This is ridiculous. There are a lot of sanctimonious fundamentalists in the world, and there are a lot of genuinely good people who identify as Christian. Some of the best people I know are Christians. They’re not inherently hateful bigots, in fact I’d wager those are a loud minority.
There are good people who are Christian, sure. But they’re only good people because they are bad Christians. They (their denomination) have cherry picked the least contentious passages and ignored the most hateful.
A ‘Good Christian’ is a creature of bigotry and contradiction, who spares no bias for which passages are morally good or bad. In some sense, The Westborough Baptist Church embrace many of the worst aspects of Christianity, they are Good Christians (but bad people).
This is nonsense. The bad people who call themselves Christians are the ones cherry picking bigotry. The Christian message is, fundamentally, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). There are a lot of hateful bigots who put a cross on the building, and those are the loud minority. A good Christian is one who prays quietly alone at home, not shoving their religion in other people’s faces (Matthew 5:6).
Westboro Baptists are bad Christians, as are any others who spew hate and intolerance against others.
Okay. When I say “Christian” I’m referring to followers of the teachings of Jesus. Lots of people have a lot of commentary about a lot of things. One of those people was Paul, who wasn’t a disciple and never met Jesus. Timothy is, purportedly, Paul’s correspondence with some guy named Timothy. There are many who feel that Paul seriously corrupted the original Christian message.
Forgive me if I don’t consider the Pauline epistles to be representative of the core Christian message.
The Bible is the Torah + the Gospels of Jesus + a ton of editorialized commentary, filtered through multiple stages of politicized selection. Yes, the fundamentals fit on a post it: love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. All the rest is parables and commentary, some by Jesus, some by less gregarious personages.
Some modern “Christians” obsess over the less gregarious commentaries (e.g. Paul), some obsess over twisted interpretations of these already twisted commentaries. Such is history.
But the message is the golden rule: love thy neighbor as thyself. All the rest is parables to illustrate variations on that theme. The bad stuff was added later, and it’s the same exact bad stuff that creeps into any emergent structure. Shitty people will gravitate to The Current Popular Thing to peddle their shitty ideologies, especially if they can creep in under the premise of divine sanction.
You’d have to be pretty stupid to believe that centuries-later editorialization by opportunistic shit-heads is representative of the core ideologies of an older movement.
You said you blame capitalism for problems, I assume you like Communism/Socialism?
Stalin co-opted Communism, that means Communism supports authoritarianism right? National Socialists are obviously Socialists since they took the name and published a lot of stuff right? That means Good Communists support Siberian prison work camps and Good Socialists support the Holocaust, right? Any Communist or Socialist who acts like a decent human being in spite of the evils done in the name of a twisted simulacrum of Communism or Socialism is a Bad Communist/Socialist, right?
Otherwise, you’d have to acknowledge that sometimes, over the course of a movement, bad actors try to co-opt the name of that movement for their own corrupt personal gain, and that sometimes if those bad actors have secured significant political influence they can manufacture consensus on the “official” beliefs of that movement through “official” publications.
So choose: is Hitler a Good Socialist, or is Paul a Bad Christian?
You have a fundamentally flawed viewpoint that all Christian denominations take equally and at its core believe 100% the Bible in every word no exception.
You can’t blame innocent Christians at the local church who fly rainbow flags and BLM flags for some dictator committing genocide elsewhere with a biblical justification. There’s a huge spectrum there just like anything else. Yeah a good majority is trash and lots of the people are trash, but by instantly assuming that a Christian is a bad person or that they are a good person but bad at their religion makes you trash.
L
You’re missing the point. These Christians who are flying rainbow flags and marching in BLM protests are good people.
They are however, not good Christians. The bible outright says gays will go to hell. If you want to read some external shit into it to make you feel like your book doesn’t say you’re siding with abominations, go ahead.
I’m keenly aware of that as I have recovered from religion.
The fact remains that being a Christian is at odds with being a good person. Bigotry is baked in to Christianity. If you want to cherry pick the good parts, that’s great, but it doesn’t erase the suffering which is still being perpetrated due to the explicit wording in the bible.
There are warlords in Africa who justify enslavement because the bibles explicitly permits it, and never makes any effort to clarify that slavery should no longer be permitted.
You would think that at some point, God would want to convey to everyone that slavery was a symptom of the times, thousands of years ago, and is no longer permitted as of the New Testament, but that never happens.
People think the oxymoron is between ‘Good Christian’ and ‘Landlord’.
When it is in fact between ‘Good’ and ‘Christian’.
This is ridiculous. There are a lot of sanctimonious fundamentalists in the world, and there are a lot of genuinely good people who identify as Christian. Some of the best people I know are Christians. They’re not inherently hateful bigots, in fact I’d wager those are a loud minority.
There are good people who are Christian, sure. But they’re only good people because they are bad Christians. They (their denomination) have cherry picked the least contentious passages and ignored the most hateful.
A ‘Good Christian’ is a creature of bigotry and contradiction, who spares no bias for which passages are morally good or bad. In some sense, The Westborough Baptist Church embrace many of the worst aspects of Christianity, they are Good Christians (but bad people).
Oh look… an edgelord atheist still obsessed with blaming religion for everything.
Yawn.
Hey, I also blame capitalism for everything, don’t sell me short.
This is nonsense. The bad people who call themselves Christians are the ones cherry picking bigotry. The Christian message is, fundamentally, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Mark 12:30-31). There are a lot of hateful bigots who put a cross on the building, and those are the loud minority. A good Christian is one who prays quietly alone at home, not shoving their religion in other people’s faces (Matthew 5:6).
Westboro Baptists are bad Christians, as are any others who spew hate and intolerance against others.
1 Timothy 2:12: I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
It’s Christianity - not Timothanity.
Okay. When I say “Christian” I’m referring to followers of the teachings of Jesus. Lots of people have a lot of commentary about a lot of things. One of those people was Paul, who wasn’t a disciple and never met Jesus. Timothy is, purportedly, Paul’s correspondence with some guy named Timothy. There are many who feel that Paul seriously corrupted the original Christian message.
Forgive me if I don’t consider the Pauline epistles to be representative of the core Christian message.
Lol here we go with the moving of goal posts.
Pack it up guys, our work here is done.
The Christian message is not fundamentally anything you can fit onto a post it note.
If you were to take everything the bible condones/encourages, you would get a list of some good stuff, and some bad stuff.
The problem is, the bad stuff is really, really bad.
The Bible is the Torah + the Gospels of Jesus + a ton of editorialized commentary, filtered through multiple stages of politicized selection. Yes, the fundamentals fit on a post it: love God with all your heart, love your neighbor as yourself. All the rest is parables and commentary, some by Jesus, some by less gregarious personages.
Some modern “Christians” obsess over the less gregarious commentaries (e.g. Paul), some obsess over twisted interpretations of these already twisted commentaries. Such is history.
But the message is the golden rule: love thy neighbor as thyself. All the rest is parables to illustrate variations on that theme. The bad stuff was added later, and it’s the same exact bad stuff that creeps into any emergent structure. Shitty people will gravitate to The Current Popular Thing to peddle their shitty ideologies, especially if they can creep in under the premise of divine sanction.
You’d have to be pretty stupid to believe that centuries-later editorialization by opportunistic shit-heads is representative of the core ideologies of an older movement.
What a load of shit lol.
Let’s keep arguing, you’re getting real close to convincing me your religion isn’t a load of dog shit splashed over a fat girls cunt.
You said you blame capitalism for problems, I assume you like Communism/Socialism?
Stalin co-opted Communism, that means Communism supports authoritarianism right? National Socialists are obviously Socialists since they took the name and published a lot of stuff right? That means Good Communists support Siberian prison work camps and Good Socialists support the Holocaust, right? Any Communist or Socialist who acts like a decent human being in spite of the evils done in the name of a twisted simulacrum of Communism or Socialism is a Bad Communist/Socialist, right?
Otherwise, you’d have to acknowledge that sometimes, over the course of a movement, bad actors try to co-opt the name of that movement for their own corrupt personal gain, and that sometimes if those bad actors have secured significant political influence they can manufacture consensus on the “official” beliefs of that movement through “official” publications.
So choose: is Hitler a Good Socialist, or is Paul a Bad Christian?
I’m sure we can both agree that Hitler wasn’t a socialist.
The difference here is that you presuppose people are poorly interpreting the bible when they choose one contradiction over another.
There is no interpretation of communism where the current state of China is permitted.
The bible CLEARLY endorses/encourages/condones MANY fucked up stances and never corrects for them.
Paul is a good Christian, since what he says is in the bible.
You have a fundamentally flawed viewpoint that all Christian denominations take equally and at its core believe 100% the Bible in every word no exception. You can’t blame innocent Christians at the local church who fly rainbow flags and BLM flags for some dictator committing genocide elsewhere with a biblical justification. There’s a huge spectrum there just like anything else. Yeah a good majority is trash and lots of the people are trash, but by instantly assuming that a Christian is a bad person or that they are a good person but bad at their religion makes you trash. L
You’re missing the point. These Christians who are flying rainbow flags and marching in BLM protests are good people.
They are however, not good Christians. The bible outright says gays will go to hell. If you want to read some external shit into it to make you feel like your book doesn’t say you’re siding with abominations, go ahead.
It’s not the people, it’s indoctrination. They’re just as much of a victim as anyone else.
I’m keenly aware of that as I have recovered from religion.
The fact remains that being a Christian is at odds with being a good person. Bigotry is baked in to Christianity. If you want to cherry pick the good parts, that’s great, but it doesn’t erase the suffering which is still being perpetrated due to the explicit wording in the bible.
There are warlords in Africa who justify enslavement because the bibles explicitly permits it, and never makes any effort to clarify that slavery should no longer be permitted.
You would think that at some point, God would want to convey to everyone that slavery was a symptom of the times, thousands of years ago, and is no longer permitted as of the New Testament, but that never happens.