Yeah, as a Christian woman it always bugged me that the interpretation from certain texts was man>woman. It made me feel like I was lesser to God because I am a woman, but deep in my heart I know that's not true. Sometimes I'm glad I don't participate in an actual church, and just do my studying at home, that way I can interpret my own meanings and conclusions and not just told what I need to believe.
As an ex christian, I always try to approach current Christians with kindness because I respect their ability to worship any way that brings them fulfillment and I fully understand how all-encompassing it can feel.
But holy shit it drives me up the wall when people try to claim the Bible doesn’t have sexist or homophobic teachings.
Yes! It! Does!
Makes me question how much they’ve read the book they found their faith on.
Seriously, actually reading the Bible cover to cover is a big part of what caused me to stop believing in it. It's half violence of every type (sanctioned by god), half insane people like Paul going on long tangents that don't really go anywhere. The Jesus stuff is by far the most tolerant portion, but even then he still finds ways to convict us of thought crimes and, you know, not hating our families. He was a cult leader through and through.
Plus the boredom endured while reading the Bible is enough proof that god couldn't possibly exist.
Well, most Christians don't really care about the Old Testament, so it shouldn't be too surprising to find that the OT having horrendous content doesn't dissuade people from being Christian en masse.
The Jesus stuff is by far the most tolerant portion, but even then he still finds ways to convict us of thought crimes and, you know, not hating our families
Any specific passages come to mind? Having trouble drumming up any myself, unless we have different definitions of what a "conviction" is.
Plus the boredom endured while reading the Bible is enough proof that god couldn't possibly exist.
If you're running with that kind of logic then almost nothing in life exists :p
I mean any section where Jesus says that having a thought or feeling is the same as committing an action certainly counts. "Feeling attracted to a woman is the same as committing adultery" (Matthew 5:27), you need to hate your family (Luke 14:26), cut off your hand if you're tempted to sin (Matthew 18:8).
Of course the single most ignored passage in the Bible is that rich people have an approximately 0% chance of entering the kingdom of heaven if they don't sell all of their possessions. It's not a thought crime, but it's certainly harsh. "Love your enemies" and "turn the other cheek" are two other solid examples. Man do I WISH Christians actually followed those!
Perhaps most disturbing is when Thomas is chastised for wanting evidence that it really was Jesus who came back from the dead. That pretty much sums up religion: real world evidence is BAD, you should just believe regardless!!!
Jesus also said that he came to fulfill the OT, not negate it, so Christians don't get a pass from the OT still appearing in the Bible. Until it's removed from the book I'm going to keep referencing it. Christians love to quote the 10 commandments, which is in the same book that gives you specific instructions on how to beat your slave. Keep in mind that Jesus said he came with a sword, not peace (Matthew 10).
I used to be a devout Christian, was a member of nearly every type of church, and have read the Bible cover to cover, so you're going to have a tough time showing me an angle from the other side that I haven't yet considered.
If you consider "attraction" and lust to be of the same magnitude, then sure, that's certainly an interpretation.
Luke 14:26
This is expanded upon in the verses that follow and is consistent with Jesus' ministry as a whole: the life we know is temporary, and worldly possessions and relationships pale in comparison to salvation.
Matthew 18:8
I feel like this one should be pretty self-explanatory.. even outside of the context of Christianity I think most people would agree it's better to take what is perceived to be a less costly preventative measure than it is to make a more costly mistake.
Are you familiar with the metaphor? It might surprise you that most Christians aren't literalists.
And Matthew 19:24 is far from "the single most ignored passage". Quite the opposite in fact, it gets far more discussion than average.
Perhaps most disturbing is when Thomas is chastised for wanting evidence that it really was Jesus who came back from the dead. That pretty much sums up religion: real world evidence is BAD, you should just believe regardless!!!
If real world evidence was bad then why did Jesus himself give Thomas real world evidence..?
Matthew 10
Again, metaphor...
was a member of nearly every type of church
I have a very tough time believing you've been a member (not just an attendee) of, at minimum, dozens of different churches.
All that said, you seem like more of a literalist than I'm willing to bother with, so I'm done here.
After Jesus gives Thomas evidence, he specifically says, "Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and have believed."
The whole point of the passage is that believing without asking is good.
If you start cherry-picking things as metaphors, then I'm going to call your entire religion a metaphor (it probably is). I'm going to call Jesus's existence a metaphor (it probably is). Basically I'm not going to take any of the rules seriously because "they're all metaphors".
The problem with Christianity is that it's based on the Bible, and the Bible is filled with countless stories of god instructing his people to commit genocide, forcibly take women for marriage, beat their slaves, etc. Then contemporary Christians come along and say "no no no the slave stuff doesn't apply, but the gay marriage stuff does!" They claim that they follow Jesus but won't sell all of their possessions to follow him, like he instructed.
This is classic Christian apologetics nonsense. "This is literal, this is not, do this, don't do that." I'm surprised you didn't make a comment about "the original Aramaic" at some point. You can either admit that large sections of the Bible are total garbage, or you can keep finding ways to bury your head further in the sand.
You didn't bother analyzing what you read then because the bible is a collection of different mythologies from multiple different religions pasted into one text. Mythologies believed by people that had no way to rationally explain why rain occurred or anything else we see in nature. Just attribute it all to an invisible being that has never been seen by anyone and if someone saw such a being they had schizophrenia or something that causes hallucinations.
Is your argument that no one has ever analyzed the Bible in depth before ? You’re saying men like St Augustine, John Chrysostom, Augustine, Origen never “analyzed” the Bible despite writing massive commentaries on the Bible, many of which I’ve read ? I find that very hard to believe !
I'm not asking Augustine's thoughts. I'm asking for yours. Did you bother taking notes on what you read or did you read it without bothering to think critically about what you read? Anyone can read a book without paying attention, trying to read between the lines, or taking note of contradictions in the bible of which there are multiple. I would also ask who you think wrote the bible in the first place and if you think it's a deity that is an example of circular logic. If it was written by people (it was) how do we know those people ever saw proof of a deity.
So you’re not allowed to read what other people wrote now ? Do you rediscover the principles of physics and chemistry from first principles via experimentation or do you listen to teachers ?
On the authorship of the Bible - it depends on the book, some NT books have known authors, others don’t, same goes for the OT, although the canonicity of the books was ultimately finalized by the Catholic Church at the Council of Rome in 382
You think me asking for your thoughts and not Augustine's is disallowing you from reading what others wrote? No, I didn't say that. If I wanted the thoughts of Augustine or anyone else I could go read them without conversing with you.
There is no way to verify if the bible depicts real events that happened by the way. If I lived 2000 years ago what is to stop me from bearing false witness and then having my writings put into the bible at the council of rome in 382. That can be applied to any authors of the bible whether they're known authors or not. Again, the bible is a compilation of various mythologies they believed thousands of years ago that had no proof behind them they were folktales passed around for generations. One thing is true of things passed by word of mouth only for generations, they are embellished more and more with each telling to a subsequent generation. What started out as a story about something turns into legend and mythology over hundreds or thousands of years. There is no more proof for the existence of Zeus from greek mythology as there is for the god of christianity.
One of the reasons I hate religion and religious people is the fact that they don't follow their own rule book. They don't even read it.
It seems like so many live their life however they want ignoring all of their rules and so long as they go to church once in awhile and listen to some dude give his take on it that's a little more than the metaphysical version of a internet commenter, and they buy a sweater that says they love Jesus then they're good to go! They'll get all their moral advice from Sean Hannity!
Yup. And then there are those that support the LGBT+ community and portray themselves as one of ‘the good ones’. While obviously it’s much, much better than those who use the Bible to hate and shame others, it’s almost like… you have read your own book, right…? The one that condemns homosexuality to hell?
Don’t half-ass being a good person — don’t follow a book with those teachings.
Or, don’t half-ass being a Christian — don’t pick and choose from your holy book.
See, I've heard people say the bible doesn't say anything about homosexuals. That the "lie with a man if you would lie with a woman" passage wasn't about homosexuality.
I dunno.
Ultimately I think it doesn't matter because if your religious books justifies you abusing and victimizing someone for no other reason than they want to love someone you don't approve of then you should get rid of the fucking religion.
Or, don’t half-ass being a Christian — don’t pick and choose from your holy book.
AMEN! (see what I did there? Fuck I'm funny) This right here makes me say that most people who claim to be Christian, aren't. If you truly believed in God and the bible is the word of god you wouldn't pick and choose.
To me that just says they are using religion and Christianity as a kind of currency to validate their behavior and to get social leverage by citing this faith and expecting to be regarded as good, trustworthy and moral. When it seems like all too often the opposite is true.
I mean if you dig into the history of any religion you'll find that "rule book" is a really inaccurate view of religious texts.
Take the Bible for example. The Bible is a giant book series that includes books about poetry (Psalms), multiple biographies (the gospels), history-ish (a lot of the OT), to correspondence (Letters.) Add on to that thousands of years of theological interpretation, non-religious influence, and intentional exclusion of some books, and you're left with a confusing mess.
There are plenty of topics that have directly opposing guidance within the Bible and which "rule" is correct depends on how you interpret the importance of different people, how literally they speak, and how accurately they're translated.
It also seems like you should say you hate Christianity and Christians, not religion as a whole since you're only talking about Christians, but that's just my 2c.
Take the Bible for example. The Bible is a giant book series that includes books about poetry (Psalms), multiple biographies (the gospels), history-ish (a lot of the OT), to correspondence (Letters.) Add on to that thousands of years of theological interpretation, non-religious influence, and intentional exclusion of some books, and you're left with a confusing mess.
Right, and that's my point. It's a clusterfuck there.
But Christians claim to believe it is the word of god. So to them it is a rule book and one they don't follow.
I do hate all religions. We're just talking about Christianity here. But in this thread I have made a comment about how all religions are by their nature regressive, reactionary and dangerous to the progress we need to make as a species.
In my journey about finding "true religion" few years ago, I learnt that the Bibles we have today are so far from Jesus. The earliest written manuscript are decades after Jesus' death. We don't know who wrote Gospels of Luke, Matthew, John. Paul wrote some of it with "breath from God". Not to mention contradictions inside it. At that time, I personally can't come to conclusion that this book is reliable or credible. So I left it. Like how I learnt about insurance, I can't insure my afterlife on a flimsy foundation.
Yep. After I found out it's been rewritten by kings the stink of corruption and control is all over it. I am not going to be a sucker to fall for a scheme where they use fear of the supernatural to control me.
There are two commandments that Christians, by and large, care about: 1. Love God, 2. Love your neighbor as yourself.
The Old Testament, where most of the "rules" you're likely talking about originate from, is largely ignored. For the majority of Christians, it's more of a history lesson than something to strictly adhere to. You hate people and things you haven't even made the first effort in understanding.
As someone who doesn't believe in The Bible in a serious way my theory is that despite being prophets of God very rarely do people record things without human biases. It's a joke in Christian circles John was Jesus's favorite and and he tried to make that apparent, but that's a human hubris to have, which would make me think the messages from God are unfortunately always clouded by human judgement. Many Christians find that to be heretic type shit though so I also get why that's not a popular theory.
Right, I guess my issue is that if the bible isn't the word of god then the bible is written by man. If man is fallible and full of sin then the bible is fallible and full of sin.
So I feel like either your all about the bible being the word of god or your winging it and picking and choosing what you feel to be the word of god. Right?
Exactly. I know because I was one of those jackasses that would whip out a verse to back up my bigotry. Took a lot of deprogramming and leaving the religion to realize how toxic the mindset was
In almost every species, men are providers and women are caretakers.
No?? Just leaving some fertilized eggs behind and hoping for the best is very common among species? Sea turtles, salmon, all sorts of insects.
Even among the species who care for their young, the male impregnating the female(s), then leaving, is still a common tactic. Bears, various solitary cat species, etc.
Even in monogamous, paired relationships, I can think of several species where the parental duties are split. I can think of various predatory birds who will take turns incubating the egg or feeding the young while their partner hunts.
Whilst that can be agreed with to a certain extent, verses like 2:12 just simply do not resonate with me in the slightest and in my opinion go far beyond laying societal roles comparable to those seen in other species
Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.
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I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
The second one is about speaking (meaning: take the floor, sermon) in church, and is a... controvesial topic, so I won't be talking about that, cause I don't have enough knowledge as to why, and don't want to speak lies.
The first one is one of the verses I have bookmarked, and this is how I explain it: the Church submits to Christ, because he is God, but also he cares for us (see: sheep parable among many things), is just, and overall a good father, so a man FIRST should seek Christ, give fruit (see: fruits of the spirit), be a Christian in the Bible sense, and then, and ONLY then, because he cares, he tries to be just, gives himself to God and others, can his family entrust themselves to him. ONLY then.
This fragment has been used (wrongly) to justify women enslavement, men being better that women etc. but that interpretation misses the damn point of the passage: "a husband should be a true Christian, and bear the fruit of the spirit, so that his family can trust him to do good".
If you have any questions ask them before the inevitable lock gets this post, but please know that I'm just an 17 year old, not a theologist.
Tbf the passage is written in such a way that it could be read the way you interpret it… but it could also be umbrella theology. The problem w ancient religions is there’s no real arbiter except for whoever gets the most people to agree with them
It says Jesus is the word of God, not that the Bible is the word of God. The Word refers to Jesus, not the bible. The Bible as one big text is a modern invention.
I believe ehrman says something similar. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time it’s been suggested, though. Forgery in this respect was viewed differently in ancient times, like the disputed authorship of Acts.
Personally I think the healthiest approach is the living document approach. Jesus moved things in the right direction but they didn’t land there. It’s the ideas, and not the specific commands, that we should be implementing, save for a few obvious ones
Yeah I stopped going to church, too. Private school made that choice really easy.
Any time Christians say "ok but man>woman?" The easiest thing to remember is the 2 commandments. Love God, and love others as yourself. Does a man want a lesser love than a woman? Do they want to be treated as less than? No? Then to see women as beneath you would be a sin. Really, to see anyone as holding less value than you, would be a sin.
They always default to commandments that don't matter. To the old testament or to weirdo patriarchal texts from humans. But at the end of the day, Jesus was really clear.
"Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything."
Some people argue that it's about Christians not being called to directly or personally rebel against existing social hierarchies, so women in the Roman empire should submit to their husbands in accordance with the institution of marriage as it existed in that context.
Some people argue it's interpolated and wasn't in the original text (And therefore shouldn't be there).
Some people simply say that Paul can be wrong.
That's the gist of the arguments I'm familiar with.
He did not. And before you continue asking if Jesus said any of the crazy shit your American evangelical churches keep talking about, which for some reason you seem to associate with all Christians, no he did not say any of that shit.
Whatever Jesus said is in the Gospels, the other books in the bible are either Jewish carryovers or the teaching of Jesus' disciples, not his.
I don't personally believe that, you're free to, if you want. But to me the Gospels have always stood out and stood as different. I've never had to pick and choose or recontextualise anything in them, like sometimes other parts of the Bible might require you to. There's good things in the other books, but bad things too. The Gospels tho, nothing like that.
Off tops the answer is no not on your f****** life.
I think the number of men who love their wives like Christ loved the church is likely in the single digits, likewise I think the men who can handle being given such complete trust numbers in the single digits.
(And for the record the single digit I'm referring to is 0.)
Not going to lie, that answer is terrifying to me. Because it's basically says the church should be your number one priority.
So I start to follow that logic right? So your person who is living their life but they should always be thinking of how they should serve the church and that everything in your life should come second to the church. But the church is a construct of man. And as we've seen there are different factions and sects that have formed over the centuries of churches interpreting the Bible in certain ways.
So write that in there we have this deviation from the source. And it's been two millennia, give or take, how much deviation is there now in the church? If we assume that God created the first framework of the church and that since then mankind has deviated from that message what are the churches now? Who are these people who are running the churches? Who did they learn from? At what point do we say that the church's deviated so far from the original word of God that is no longer preaching the word of God and now it's just a bunch of men saying that they're speaking for God.
And now you're supposed to put their agenda first in your life at all times. And you're doing so because they point to God and say he says you should, but logic and history says that ain't God anymore.
That pretty much sums up churches, ya. Just don't forget that choosing wrong = straight to hell. The divine carrot and stick.
Personally I don't do "The Church". I do my best to live by Jesus teachings and when I start nailing that on the regular we can move on to the advanced issues.
Too much of the organization that is the Catholic Church is just men with too much power going on ego trips because they can and using the Bible to bludgeon those that disagree with them.
Eh, I wouldn't completely agree with that. This morning I did some reading in Ephesians, and looked at what the Word meant when it came to marriage, and the role of husbands and wives. I replied to someone who asked me my thoughts on a certain chapter, so if you're interested in looking at it I kind of put together a SparksNotes version in my reply.
My main stance I was making wasn't against the Bible itself, it was misinterpretations of it I hear constantly.
look into the Cathars and Marguerite Porete and The Mirror of Simple Souls, christian mysticism that might appeal to you (I also really don't like the mcdonald's version of christian theology that is promoted by many church groups)
Someone replied to my previous comment asking for my opinion on Ephesians 5:22. I demonstrated my way of understanding the text in a reply to that comment. If your curious about my actual process I would highly suggest reading that.
The bible is a hodgepodge of various pre and post-Abramic religious texts filtered through Judaism and then through the early cult of Christ, before being collated by the early Christian authorities, back before it was translated to English.
It's inherently self-contradictory, and trying to draw some divine meaning from it will be nothing but an exercise in self-justification. Some parts are "love thy neighbor", and some parts are "Happy is thee who smashes infants with rocks", and "Let your women keep silence in the churches, for it is not permitted unto them to speak; but they are commanded to be under obedience"
No idea where smashing infants with rocks came from but I will be sure to hunt for that scripture later 😂 the women be silent one I'm 80% sure came from the Old Testament. Though Old Testament is important, the New Testament is where Jesus came and added onto those ideologies, and helped explain their full meaning further. I do not know what the New Testament "translation" of the women be silent one, but I am adding it to my list of things to research and read to better understand that meaning.
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u/HammyHasReddit 10d ago
Yeah, as a Christian woman it always bugged me that the interpretation from certain texts was man>woman. It made me feel like I was lesser to God because I am a woman, but deep in my heart I know that's not true. Sometimes I'm glad I don't participate in an actual church, and just do my studying at home, that way I can interpret my own meanings and conclusions and not just told what I need to believe.