Let’s be things in the Bible that Christians ignore

In the Gospel of Luke, the Last Supper was followed by a Last Lap Dance with belly dancers.

Sounds like Timothy was a realnmisogynist, OP. Not sure what it has to do with today, but thank you for sharing.

The conception of Jesus was hardly "immaculate" but the result of a wild weekend Mary spent in Damascus.

I’m Jesus’ reaching that if you remarry after divorce, you are living in a state of constant adultery.

R2 that’s God speaking to him

Discrimination against women is not confined to Christianity. The major world religions all have some built-in bias:

Islam According to the Quran, 'Men are the maintainers (or in charge) of women. So the good women are obedient, guarding in secret that which Allah has guarded. And (as to) those whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in their beds and chastise them. So if they obey you, seek not a way against them.' (Quran 5:34).

Hinduism Many Hindu religious texts describe women as deceitful and sexually provocative by nature. The following quote from the Devi Bhagaveta (1.5.83) is typical. 'A woman is the embodiment of rashness and a mine of vices. she is an obstacle to the path of devotion, a hindrance to emancipation. she is practically a sorceress and represents vile desire.'

Buddhism According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha's stepmother wished to become a nun. She expressed this wish to the Buddha several times and each time she was refused. Finally, on the advice of one of his disciples, he acquiesced. But even as he did so, the Buddha claimed that establishing a community of nuns would reduce the time in which his teaching (the dharma) would be effective from 1,000 to 500 years.

Judaism One of the morning blessings made by an Orthodox Jewish male: 'Blessed are you Lord our God, King of the Universe, who has not made me a woman.'

Do not judge, or you too will be judged. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust on your neighbor's eye but ignore the plank in your own eye?

All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.

All religions, particularly the conservative/orthodox/fundamentalism versions, have 2 things in common: women should be subjects of men and that sex is sinful and only allowed within a marriage (which conveniently, is headed up by the man - see point #1).

It's not the only driving force, but it's the main thrust and point of commonality. Rather easy and convenient for men.

Imagine if somebody ANYBODY said men should stay chaste and that they should subject themselves to the will of a woman. They'd lose their fucking minds.

R8 yeah they would. Women intentionally drive people insane. Their nonstop gabbing and nagging is unbearable.

[quote]Let’s be things in the Bible that Christians ignore

Mark 12:31 - ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’

For me, it's that on the very first page there are TWO different versions of how the world was created. Genesis 1:1 and Genesis 2:4.

Also - if Adam and Eve had 2 sons, how did they marry and have kids? Some 'scholars' say that Adam and Eve had daughters and so they married their sisters? Ewww.

But where's the evidence of the daughters?

Here's the thing - if God inspired this, wrote this, why have so many holes? Why be unclear? Seems to me God is a bad writer and can't keep his own story straight.

Oh - he WANTS us to struggle with this? Says who - when you're not allowed to question any of it either because it's the un-errable (?) word of God?

The King James translation IS well done and uses great language - but the text itself is a confusing, non-sequitur mess full of plot-holes and contradictions. God needs an editor.

Well, first throw that Sermon on the Mount shit out the window. My job is to make rich assholes and gun nuts happy.

True, r12. To modern Xtians, the Sermon on the Mount is just “liberal talking points”

[quote] why have so many holes?

Holes.

Teehee.

Holes.

Matthew 6:5

[quote] And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men.

Straight from Jesus’ mouth (well, as much as anything was)

I always snicker when I think about this one.

Jesus said to the rich young man, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

R11,

16 Then Cain went away from the presence of the LORD and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.

17 Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch.

These passages tell you that outside of Eden lived other communities of people.

R17 - so God made Adam and then made Eve from one of his ribs because...he didn't like the other women around?

C'mon - it doesn't make sense and is a major example of these plot holes.

You act like saying going away from the presence of the LORD makes it make sense - it doesn't.

Xtians use the Prosperity Bible now.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

R20 I never had a dream about that rule.

R18, the Old Testaments come from the Hebrew Bible, so it is the story of the Hebrew people, where Adam and Eve are their descendants. But God or other gods made the other people. This is not their story.

You don't think there was a literal Adam and Eve, do you r22? It's all complete legend. And really 90% of it, including Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Esau, Moses and the Exodus. David and Solomon may have been real, but their "glorious" kingdom was probably a little nothing in the Judean Hills.

Still, none of that really matters. Israel is a fact of life. A Jewish homeland was needed for long and complicated historical reasons, and here it is. And many of us still support its existence and disagree with Hamas that it needs to be destroyed and all the Jews killed or driven away. That's the real situation, not any fantasies about gods and heroes and ancient legends.

R22 - So you're saying this one God decided to create his own cult of followers by creating 2 people just for him?

This is not what people believe, sir. It's the origination story of all mankind supposedly. Not just of the Hebrews.

So then there ARE other Gods? Other Gods who presumably were more powerful than this one, right - this one that was a relative newcomer and upstart?

It doesn't make sense. Which God made the world then? This God allowed other Gods to have their way before he decided he needs his own chapter of followers?

Jesus Christ - the amount of mental gymnastics and bullshit is unbelievable.

OP, the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest Protestant denomination in the US, just recently had a schism at their annual convention this year over this very issue. The denomination voted to affirm the belief that women cannot instruct or hold authority over men in their churches.

[quote]where Adam and Eve are their descendants.

I meant ancestors.

[quote] I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet.

I really like this one, op.

If only it could become law.

The Book of Todd, the lone gay disciple.

[quote] Jesus said to the rich young man, “One thing you still lack. Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” But when the young man heard this, he went away sad, for he had many possessions. Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Truly I tell you, it is hard for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven."

Wake up! Bobblehead.

My church is all about money. The church of Mary Cosby!

They're not practicing Christianity, I don't know what they are practicing.

Christianity is religion for dummies. It's straight forward compared to other faiths and they just can manage to follow through.

Lying and stealing are mortal sins in the Christian faith. These people are always on the grift.

they just can NOT manage to follow through.

Christianity is straight forward? Oh my sides! LOL

It's not clear or straight forward in any way - otherwise there wouldn't be so many offshoots.

[quote] The King James translation IS well done and uses great language - but the text itself is a confusing, non-sequitur mess full of plot-holes and contradictions. God needs an editor.

Actually, there's a pretty consistent theme in the Bible, and it's the history of mankind, our "fall from grace," the method and means for our redemption and what that holds for our future.

What humans feel has been "left out" of the Bible, is what God has considered not relevant to our redemption.

It's like you cannot write a manual for human existence, and expect it to cover everything. What the Bible does is cover the main points, with historical background for context.

[quote] It's straight forward compared to other faiths and they just can manage to follow through.

If true, this is just a relic of historical Judaism. The Old Testament is nothing but the history of the Jewish people making a covenant with God, the Jews breaking it, and God punishing them enough to get them to repent and agree to a new covenant, wash, and repeat.

Christianity is just the final covenant. God making it super simple; believe in the divinity of a living man or not. Now dietary laws, no sacrifice, just the ability to believe that there was a divine part in a man from Galilee who lived 2000 years ago, and by extension, you.

The core teachings of the Christian faith are straightforward, even I can understand it.

So you first say it's not a history of mankind but of the Hebrew people, now its of all of mankind - although the stories are all situated in a very tiny area of the world.

It's not what God left out - it's that is so inconsistent and with plot holes. At least be consistent with the message.

How the fuck do you know the God doesn't think something is important to redemption? You boil everything down to this simple idea that you're supposed to expect everyone else to just believe. Against all evidence.

Dude - you are so full of Bible double-speak and other things people have told you, that you fail to see your own lack of logic. I'm sorry you feel so trapped in the ideas of Bronze-age desert people, but jeesh.

Try thinking for yourself for once.

[quote] You boil everything down to this simple idea that you're supposed to expect everyone else to just believe. Against all evidence.

I think that’s why it’s called religion and not science…

R9, as it says in the Good Book, a nagging wife is like a dripping faucet.

R30 and R34 have it right - if one believes Jesus existed, and that his teachings were to meant replace the laws established in the Old Testament, then they're pretty damned straight forward.

Seriously, even Bill & Ted were able to comprehend and remind everyone, "Be excellent to each other!"

Dogma is just so...so... dogmatic.

R39 - you got to scratch your head over a guy, claiming to be the son of God, coming around and saying - nah, God was wrong. Throw all of that out - here, believe me - this is what you should think, don't listen to my Daddy.

Then people claim oh God sent Jesus to correct things. Ok, so God fucked it up? An inerrable God was wrong the first time for a few thousand years? What else was he wrong about then?

And anyone who boils Christianity down to "God=love, Love One Another" is a simpleton who likes bumper sticker slogans. Then why have the rest of it?

It's not love one another hippiness - there's also a believe in me or spend the rest of your life in burning hell. How stupid are you people?

Judges 19 has the totally fucked up story about the Levite and his concubine. A Levite and his concubine go hang out at a guy's house. Some of the male townspeople knock on the door and demand to fuck the Levite, but the homeowner gives his virgin daughter instead and the concubine to the men. The men gangbang the daughter and the concubine all night. In the morning, the Levite cuts his concubine into 12 pieces.

Basically everything that does not support my new religion of angry politics

[quote]The conception of Jesus was hardly "immaculate" but the result of a wild weekend Mary spent in Damascus

R3 is an illiterate and uninformed MORON. The Immaculate Conception was the creation of Our Lady, The Virgin Mary, Mother of God, not Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

Some fundie congregations believe in that, OP. I understand that sometimes make allowances for widows.

What does that mean r45? That as long as you throw a few pennies at widows occasionally you can be misogynistic assholes? What is the point of that post?

Or do you mean that only fundie bibles contain 1 Timothy? (In fairness, it is clearly a forged letter written in Paul's name rather than being any actual letter from Paul, so it should probably be tossed out of the Bible, but nobody seems to have gone that far yet.)

I meant what I said. As far as I understand it comma some of them make allowances for widows as single women. I suppose they hypocritically they use the rationale that these women have been guided by a man for long enough to learn how to make decisions?

Boy, this thread certainly went off track.

The topic is things in the Bible tat Christians ignore.

Here's a good one: "onanism," i.e. masturbation, i.e. "spilling one's seed upon the ground."

[quote]Then Judah said to Onan, “Sleep with your brother’s wife and fulfill your duty to her as a brother-in-law to raise up offspring for your brother.” But Onan knew that the child would not be his; so whenever he slept with his brother’s wife, he spilled his semen on the ground to keep from providing offspring for his brother. What he did was wicked in the Lord’s sight; so the Lord put him to death also.

Apparently, God doesn't care if women masturbate!

God actually doesn't much care if men masturbate either r48, as long as you also fuck your brother's widow.

God's a bit fucked up in the whole family dynamics realm.

I think having different versions of how Christ arose is suspect - but no one talks about that either.

Or that some of these books were written decades after Christ's death by non-apostles. Literally, they weren't there and we're supposed to believe like they were eye-witnesses.

Everything in the Bible is about helping the poor.

Why does God care so much if people believe in him? Why is he such an asshole about it?

R52 - more so, if it matters so much - why not BE MORE FUCKING CLEAR about what you demand.

It's like walking on eggshells and keeping everyone on their toes - just be clear. Otherwise, God is a power-drunk weirdo.

Also - can we talk for a second on why he chose Mary, a teenage woman MARRIED to another man to give birth to his son?

Did God not consult anyone - I'm sure somebody said - God, are you sure about Mary being the mom? I mean - she's a Jewish teenager and she's already married. This could get complicated - there are tons of other women, why Mary?

I'm sure Joseph was like - first off, Mary - we're married. Second, girl, you ain't no virgin - I SHOULD KNOW. You think I married you for the handjobs?

If you told this story to any Christian and it was another religion with different names, they'd call you crazy for believing it.

[quote] The conception of Jesus was hardly "immaculate" but the result of a wild weekend Mary spent in Damascus.

The Immaculate Conception is not about Jesus, dumbass.

[quote] Also - can we talk for a second on why he chose Mary, a teenage woman MARRIED to another man to give birth to his son?

Mary was only betrothed to Joseph when Jesus was conceived, dumbass. I recall the phrase, "before they lived together".

[quote]R51: Everything in the Bible is about helping the poor.

Not everything. It can be put off.

"The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them whenever you want. But you will not always have Me." (Mark 14:7, cf. Matthew 26:11, John 12:8).

"For whoever has will be given more. But whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him.” (Mark 4:25; Matthew 13:12, 25:29 (the most awful version of this saying), Luke 8:18, 19:26).

that you shouldn't eat shellfish, or wear clothing made with mixed fabrics.

[quote]R42: Judges 19 has the totally fucked up story about the Levite and his concubine.

Yep. That's the story which was plagiarized, embellished, and wound up in Genesis 19 as the story of Sodom & Gomorrah.

[quote]R46: 1 Timothy? (In fairness, it is clearly a forged letter written in Paul's name rather than being any actual letter from Paul, so it should probably be tossed out of the Bible, but nobody seems to have gone that far yet.)

You're right. 1 Timothy is in fact pseudepigrapha. The most glaring piece of evidence of that is that it mentions 'The Antithesis', written by Marcion of Sinope in the middle of the 2nd century CE: "O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid profane, irreverent babble and 'The Antithesis' of what is falsely called 'gnosis,' for by professing it some have swerved from the faith." (1 Timothy 6:20-21). It certainly wasn't written by "Paul."

Exodus 20:17: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's ass.

How many Christians work on Sundays or use other people's labor on Sundays? That's forbidden.

R60, the 4th Commandment prohibits breaking the Sabbath. Where/when was the Sabbath changed to Sunday?

Christians should follow the teachings of Jesus which are found in the New Testament and sometimes contradict the Old Testament, which is Jewish.

[quote] R52 - more so, if it matters so much - why not BE MORE FUCKING CLEAR about what you demand.

[quote] It's like walking on eggshells and keeping everyone on their toes - just be clear.

As if humanity would still follow "the rules" if they were more clear.

Look at how people have twisted everything in the Bible already.

The "rules" in the Bible are fairly clear right now, and barely anyone follows them. And look at how many people twist and bend what they read in the Bible to serve their own interests and use it to judge and repress other people.

It's not about clarity. It's about humanity's ability to follow those rules.

Tell me. How many here would actually be able to adhere to what the Bible said, if everything was spelled out perfectly clear?

Yeah. I think the answer is probably close to zero.

R61 Sabbath, Sunday, whatever you want to call it, dimwit. "According to the Book of Exodus, the Sabbath is a day of rest on the seventh day, commanded by God to be kept as a holy day of rest." What's the seventh day in our culture that Christian churches use as the Sabbath? That's Sunday.

Does this mean I have to shun DL?

Proverbs 20:19 – “He who goes about as a slanderer reveals secrets, therefore do not associate with a gossip.”

There's quite a lot in the Bible about 'modesty' e.g. Timothy 2:9 “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel.” I think people like Lauren Boebert missed that memo.

This one will be popular with DL. Tattoos? Leviticus 19:28 warns, “Ye shall not...print any marks upon you.” I've seen quite a few Christian tattoos in my time.

The sheer number of obese Christians? Proverbs 23:20-21, “Be not among winebibbers; among riotous eaters of flesh.”

How many Christians haven't been nice about their parents? Exodus 21:17 “He that curseth his father or his mother shall surely be put to death.”

Blessed are the merciful.

Love thy neighbor as thyself.

[quote] Love thy neighbor as thyself.

I hate myself, so that doesn't bode well for my fucking neighbors.

King David had a male lover, Jonathan.

My pussy stinks.

My pussy stinks.

[quote]R64: What's the seventh day in our culture that Christian churches use as the Sabbath? That's Sunday.

Look at your calendar. Sunday is the first day of the week, and Saturday is the seventh.

Pretty much only the Puritans tried to call Sunday the 'Sabbath'; most of the rest of the denominations argue some form of saying that the Sabbath was abrogated by Christ ('tho they cannot identify where and how this took place, scripturally).

They love to quote Leviticus 20:13 to justify their stance against gay people, but neglect the what it says immediately before it:

Leviticus 19:18 states, “You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against any of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD.”

Love thy neighbor comes before hate the gays in the bible ordo cognoscendi.

Genuine question: how did modern Christianity end up so far removed from what Jesus actually taught?! Where did everything go wrong?

If Christians just followed Jesus and ignored everything else in the Bible, it would be a completely different religion.

They don't seem to manage "Judge not lest ye be judged" too well.

R74 The fish rots from the head. Just look at the billions of dollars the Vatican sit on while millions starve to death.

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is a biblical concept spoken by Jesus in Luke 6:31 and Matthew 7:12; it is commonly referred to as the "Golden Rule."

"So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:12).

[quote] Genuine question: how did modern Christianity end up so far removed from what Jesus actually taught?! Where did everything go wrong?

Sometime around the Inquisition

[quote]R74: Genuine question: how did modern Christianity end up so far removed from what Jesus actually taught?! Where did everything go wrong?

Christianity went awry from the beginning, from the moment it appears in the historical record. The reason that the so-called 'teachings of Jesus' had such a low impact is likely that they were relatively late arrivals to the written materials, appearing first in the Matthean gospel (essentially a rewrite of Mark), written in the latter half of the 2nd century. Originally, the sayings were anonymous aphorisms of the Cynics, which were appended to the Matthean gospel and attributed to Jesus. They underwent further revision by the author(s) of the Lukan gospel. The Johannine community kind of did their own thing, composing long soliloquies for Jesus out of whole cloth, which were the furthest thing from recollections of anything actually spoken, although they did still follow the basic narrative structure laid down in the Synoptics. But communities of believers were already being instructed by readings from texts like 1 Corinthians, which functioned as church manuals to combat the 'heresies' of Marcionism and other gnostic schools. It is noteworthy that none of the epistolary texts ever cite/quote the words or teachings attributed to Jesus in the gospels. That it because they did not yet exist, and once they did, it was even longer still before they became authoritative as official church teachings.

^ 'that is because they did not yet exist'

Or, R75, "Let ye who is without sin cast the first stone."

[quote]Genuine question: how did modern Christianity end up so far removed from what Jesus actually taught?! Where did everything go wrong?

[quote]Sometime around the Inquisition

Oh sweetie, it was a long time before the Inquisition. I'd say it started while Jesus was on the cross and his followers started fighting about who got to take over. It definitely was in full force as they argued and debated which gospels belonged in the bible in the 4th century.

R82 - I would say it's when a religion becomes public policy. Then it becomes a government-backed institution, enabling corruption and the ability to control your people.

Everyone in the Middle Ages knew how corrupt the Church was - through the buying of indulgences, their wealth, and so many other shady practices.

We're really only one century into the modern era, with scholarship and study that makes us truly understand history. But we're finally at a tipping point where most Americans are skeptical if not unbelievers because of our vast knowledge we have now.

Of course there are people who want to go back in time or deny all of this after thousands of years of believing in this bullshit.

It's a very hard pill for them to swallow that so much of this were just stories by desert dwellers and that much of it is false and fairy tales. That's the core of conservatism - the inability to lack of desire to change based on new information.

[quote]R22: the Old Testaments come from the Hebrew Bible, so it is the story of the Hebrew people, where Adam and Eve are their descendants. But God or other gods made the other people. This is not their story.

[quote]R23: You don't think there was a literal Adam and Eve, do you [R22]? It's all complete legend.

That's hardly the point, R23. R22 is talking about another narrative within the Jewish testament, an older one, colored by Canaanite/Ugaritic /Mesopotamian theology, and using the larger Canaanite pantheon. El Elyon was God the Most High who had 70 offspring, or 𝑔𝑜𝑑𝑠, the 𝑒𝑙𝑜ℎ𝑖𝑚 - Hadad, Chemosh, Dagon, Kothar-wa-Khasis, Shammash, Sin, Dagan, Mot, Yam, Resheph, Shahar & Shalim, Nergal, etc, etc... Yahweh was also originally one of the 'sons of El' or 𝑒𝑙𝑜ℎ𝑖𝑚. Each of these gods were given charge of different peoples or nations, with associated territories. Hence-

[quote]When El Elyon gave the nations their inheritance, when He divided the sons of man, He set the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of El. But Yahweh's portion is His people, Jacob His allotted inheritance (Deuteronomy 32:8,9, DSS 4QDeutᴊ version).

This why, in some of the narratives, a few of the other 𝑒𝑙𝑜ℎ𝑖𝑚 are mentioned. The Moabites were the people of Chemosh, the same way that Israel were the people of Yahweh, and, losing in battle against Israel, Mesha, king of the Moabites, sacrificed his own firstborn son, which turned the tide against Israel (2 Kings 3:20-27); Chemosh is seen to have defeated Yahweh.

Texts in the Jewish testament recall the '70 sons of God,' but divest them of their original henotheistic context, like the 70 names in the Table of Nations (Genesis 10).

These stories were rewritten by exclusive Yahwists, which painted over the polytheism in favor of monotheism; the 𝑒𝑙𝑜ℎ𝑖𝑚 were recast as mortal descendants, and Yahweh was re-imagined as the supreme god ruling over a Divine Council of subordinates. In time, the seventy became re-imagined as angels. So, per your question at R24, there were several successive, evolving layers to these myths

R41, EXTREMELY fucking stupid. I had to quit reading the rest of this drivel after I'd made it as far as the 41st post. Damn but some of you are as dense as the odor emanating from Trump's dirty diapers.

What makes you think they ignore that passage, OP? Seems to me it’s a favorite.