, said to me recently about these texts, “we just thought these were weird.” But can you point to any evidence of such “esoteric ideas” in Thomas? Anything about “aeons and demiurges”?
Those first editors, not finding such evidence, assumed that this just goes to show how sneaky heretics are-they do not say what they mean. So when they found no evidence for such nihilism or dualism-on the contrary, the Gospel of Thomas speaks continually of God as the One good “Father of all”-they just read these into the text. Some scholars, usually those not very familiar with these sources, still do.
So first let’s talk about “Gnosticism”-and what I used to (but no longer) call “Gnostic Gospels.” I have to take responsibility for part of the misunderstanding. Having been taught that these texts were “Gnostic,” I just accepted it, and even coined the term “Gnostic gospels,” which became the title of my book.
I agree with you that we have no evidence for what we call “Gnosticism” from the first century, and have learned from our colleagues that what we thought about “Gnosticism” has virtually nothing to do with a text like the Gospel of Thomas-or, for that matter, with the New Testament Gospel of John which our teachers said also showed “Gnostic influences.”
- Princeton’s Elaine Pagels to Ben Witherington III in an email debate
WWJD is actually a great moral role of thumb, the problem is that so few self-proclaimed Christians follow his teachings.
Except for the part when he called for his followers to take up swords and abandon their families (Matt. 10:34-36, among other passages).
And the part where he claimed that loving the Father took precedence over treating others with love and respect (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), which opens the door for all manner of inhuman atrocities and hate in the name of “loving God”
Matthew 10 is definitely more about conviction in the face of persecution, even from one’s own family, than literally taking up swords. Just a few verses earlier, 10:16, he specifically says to be harmless as doves.
You’re gonna have to find me an actual verse on that second part, as I interpret it, “loving the Father” goes hand-in-hand with treating others with love and respect.
You are aspired by the teaching that you should speak in metaphors so people don’t understand you and they will burn in hell? Or the teaching that you should abandon your family and means of survival depending on skydaddy? How about the teaching that you should love a person so much that even your own children you feel hateful to them by comparison?
You are aspired by the teaching that
Hahahaha… Look, next time you decide to try to dunk on someone on the internet make sure you know what the word they used, in this case, “aspire” actually means and how to use it in a sentence. That way you won’t embarrass yourself like you did just now.
Deflection won’t make the points I advanced go away. It will however slow down your ability to resolve the Cognitive Dissonance.
You haven’t read the NT, you haven’t studied it, you can’t deal with the verses that go against your notions of what it ought to say. No amount of deflection and wordplay will change these facts.
Hell isn’t a real big feature of the Bible. Jews started getting an idea of hell from the Greeks around the time of Jesus - there was Sheol before, but it wasn’t really “hell”. This idea of perpetual torment in a some sort of arrangement run by Satan is something that developed of thousands of years, and isn’t Biblical. The hell we imagine is mostly the creation of a late medieval poet :)
I’m not a Christian, but I think it might be helpful for you to read the Bible as a historical document. If you read it angrily, and just look up verses to disprove Christianity, then you work yourself up and don’t develop a better understanding of the text. You seem to be arguing with a lot of people in this thread as if they are religious when they are not. The fact that God is not real and that the historical Jesus was not the Son of God does not mean the Bible is stupid and garbage.
Right except Paul talks about hell 3x in the authentic letters. There was a concept of it around and yes it probably had Greek roots. Really not seeing what difference this all makes. This is Christian doctrine and just because people can point to the history of it doesn’t mean that suddenly people don’t believe it. I argue with people on the ideas that they present not the ones I would have liked them to.
The Bible is fucking stupid hot garbage. The books are propaganda that have almost nothing to do with real life events and provide multiple contradictiary ways to live that are somehow all terrible. You know it endorses the very worst behaviors. Who the heck cares if the Christians borrowed hell from someone else? They still have it. Paul grabbed and since the Gospels were all fanfics off his letters they have it as well.
Oh and Jesus never existed so you can drop that historical Jesus stuff.
To be honest, this is something that really bugs me; people using the Bible for their own benefit. They say, “we love Jesus!” and then go and keep doing exactly what they were doing before. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep ny commandments” (John 14:158), and James said, “As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” (James 2:26, but there’s more in James 2:14-26). Yes, they might say that there’s too many commandments-- but Jesus also said “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”. That is a summary of every single law/commandment in the entire Bible, all of the others are just more specific instructions on how to do that. All that stuff about turning the other cheek and going the extra mile-- it’s not saying to just put up with abuse, mistreatment, and injustice. It’s talking about what people like Martin Luther King and Gandhi did, using oppressors violence and mistreatment against them. The third commandment, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.” (Exodus 20:7) isn’t just talking about saying “ooh mah gawd” when you stub your toe, it’s talking about using God’s inapropriately or disrespectfully in any way, including for personal gain.
All that stuff about turning the other cheek and going the extra mile-- it’s not saying to just put up with abuse, mistreatment, and injustice. It’s talking about what people like Martin Luther King and Gandhi did, using oppressors violence and mistreatment against them.
Doesn’t it? I think when Jesus said “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Matthew 5:39 he meant put up with abuse, mistreatment, and injustice - do not resist an evil person and do not retaliate when attacked.
I think when Jesus said “love your enemies […] Be perfect” Matthew 5:44, 48 he meant love your enemies and be perfect.
I think when Jesus said “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor” Matthew 19:21 he meant sell your possessions and give to the poor.
A lot of supply-side Jesus followers say Jesus supports the troops, and that the eye of the needle the camel needs to go through isn’t actually the eye of a needle - but a gate.
I think the above quotes are good things to do, eventho I’m not an ethical enough person to do them. I also think all the supernatural things Jesus is quoted as saying is bullshit, and that it’s better to be honest than to repeat a bunch of stupid fairy tales.
The biggest lie the Religious Right repeats is by rejecting that Jesus would be a progressive.
Jesus (at least as depicted by the Bible) advocated nothing about hurting people who were different, and preached tolerance throughout his life.
No. That is you picking and choosing verses. Which I can do as well.
He was quite clear that his way was the only way to heaven and what’s more just saying you followed him wasn’t enough. You can’t be tolerant of other views when you are telling people that the holders of other views are going to burn in hell and even those who agree with you might still not measure up.
He was quite clear that you couldn’t follow him and have a good relationship with people who didn’t. That outsiders would hate you and you would hate them. That the very family unit was a snare to keep you away from him. Again this is a hurtful non-tolerant view.
Then he told his followers of the time of his wrath was coming where he would torture those who opposed him and his followers would go around murdering many tossing the bodies at his feet.
A lot of supply-side Jesus followers say Jesus supports the troops, and that the eye of the needle the camel needs to go through isn’t actually the eye of a needle - but a gate.
There’s no evidence to support this. It’s an elaborate bit of apologia that rich Christians use to try to dodge the fact they shouldn’t be rich. The copium is so strong that people will dig up pictures of specific gates (from centuries later) to try to back it up.
I always heard it in the context of trivia, like the eye of the needle was a really small gate used to allow pedestrian access to the city while allowing a wall to still keep out armies. A camel still wouldn’t fit by design, so I guess I’ve never heard it in the context of apologetics of rich people, or maybe I assumed the people I was talking to were being good-faith.
I think when Jesus said “But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also.” Matthew 5:39 he meant put up with abuse, mistreatment, and injustice - do not resist an evil person and do not retaliate when attacked.
This one takes a bit of cultural context, I have a book at home that has a good section on this but I’m traveling now so I’ll type this part when I get home. But the gist of it is that don’t just ‘put up’ with it, but be kind to them. Fight violence and oppresion with kindness. draw attention to them. Force them to treat you (even if just to fight you) as an equal. Like it says in Proverbs 25:21-22, “If your enemy is hungry, give him food to eat; if he is thirsty, give him water to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head, and the Lord will reward you.”
I think when Jesus said “love your enemies […] Be perfect” Matthew 5:44, 48 he meant love your enemies and be perfect.
yep, that’s what He meant: “Love your enemies, pray for those who curse you”. I think this ties in a bit with the cheek turning.
I think when Jesus said “If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor” Matthew 19:21 he meant sell your possessions and give to the poor.
This is what He said just before the bit about the camel going through the needle eye. A man came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to be saved. Jesus told him to keep the commandments, and the man said that He’d done that all his life. Then Jesus said “If you want to be perfect, go and sell all your possessions and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.”. The man then walked away sadly because he had a lot of stuff and Jesus said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God.
A lot of supply-side Jesus followers say Jesus supports the troops, and that the eye of the needle the camel needs to go through isn’t actually the eye of a needle - but a gate.
yeah He meant that it would be easier for a camel (like the animal, camelus, this one) to ge through the eye of a needle (like the hole in the end of the sewing tool, the bit in the top right corner of the main picture of this article). Also lol for Supply Side Jesus.
I think the above quotes are good things to do, eventho I’m not an ethical enough person to do them.
Same here, but with God’s help I come to Him, He pulls me closer, and I become more like Him. And when I fall (or jump) He comes and gets me and picks me up again.
I also think all the supernatural things Jesus is quoted as saying is bull****, and that it’s better to be honest than to repeat a bunch of stupid fairy tales.
I’ll have to disagree with you here, I firmly believe that Jesus is God come to earth as a human.
(sorry it took me ages to reply, I’ve been busy and I wanted to sit down and think about this reply)
Which English translation do you prefer and recommend? I like NET because of it’s less-rights reserved copyright, but for ease of understanding I prefer translations that use contemporary language instead of just footnotes.
be kind to them. Fight violence and oppresion with kindness. draw attention to them.
I think this characterization of turning the other cheek is more complete and supported by the nearby text, even for someone like me who prefers Jefferson’s eliding.
Re: “do not resist”, are there other nearby passages that expand it to more than just refraining from violence, into actually resisting evil persons? I ethically agree with your expanded position of trying to overcome injustice in this world - but doesn’t the quotes of Jesus in the canonical books rely instead on waiting for justice in heaven and hell, and not on Earth?
third commandment, “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.”
I thought it was because people swear to God in court and witness testimony was all that civilization has in terms of evidence.
We found a workaround for that. Just swear on the Bible instead of in God’s name.
Ticket closed.
Because even an entirely made up “hokum” story can inspire people to behave themselves better. It’s not much different with more modern fantasy.
I wish this ever worked on Christians with political values on the right side of the spectrum. The fact is they refuse to see the contradictions and don’t care.
We’ve tried to use this logic on family and friends in a loving capacity and it essentially never works. They are the Bootstraps for Thee but Not for Me party. Subsidies are only for the rich who deserve it.
“Jesus helps those who help themselves. Pretty sure that includes elementary school kids in poverty.” - conservatives
For some of them, I think it’s because they feel a thing first, and then reach for justifications second. If you say something that contradicts their feelings, it won’t feel true to them and they won’t believe you. It doesn’t matter how true it is. They’re driven by emotion. It is extremely ironic that the right wing is the one that says stuff like “facts don’t care about your feelings”.
If you want to change minds, you probably need to make them make emotional connections to the thing you’re trying to get them to believe.
Belief is also social, so if you want their beliefs to stick you need to get them away from the group that’s believing nonsense/hate/whatever, or they’ll go right back.
These people would definitely crucify Jesus if he came back
They hate him already. There are maggats who seriously believe that Jesus was too “woke” and so disregard the new testament completely.
…but they can’t do that. If they ignore the New testament, that would basically make them Jewish, with extra steps. But they hate Jews?
The real Christians got persecuted and crucified two thousand years ago, for saying “be kind to one another”. The Christians we know today, their antescendents converted when some dude in power said they were now Christian. They didn’t become different people.
No, they got persecuted two thousand years ago for challenging the power dynamics of a conservative theocracy dependent on revisionist religious orthodoxy.
Which is very ironic given the embracing of the tradition today by a group hell bent on establishing a conservative theocracy dependent on a revisionist version of that tradition which brought it more in line with said religious orthodoxy.
Evangelists use The Bible as a shield and scripture as a weapon. I like to think actual Christians aren’t these people.
Actual Christians will be being persecuted by these people. Whether in the US or overseas.
Of course because they’re not strong enough to fight for their beliefs or some other bullshit. I’ve had someone unironically say Jesus was too soft. They’ve lost the plot.
I like to think actual Christians aren’t these people.
Also known as the No True Scotsman.
Well Evangelists are the people kicking in doors to convert you. Christians are just people who believe in Christian stuff.
A genuine difference.
It’s always been funny to me how religious people, who follow their religious doctrine to the gritty details, are called “extremists” when they’re the only ones actually following the doctrine.
You’re either an extremist or a fuckin hypocrite who chooses to cherry pick which parts of the doctrine you choose to follow.
Either way their beliefs mean nothing to me and I’m absolutely fucking sick of hearing about whatever bullshit sky daddy they pray to.
Fundamentalists don’t necessarily follow the tenets of the religion more accurately or thoroughly. They often have their own interpretations others disagree with, and pick and choose what to follow as much as the rest.
True Christians today are socialists. But, they would also reject that label.
They were not persecuted to any real extent and the few that were was because they weren’t giving sacrifices to the gods. Not because of any moral reason.
You can even see it in the first time a political leader mentions them. He says that he lets them go if they just agree to make an offering. The Romans had zero problems with charity the Romans had zero problems with people being nice. They had a problem with not respecting the gods because they “knew” that if you didn’t bad stuff would happen.
There was no golden age to Christianity that they fell from.
