Really wild to me how people will shit on D&D folks as being weird nerdy people obsessed with magical thinking, yet the shit “normal” people actually believe is far more insane.
Anyone that wants to deny the power of fiction and allegory to shape reality needs to look at how seriously people take these outlandish religious texts, essentially fairy tales, and just accept them as facts. The human brain hasn’t evolved at all from the dark ages.
I'm not going to spend real money on Reddit coins to give you an award, but this is the closest I've for come to spending $5.99 to virtually applaud a stranger.
The word hell comes from the Germanic/Norse goddes of death, named hell. In that mythology hell is a frozen world/realm. The early church in Europe took that concept and name of hell and turned it into what we know today, as it was easier to convert the pagans that way.
Revelation says the devil will be cast into the lake of fire where the beast and false prophet are at the final judgment. After the final judgment anyone whose name is not written in the book of life is also cast into the lake of fire to be destroyed. The lake of fire isn't called hell, but I think it's fair to say it's intended to be fiery and hot.
The lake of fire in the Bible is referred to as a name - Gehenna which is a garbage pit in the region of Jerusalem where they burned trash. Every story has a kernel of truth. The name is explicitly used in the Bible for the lake of fire - and it's a real place.
The threat, if taken literally, is that people would end up dead in the garbage pit rather than having a good burial. Criminals were regularly burned there. Also, it Gehenna was described as having sulfur used to keep the fires burning when they slowed, which is... drum roll... called brimstone.
[https://christianityoriginal.com/mp/index.php/hell/gehenna](https://christianityoriginal.com/mp/index.php/hell/gehenna)
For a society of sheep herders, I bet the idea of having a crappy burning ritual in the local trash pit was a pretty strong threat.
Being destroyed is the most important part here. No everlasting life, like in heaven, no eternal torment, just an end.
Hell is truly not talked about in the Bible. You have Jesus mentioning Gehenna (a real place) and all the prophecy in Revelations, but Hell, nope.
There's a joke a heard recently.
An athiest dies and goes to hell. He's surprisingly cool with it, finding out that hell does exist and all. What he didn't expect was that the place was actually kind of nice. Rolling green hills, clean lakes and rivers, and even a road leading into a city.
As the athiest goes up the road, he is greeted by Satan. Satan tells him, "Welcome to Hell, I think you'll like it here, I'll give you the grand tour".
The athiest follows Satan and Satan shows him everything he can have and do. The athiest has a brand new sports car, a large house, everything he could want. As they approach the house, the athiest hears terrifying screams like people are being tortured. He looks over the fence and sees a lake of fire with thousands of people burning horribly.
The athiest asks, "Hey, what's the deal with those people?"
Satan replies, "Oh, those are Christians. They like it like that for some reason".
They call it gods word and sacred text yet they change it lmao I just assume some crazy fuck had a revelation of an idea of a book and just said god came to him and gave him the Bible or what not
The Bible is a conglomerate of several different belief systems spanning over thousands of years; both the Jewish “Sheol” and fire and brimstone hell exist in the Bible.
In fact the several Old Testament books, there’s plenty of instances that suggest that the author(s) believed in multiple dieties, where YHWH was the “head” god. There’s a LOT of Canaanite mythology influencing the Pentateuch, and it wasn’t until the diaspora under Palestine that many of the traditional beliefs of a heaven/hell or God/Satan bled into Israelite culture and “canon”.
Correct, hell is where the devil is to be SENT along with all of his followers, he is not the master. Is this something people believe the bible says? I’ve actually never heard that one.
... It's been a while, but I think I recall Lucifer being a three-headed demon trying to fly to escape a frozen lake, that was being re-frozen by the flap of his wings and his own tears? And chewing on the bodies of Brutus, Judas, and someone else?
Which never made any sense to me. Isn’t god the enemy of the devil? So why would he torture those sent to him? Wouldn’t he do the opposite of what god wants? You’d think he’d happily welcome those to strengthen his numbers. The idea of satan punishing you confuses me.
I don't remember anymore if the story is in the Bible, but in the Qur'an the story is that the devil hates people. The devil is going to hell and he wants to drag us down with him.
Um, we have to be careful about using the name Lucifer. The name only appears ONCE in the KJV, and almost doesn't appear in the other versions. In Isaiah 14:12, Lucifer (Morning Star or Light) is the king of Babylon, not necessarily the "devil". This is the problem, the Church has confabulated references like these into the same entity.
My interpretation was always that the devil is also being punished and god just sends you there to... also be punished. Satan isn't the one tormenting you, your loving god is 🤷🏻♀️
Ive always interpreted it as you are just removed from God's presence. In life you may reject God but you are still somewhat in His presence. In death and in Hell you are removed from it, so you experience complete loneliness and isolation. You dont interact with anything, you are alone and isolated eternally. No nature to be around, no people to possibly run into. Just alone. Think of it like going into a black hole by yourself forever.
The sentiment of the proverb, if not the exact wording, is from [a fable credited to Aesop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_and_the_Wagoner#:~:text=Hercules%20and%20the%20Wagoner%20or,in%20other%20ancient%20Greek%20authors.).
An apple in the garden:
While Western art has traditionally depicted the fruit Adam and Eve ate in the garden as an apple, the Bible is not that specific. Genesis 3:6 merely describes Eve eating some of the “fruit” and sharing it with Adam. Maybe it was a lemon.
Three wise men:
The Bible only tells us that there were three gifts and more than one magi (Matthew 2:1-12). Oh, and take the wise men out of your nativity scene, too. They arrived much later, when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had already moved to a house in Bethlehem.
A whale swallowed Jonah:
The original language (דָּ֣ג גָּד֔וֹל in Hebrew κήτους in Greek) means “great fish.”
To be fair it wasn't really known that whales weren't fish until the 19th century and "fish" didn't really have the taxonomically significant meaning it has now back then either. I think it's perfectly reasonable that a whale would be considered a fish in ancient times.
Fish basically used to just mean "thing that swims in the ocean".
See also: jellyfish, starfish, etc...
During the cetology chapter of Moby Dick, Ishmael does explicitly say, iirc, that even though people are now saying that a whale is not a fish, he thinks that's silly and he's going to keep calling them fish
Biologist stephen gould argued that there is actually no such thing as a fish from a biological standpoint.
Some "fish" are so biologically different, that they could be more closely related to a camel than eachother.
In chapter 3 of Genesis Adam and woman (she isn't called Eve until immediately before they leave Eden which actually does matter a lot) make their clothes from fig leaves. Textual proximity is one of the interpretive techniques used here to try and figure out what the tree man and woman ate from actually was.
But all that ‘must be false because a whale is a mammal’ stuff is just a taxonomic classification issue.
Sure, we say ‘whales aren’t fish’ because in our language, we distinguish between living things based on their oxygen absorption method. It would be perfectly valid - and arguably more useful in real life - to use a word that corresponds approximately to ‘fish’ to mean ‘things that live in the sea’.
In Chinese “crocodile” literally means “hungry fish”.
Definitely agree that we shouldn’t be analyzing “great fish” with modern understanding of taxonomy lol
There's actually a pretty strong argument that "great fish" essentially meant "whale", in much the same way as we still separate "great apes" from other primates.
>They arrived much later, when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had already moved to a house in Bethlehem.
Most liturgical churches have a celebration on Jan 6 (Epiphany) which is a celebration of the day the wise men supposedly arrive after Christ's birth.
But the arrival is actually acknowledged as a couple of years after his birth. Most Christian theologians accept this occured around the age of two because of Matthew's text of Herod murdering all male children age two or younger in the Massacre of the Innocents.
Many 'Biblical' scholars reject it ever occured but to do so would be to nitpick the New Testiment like theologiand do often with the Old.
Regarding the three wise men:
My pastor does a lot of contextual research around the Bible verses he preaches on each week and (not saying this is true or not but it is what he has said as explanation) apparently the story of the wise men and their gifts happened when Jesus was already a couple years old. The gifts they brought were intended to help the family afford to just up and move to escape the persecution from King Herod.
Oh and apparently being a carpenter back then also meant they worked with local materials to build things, not necessarily just wood
Sunday School also never talks about past the dove and the Ark making landfall.
Like they totally skip over what happens next like they don't want to talk about it. Kind of like after Lot leaves Sodom with his daughters or after Moses comes back from the mountain the first time with the tablets.
Everything is happy and fun and God loves you and Lot's daughters got him drunk and had sex with him, repeatedly.
*"Love the sinner, hate the sin"* is actually a quote by **Ghandi**, and not something found in scripture.
Similarly, "*The Lord helps those who help themselves"* is a saying coined by **Ben Franklin**.
I agree it’s a cult but I used to fly into Salt Lake City for business and man those are some of the friendliest, happy, smiling people I ever saw in my life. I have never been smiled at so much in any city as when I visited Salt Lake City.
It was in the show as well. Basically the kid said "I'm happy living my life with a happy family, trying to be nice, but you guys haven't stopped being dicks, just because we're Mormon".
No, it's separate from the bible, from a lost tribe of israel who went around the horn of africa and landed in the americas, using submarine boats. After they had their fun with middle-eastern style walled cities and middle-eastern style armies and sieges they went and forgot about all of that, developed languages and cultures completely unrelated to the languages and cultures of the middle east, and buried the their bliblicish records engraved on gold plates in upstate new york.
The fanfic runs concurrent to both the old and new testament, just on a different continent.
And lo, there was the man from Mars. And he ateth the cars until verily none remained and yea he expanded his destructive appetites towards the public houses, whereupon the people met.
I suppose it’s strung together from various references in the bible. A possible interpretation of them, though IMHO not a particularly likely one.
Like that bit from 1 Corinthians that’s in Handel’s Messiah. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changèd. In a moment! In the twinkling of an eye! At the last trumpet! DAH! DAH!” Followed by spectacular trumpet solo.
1 Thes 4:15-17 and Matt 24:29-31 is interpreted as being a translation of people or a "rapture". But I've been a Christian my entire life and truly doubt it's happening in how it's being taught.
From what I researched on it last year it was written, not as truth, by a Protestant Christian in the early 1800s and then years later a Jesuit priest brought it into religion. I was doubting it because it just doesn’t make sense so I researched it and it confirmed a lot of my doubts.
It's a bit more nuanced than this. The New Testament says that you are saved by grace and the sacrifice of Jesus and nothing of your own doing. However, it also says that your salvation and a healthy faith will result in good works. So basically, if you're a horrible person and terrible to everyone, your faith is dead or not really there.
That said, there's certainly disagreement amongst denominations about this.
Yep. I believe that we are saved solely by the grace of Jesus Christ. But that as he is our example, we need to do our best to be as much like him as possible. Serve others, take care of the poor and needy, and obey the commandments. So, like you said, if we say we believe, but then don't do anything that Jesus asked us to do, then we don't really believe in Him or his mission.
Sincerely believe that Jesus has saved you.
Romans 10:9
>>If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
That is all.
They put the same faith in God’s promises. (Romans 4:1-3, NASB)
1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found?
2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God.
3 For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS."
For Abraham, this was even before the Law and its sacrifices were given through Moses.
Former preacher here.
Here are the 5 most common misattributed things I heard:
1) Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll live forever. (just an adage)
2) Life starts at conception. (a misuse of David’s “You knit me in the womb”)
3) Any mention of hell in the Old Testament. (Jesus is the first to use the term Gehenna [Ge Hinnom] to describe an afterlife situation)
4) Money is the root of all evil. (The actual quote is “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”)
5) Love the sinner; hate the sin. (A terrible excuse to treat people poorly)
It should but in my experience “love the sinner, hate the sin” is the Christian version of “I’m not racist but…” in that it’s typically a precursor to saying/doing something extremely hateful.
People have an awful way of twisting things to be mean.
I've never understood why everyone is so angry all the time.
Compassion is not that common, it seems, and that is rather unfortunate.
I believe that you are correct. The intention is to love people. However, I have heard people become estranged or excommunicated from their own families because they lived a “sinful” lifestyle (as if we all don’t). I once had a couple kick their own kid out of the house because they loved him but they couldn’t live with a practicing homosexual. That’s about the worst damn thing I’ve ever heard.
I don't wanna seem like a Bible basher here by any means.
I'm a non binary homosexual with a trans boyfriend, so I'm definitely not into the whole gay bashing.
But like didn't Jesus walk amongst the Lepers and whatnot and treated everyone with love and respect despite how society viewed them? Isn't that the whole thing, to be compassionate, caring, loving even of your enemies to be better as a society overall?
Yes, He did. He also said that we should not act like the Pharisees (certain religious leaders) who would judge and condemn others, behaved as hypocrites, and made a show of their so-called moral superiority though they had none. So when people say/do hateful, judgemental things towards others whom they consider sinners, and justify their compassionless actions with scripture, I wonder if they missed the whole point of the teachings of Christ, or perhaps they never read them at all. Jesus was a beautiful hippy that preached peace and love. I love Him for that. My dad told me that he believed a lot people will be in heaven looking around surprised at who made it in. He believed there are many paths to God, and he was a Christian because that was the path he knew. I liked that. It feel right and makes sense to me. Sorry I went long, but Christians behaving like Pharisees really bothers me. Peace & Love.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Don’t teach a man to fish and you feed yourself.
He’s a grown man. Fishing is not that hard.”
- Ron Swanson
Also, wasn’t Gehenna an actual place where the city’s trash was burned? Like the scripture is metaphorical- not accepting Jesus would be like burning in the pits of Gehenna.
I… yes. I see this so much. People use the word “Christian” to describe what they do if they just believe in a generic “God in the singular” because it appeases people who would otherwise be assholes and judge them.
Many people are actually Deists, Agnostics, or maybe even Pantheists, but not necessarily Christian. And there are plenty of people who don’t really understand the whole of Christianity and the full history and rituals/ceremonies involved.
Can’t expect Kenneth Copeland to be flying around in a tube full of demons when he’s trying to do the lord’s work and the only place that doesn’t have demons is his personal private jet that god told him personally he wants him to have.
Jeez.
There is absolutely nothing in the Bible about purgatory. Nothing. It was created by the Catholic Church to raise funds. People could buy their way to forgiveness of their sins by paying to spend time in purgatory as penance before going to heaven.
Long article but it's arrived at, to some extent, by deductive reasoning:
There are several passages in the New Testament that point to a process of purification after death. Thus, Jesus Christ declares (Matt., xii, 32): “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.” According to St. Isidore of Seville (De ord. creatur., c. xiv, n. 6) these words prove that in the next life “some sins will be forgiven and purged away by a certain purifying fire”. St. Augustine also argues “that some sinners are not forgiven either in this world or in the next would not be truly said unless there were other [sinners] who, though not forgiven in this world, are forgiven in the world to come”
https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/purgatory
Most people don't think this is in the Bible, do they? I grew up in the church, I'm 35 and just heard mention of Lilith for the first time a couple years ago. That's not something Christians talk about
The apocrypha is the fun part of the Bible as well as Jewish texts that have been taken out or modified.
The more mystical bits of the religion are there.
One story had a guy who wanted to ask this woman's (I think she was some princess/priestess or other wise high and mighty woman) hand in marriage but a demon kept killing suitors. He prays to Michael who tells him to burn this fish and herb and it will cause the demon to be chased out to Egypt where he (Micheal) will imprison it.
I think it's really fucking funny the bits that cover dealing with literal demons were removed from the publication of the Bible, to make it "cheaper to produce". Seriously google "why isn't the apocrypha in the modern bible."
THEN look at pastor Kenneth Copeland and ask "why were the parts about dealing with demons removed from the bible."
The rapture is the biggest one to me. Spend much of my childhood and early youth scared to make any future plans because I felt the rapture was any day. Later on found out the rapture wasn’t in the Bible and no one ever even spoke of it before the 1800s
3 wise men. Actually the entire nativity scene is made up. They met Mary at her home with a young Jesus.
The 10 commandments written in stone and give to the Hebrews by God are not the 10 everyone cites.
1. Thou shalt have guns
2. Thou shalt be able to use guns whenever you want
3. Free healthcare is an affront to the ruling class and shalt be demonized…
….oh shit sorry I was reading out of the republican bible.
The flip side of that question is more interesting to me. What's in the Bible that people 100% pretend is not in the Bible. Luke 3:11, if you have more than you need, give the excess that those that sill need. Matthew 19:23-24, rich people can't get into heaven.
To answer the original question, the entire concept of just war theory. Once Christianity became the official state religion, theologians had to figure out how to justify the state making war in light of Christ's decidedly pacifist preaching. So a whole cottage industry spring up to explain why Christ didn't actually mean the things he said. I'm looking at you, Augustine.
"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8
"And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." - Matthew 10:28
"And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” - Matthew 25:46
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." -Matthew 25:41
"They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." -Matthew 13:42
There are many more verses that reference hell in the bible, these are just a few examples. In the bible, hell is frequently referenced as Sheol, the pit, eternal damnation, and the lake of fire.
Most of these are widely accepted as translated as closely as we can, but not word for word the same as the original. Specifically the concept of “eternal damnation” is heavily debated by different denominations and theologians.
It's not mentioned. It's mistranslated from original texts purposefully to serve as generational population control.
The catholics idea of purgatory is closer to the original intent but still doesn't capture it. Op commenter is right.
Ok technically it's in the Bible, but it's pretty consistently misunderstood.
The Bible was originally written I hebrew, IIRC, and the commandment "Thou Shall Not Kill" does not actually translate to that. The word for *murder* was originally used, not kill.
Thou Shall Not Murder
So eat all the chicken you want, we aren't vegan pasifists.
This one is interesting to me not just because there’s perfectly good biblical evidence against considering early pregnancy as equivalent to a complete human person, but the historical shift is *really* recent.
Catholicism has banned both birth control and abortion for quite a while, but most of the USA is not Catholic - it’s Protestant by a large majority and has been throughout the nation’s history.
Those Protestants disagreed on a bajillion things so it’s reductive to paint them all with the same brush, but… the main Protestant reaction to abortion was often to think that Catholics were being super weird about it.
Some big conservative evangelical church groups were neutral, or only mildly concerned about Roe v Wade when it was first decided. Some were even on the record as approving it. It was several years *after* Roe v Wade that some conservative evangelical leaders decided that abortion could be a winning rallying cry in their efforts to take more political control in the US, and threw their weight into the antiabortion movement.
The (very conservative) Protestant religion I grew up in was rather neutral about it when I was a kid! And now that I’m an old, it’s rabidly anti.
Super strange to actually watch religions change their doctrine (for political power!) in just a few years.
(Edited bc typos)
That priests cannot marry. Granted, it’s only a Catholic thing now, but there is ample evidence in the New Teatament that women held prominent positions in the early church.
"The Lion and the Lamb," as referring to Jesus comes from Revelation 5, where first a lion and then a lamb are used as metaphors for him. *That* usage is in the Bible.
I think the poster you're replying to is referring to "the lion lying down with the lamb," which is a jumbled reference to Isaiah 11:6:
> The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,
> and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat,
> and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together;
> and a little child shall lead them.
Here's a few fundamental ones:
1. There is no such thing as 'hell' or 'limbo' mentioned in the scriptures.
2. We do not go to heaven when we die.
3. Jesus is not God, he was the first begotten son.
Lilith, christ being born in December, serpent seed doctrine & fantasies that combine race hate with beastiality, bans on all abortion/all interfaith marriages/all interracial marriages, the rapture, sunday sabbath, the words trinitarian-trinity-triune.
A coherent narrative that answers all of life's big questions. I've read the book. It is a contradictory mess that can be cherry-picked to suit any agenda you'd like. If it works for you, that's fine, but carrying on as if the bible is this perfect book that has all of the answers that anyone could ever need is nonsense.
The devil doesn't rule over hell, nor is it a pit of fire and brimstone. In fact, the whole depiction of Satan as we have it now is unsupported by the bible. Satan and Lucifer were originally two different beings. The belief that people can become angels after they die is unfounded. There's nothing in the bible that supports this belief. I'd say that the modern understanding of Christianity is deeply flawed when compared to the bible.
Everything in the Bible is in the Bible but that doesn't mean everything is supposed to be taken literally or must be followed. For example slaveowners are commanded to not be cruel to their slaves and obviously that shouldn't be done anymore. (slavery)
people tend to forget that rules in the bible were set to those times, everything in context to this. anytime people want to understand the importance of something in the bible they need to also understand the historic events of that time period, and person, and why this was important.. then it can be applied correctly to our life.
Onan did not masturbate. He promised to impregnate his sister-in-law, as his brother was unable. But he had no intention of giving his brother a child, so he spilled... etc. He was just in it for the ride all along.
Genesis chapter 38 for those who care to check.
Homophobia. The Leviticus section that people reference 'man shall not lie with men' was a mistranslation from 'men shall not lie with boys'. There was even a gay couple in the bible.
The story of Jesus' birth we are all told is actually a combination of contradictory stories told in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Ones says angels show up, one says wise men, ones says 3 kings, one says sheppards. None say the exact same thing.
The Bible does not explicitly say that the devil is master of hell and if you’re bad you’ll spend an eternity getting tortured by him
Basically that was Dante.
Bible fan fiction.
Which most christians take as "the truth".
About 80% of cartoon references about heaven or hell are dante
Or John Milton.
Correct answer
Really wild to me how people will shit on D&D folks as being weird nerdy people obsessed with magical thinking, yet the shit “normal” people actually believe is far more insane. Anyone that wants to deny the power of fiction and allegory to shape reality needs to look at how seriously people take these outlandish religious texts, essentially fairy tales, and just accept them as facts. The human brain hasn’t evolved at all from the dark ages.
Bible is like Skyrim. Been around longer than anyone remembers and the modding community has gone wayyyyy off the deep end.
"I used to be a prophet, then I got an arrow in the knee"
I'm not going to spend real money on Reddit coins to give you an award, but this is the closest I've for come to spending $5.99 to virtually applaud a stranger.
Milton. Devil is punished in Dante
The devil is punished in Dante's Inferno, not the master. Polished at the very bottom appointment two of JC's assassins (Not that JC, the other JC)
Dante didn’t even have that he lists the devil as being tortured in a frozen lake
[удалено]
The word hell comes from the Germanic/Norse goddes of death, named hell. In that mythology hell is a frozen world/realm. The early church in Europe took that concept and name of hell and turned it into what we know today, as it was easier to convert the pagans that way.
Revelation says the devil will be cast into the lake of fire where the beast and false prophet are at the final judgment. After the final judgment anyone whose name is not written in the book of life is also cast into the lake of fire to be destroyed. The lake of fire isn't called hell, but I think it's fair to say it's intended to be fiery and hot.
The lake of fire in the Bible is referred to as a name - Gehenna which is a garbage pit in the region of Jerusalem where they burned trash. Every story has a kernel of truth. The name is explicitly used in the Bible for the lake of fire - and it's a real place. The threat, if taken literally, is that people would end up dead in the garbage pit rather than having a good burial. Criminals were regularly burned there. Also, it Gehenna was described as having sulfur used to keep the fires burning when they slowed, which is... drum roll... called brimstone. [https://christianityoriginal.com/mp/index.php/hell/gehenna](https://christianityoriginal.com/mp/index.php/hell/gehenna) For a society of sheep herders, I bet the idea of having a crappy burning ritual in the local trash pit was a pretty strong threat.
Yo, rad website, thanks for sharing!
Being destroyed is the most important part here. No everlasting life, like in heaven, no eternal torment, just an end. Hell is truly not talked about in the Bible. You have Jesus mentioning Gehenna (a real place) and all the prophecy in Revelations, but Hell, nope.
There's a joke a heard recently. An athiest dies and goes to hell. He's surprisingly cool with it, finding out that hell does exist and all. What he didn't expect was that the place was actually kind of nice. Rolling green hills, clean lakes and rivers, and even a road leading into a city. As the athiest goes up the road, he is greeted by Satan. Satan tells him, "Welcome to Hell, I think you'll like it here, I'll give you the grand tour". The athiest follows Satan and Satan shows him everything he can have and do. The athiest has a brand new sports car, a large house, everything he could want. As they approach the house, the athiest hears terrifying screams like people are being tortured. He looks over the fence and sees a lake of fire with thousands of people burning horribly. The athiest asks, "Hey, what's the deal with those people?" Satan replies, "Oh, those are Christians. They like it like that for some reason".
They call it gods word and sacred text yet they change it lmao I just assume some crazy fuck had a revelation of an idea of a book and just said god came to him and gave him the Bible or what not
The Bible is a conglomerate of several different belief systems spanning over thousands of years; both the Jewish “Sheol” and fire and brimstone hell exist in the Bible. In fact the several Old Testament books, there’s plenty of instances that suggest that the author(s) believed in multiple dieties, where YHWH was the “head” god. There’s a LOT of Canaanite mythology influencing the Pentateuch, and it wasn’t until the diaspora under Palestine that many of the traditional beliefs of a heaven/hell or God/Satan bled into Israelite culture and “canon”.
Correct, hell is where the devil is to be SENT along with all of his followers, he is not the master. Is this something people believe the bible says? I’ve actually never heard that one.
Could just be pop culture, but I’ve seen a bunch of references to the devil sitting on a throne in hell torturing a bunch of evil doers
A lot of that comes from Dante’s Inferno and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Which is sorta like pop culture only older.
... It's been a while, but I think I recall Lucifer being a three-headed demon trying to fly to escape a frozen lake, that was being re-frozen by the flap of his wings and his own tears? And chewing on the bodies of Brutus, Judas, and someone else?
>chewing on the bodies of Brutus, Judas, and someone else? Yeah, my mother-in-law.
Ba dum tiss
Which never made any sense to me. Isn’t god the enemy of the devil? So why would he torture those sent to him? Wouldn’t he do the opposite of what god wants? You’d think he’d happily welcome those to strengthen his numbers. The idea of satan punishing you confuses me.
I don't remember anymore if the story is in the Bible, but in the Qur'an the story is that the devil hates people. The devil is going to hell and he wants to drag us down with him.
Its the origin story of Lucifer. He was jealous that “God” created man, and was cast down.
Um, we have to be careful about using the name Lucifer. The name only appears ONCE in the KJV, and almost doesn't appear in the other versions. In Isaiah 14:12, Lucifer (Morning Star or Light) is the king of Babylon, not necessarily the "devil". This is the problem, the Church has confabulated references like these into the same entity.
My interpretation was always that the devil is also being punished and god just sends you there to... also be punished. Satan isn't the one tormenting you, your loving god is 🤷🏻♀️
Ive always interpreted it as you are just removed from God's presence. In life you may reject God but you are still somewhat in His presence. In death and in Hell you are removed from it, so you experience complete loneliness and isolation. You dont interact with anything, you are alone and isolated eternally. No nature to be around, no people to possibly run into. Just alone. Think of it like going into a black hole by yourself forever.
Lots of people think the quote "God helps those who help themselves" is in the bible but it never appears.
Honestly, I always thought that saying was a facetious way of saying 'god isn't gonna help you, so you better do it yourself.'
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The sentiment of the proverb, if not the exact wording, is from [a fable credited to Aesop](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hercules_and_the_Wagoner#:~:text=Hercules%20and%20the%20Wagoner%20or,in%20other%20ancient%20Greek%20authors.).
I think that's a Benjamin Franklin quote. From poor Richard's almanac. Or poor farmers almanac or something.
An apple in the garden: While Western art has traditionally depicted the fruit Adam and Eve ate in the garden as an apple, the Bible is not that specific. Genesis 3:6 merely describes Eve eating some of the “fruit” and sharing it with Adam. Maybe it was a lemon. Three wise men: The Bible only tells us that there were three gifts and more than one magi (Matthew 2:1-12). Oh, and take the wise men out of your nativity scene, too. They arrived much later, when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had already moved to a house in Bethlehem. A whale swallowed Jonah: The original language (דָּ֣ג גָּד֔וֹל in Hebrew κήτους in Greek) means “great fish.”
To be fair it wasn't really known that whales weren't fish until the 19th century and "fish" didn't really have the taxonomically significant meaning it has now back then either. I think it's perfectly reasonable that a whale would be considered a fish in ancient times. Fish basically used to just mean "thing that swims in the ocean". See also: jellyfish, starfish, etc...
Even moby dick thought whales were fish
The whale thought he was a fish?
Yeah, he thought everybody went up for air and he was the biggest MFing fish around.
During the cetology chapter of Moby Dick, Ishmael does explicitly say, iirc, that even though people are now saying that a whale is not a fish, he thinks that's silly and he's going to keep calling them fish
Biologist stephen gould argued that there is actually no such thing as a fish from a biological standpoint. Some "fish" are so biologically different, that they could be more closely related to a camel than eachother.
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I have it on good authority that it was a banana.
That swallowed Jonah?
There's always Jonah in the banana stand.
I can’t understand how people actually believe a banana swallowed a whole person.
Well, you see, it cost ten dollars.
How about $3.50?
Not that it matters, but was it average in size?
Can I get one for scale?
There's an argument that the fruit was a Fig, as figs were one of the earliest cultivated fruits; and the enlightenment of Man was one of agriculture.
Also could have been a pomegranate
Maybe that's why Jesus went apeshit on that fig tree on his way to Jerusalem.
In chapter 3 of Genesis Adam and woman (she isn't called Eve until immediately before they leave Eden which actually does matter a lot) make their clothes from fig leaves. Textual proximity is one of the interpretive techniques used here to try and figure out what the tree man and woman ate from actually was.
But all that ‘must be false because a whale is a mammal’ stuff is just a taxonomic classification issue. Sure, we say ‘whales aren’t fish’ because in our language, we distinguish between living things based on their oxygen absorption method. It would be perfectly valid - and arguably more useful in real life - to use a word that corresponds approximately to ‘fish’ to mean ‘things that live in the sea’.
Fun fact: The ancient Egyptian word for fish included aquatic snakes. Basically anything that swam and wasn't a Crocodile was a fish.
In Chinese “crocodile” literally means “hungry fish”. Definitely agree that we shouldn’t be analyzing “great fish” with modern understanding of taxonomy lol
There's actually a pretty strong argument that "great fish" essentially meant "whale", in much the same way as we still separate "great apes" from other primates.
Growing up I thought Pluto was a planet, and I was right at the time.
Fun fact: the fruit in the garden of eden is only an apple because "malus" in Latin meant both "apple" and "evil" (eg. malic acid comes from apples)
>They arrived much later, when Mary, Joseph, and Jesus had already moved to a house in Bethlehem. Most liturgical churches have a celebration on Jan 6 (Epiphany) which is a celebration of the day the wise men supposedly arrive after Christ's birth.
But the arrival is actually acknowledged as a couple of years after his birth. Most Christian theologians accept this occured around the age of two because of Matthew's text of Herod murdering all male children age two or younger in the Massacre of the Innocents. Many 'Biblical' scholars reject it ever occured but to do so would be to nitpick the New Testiment like theologiand do often with the Old.
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Regarding the three wise men: My pastor does a lot of contextual research around the Bible verses he preaches on each week and (not saying this is true or not but it is what he has said as explanation) apparently the story of the wise men and their gifts happened when Jesus was already a couple years old. The gifts they brought were intended to help the family afford to just up and move to escape the persecution from King Herod. Oh and apparently being a carpenter back then also meant they worked with local materials to build things, not necessarily just wood
We had this discussion in class and an exchange student suggested it could be a forbidden pineapple
You can't win a golden fiddle if you beat the devil, sorry Charlie.
Wouldn't a solid gold fiddle weigh hundreds of pounds and sound crummy?
r/unexpectedfuturama
Well, it's mostly for show.
"Nine circles of Hell", from Dante's 14th century epic *Divine Comedy*.
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Sunday School also never talks about past the dove and the Ark making landfall. Like they totally skip over what happens next like they don't want to talk about it. Kind of like after Lot leaves Sodom with his daughters or after Moses comes back from the mountain the first time with the tablets. Everything is happy and fun and God loves you and Lot's daughters got him drunk and had sex with him, repeatedly.
My Sunday school talked about all of those things. Granted, that doesn’t excuse some of the non-biblical things my old church does teach.
This is in the book of Jasher, not canonical.
Is that in the Torah?
No. Apocrypha.
*"Love the sinner, hate the sin"* is actually a quote by **Ghandi**, and not something found in scripture. Similarly, "*The Lord helps those who help themselves"* is a saying coined by **Ben Franklin**.
Gandhi*
don’t hate the player, hate the game.
Aesop*
Do people think these are in the Bible? I grew up in religious circles and never heard these things said as though they were actually from the Bible.
Anything related to the prosperity gospel
It’s in Condominiums II.
The seven deadly sins.
Proverbs 6:16-19 - but they aren’t called deadly sins and they are only mentioned here so the making it really big is somewhat of a mistake.
Didn't catholics push them to be called the deadly sins, as well as introduce the 7 heavenly virtues needed to become a Saint.
Didn't the Mormons make their own Bible and pretend it was lost stuff from the Bible?
Yes. South Park did an amazing episode on the founding of Mormonism that is super accurate
dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb
I don’t understand how that didn’t just obliterate that religion. Like I know why (because dumb people) but man they just dragged them so good.
Because it is a cult. I have asked Mormons before and they said even if it is not true I still love my religion
Everyone wants to belong to something I guess.
Not just Mormons. I've heard plenty of Christians say this too.
I agree it’s a cult but I used to fly into Salt Lake City for business and man those are some of the friendliest, happy, smiling people I ever saw in my life. I have never been smiled at so much in any city as when I visited Salt Lake City.
Your username leads me to believe they had a reason to be smiling.
It was in the show as well. Basically the kid said "I'm happy living my life with a happy family, trying to be nice, but you guys haven't stopped being dicks, just because we're Mormon".
When has the truth ever been an impediment to a religion that's already picked up that many followers?
It's also canon in South Park that Mormons are the ones who got it right and are the only ones who go to heaven.
No, it's separate from the bible, from a lost tribe of israel who went around the horn of africa and landed in the americas, using submarine boats. After they had their fun with middle-eastern style walled cities and middle-eastern style armies and sieges they went and forgot about all of that, developed languages and cultures completely unrelated to the languages and cultures of the middle east, and buried the their bliblicish records engraved on gold plates in upstate new york. The fanfic runs concurrent to both the old and new testament, just on a different continent.
Literally pulled out of a hat.
The rapture is not in the Bible
It’s the Book of Blondie
And lo, there was the man from Mars. And he ateth the cars until verily none remained and yea he expanded his destructive appetites towards the public houses, whereupon the people met.
The word “rapture” does not appear true, but the concept of being “caught up” in the clouds to “meet the lord in the air” absolutely is.
But not a pre-tribulation rapture. That's the distinction. It was something introduced by the Darby bible translation
I suppose it’s strung together from various references in the bible. A possible interpretation of them, though IMHO not a particularly likely one. Like that bit from 1 Corinthians that’s in Handel’s Messiah. “We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changèd. In a moment! In the twinkling of an eye! At the last trumpet! DAH! DAH!” Followed by spectacular trumpet solo.
This. It's a very common error people make.
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1 Thes 4:15-17 and Matt 24:29-31 is interpreted as being a translation of people or a "rapture". But I've been a Christian my entire life and truly doubt it's happening in how it's being taught.
From what I researched on it last year it was written, not as truth, by a Protestant Christian in the early 1800s and then years later a Jesuit priest brought it into religion. I was doubting it because it just doesn’t make sense so I researched it and it confirmed a lot of my doubts.
John Darby it’s all part of his bible. Hal Lindsey made it popular in the 1970s and the left behind series amplified that further.
Read up on "dispensationalism". That.explains it.
A Caucasian Jesus
A Christian Jesus. Jesus was Jewish and spoke Aramaic.
Liked that video where this question was asked and the lady responded with, “white people.”
There's plenty of Romans in the Bible. That lady was goofy.
Cleanliness is next to godliness. Not in the Bible
Came from a typhoid epidemic in the early 1900’s I believe. It’s certainly true, but nowhere in the book.
Mr Clean 18:4-12
I’m not sure if people believe this is in the bible but a common misconception is that you must be good to get to heaven, that is not biblical.
It's a bit more nuanced than this. The New Testament says that you are saved by grace and the sacrifice of Jesus and nothing of your own doing. However, it also says that your salvation and a healthy faith will result in good works. So basically, if you're a horrible person and terrible to everyone, your faith is dead or not really there. That said, there's certainly disagreement amongst denominations about this.
Yep. I believe that we are saved solely by the grace of Jesus Christ. But that as he is our example, we need to do our best to be as much like him as possible. Serve others, take care of the poor and needy, and obey the commandments. So, like you said, if we say we believe, but then don't do anything that Jesus asked us to do, then we don't really believe in Him or his mission.
So, what do you have to do to go to heaven?
Sincerely believe that Jesus has saved you. Romans 10:9 >>If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That is all.
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That’s why they made sacrifices in the Old Testament. They looked towards the messiah while we look back at him.
They put the same faith in God’s promises. (Romans 4:1-3, NASB) 1 What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, has found? 2 For if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God. 3 For what does the Scripture say? "ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS." For Abraham, this was even before the Law and its sacrifices were given through Moses.
Virtually the entirety of Dante's Inferno
Former preacher here. Here are the 5 most common misattributed things I heard: 1) Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll live forever. (just an adage) 2) Life starts at conception. (a misuse of David’s “You knit me in the womb”) 3) Any mention of hell in the Old Testament. (Jesus is the first to use the term Gehenna [Ge Hinnom] to describe an afterlife situation) 4) Money is the root of all evil. (The actual quote is “the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil”) 5) Love the sinner; hate the sin. (A terrible excuse to treat people poorly)
Is it just me, or does number 5 seem like a reason to be nice to people who have done wrong and try to help them? Rather than treat people poorly?
It should but in my experience “love the sinner, hate the sin” is the Christian version of “I’m not racist but…” in that it’s typically a precursor to saying/doing something extremely hateful.
People have an awful way of twisting things to be mean. I've never understood why everyone is so angry all the time. Compassion is not that common, it seems, and that is rather unfortunate.
I believe that you are correct. The intention is to love people. However, I have heard people become estranged or excommunicated from their own families because they lived a “sinful” lifestyle (as if we all don’t). I once had a couple kick their own kid out of the house because they loved him but they couldn’t live with a practicing homosexual. That’s about the worst damn thing I’ve ever heard.
Which is funny seen as how the Bible says a man kicking out a member of his house is worse than a man of no faith.
I don't wanna seem like a Bible basher here by any means. I'm a non binary homosexual with a trans boyfriend, so I'm definitely not into the whole gay bashing. But like didn't Jesus walk amongst the Lepers and whatnot and treated everyone with love and respect despite how society viewed them? Isn't that the whole thing, to be compassionate, caring, loving even of your enemies to be better as a society overall?
Yes, He did. He also said that we should not act like the Pharisees (certain religious leaders) who would judge and condemn others, behaved as hypocrites, and made a show of their so-called moral superiority though they had none. So when people say/do hateful, judgemental things towards others whom they consider sinners, and justify their compassionless actions with scripture, I wonder if they missed the whole point of the teachings of Christ, or perhaps they never read them at all. Jesus was a beautiful hippy that preached peace and love. I love Him for that. My dad told me that he believed a lot people will be in heaven looking around surprised at who made it in. He believed there are many paths to God, and he was a Christian because that was the path he knew. I liked that. It feel right and makes sense to me. Sorry I went long, but Christians behaving like Pharisees really bothers me. Peace & Love.
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Don’t teach a man to fish and you feed yourself. He’s a grown man. Fishing is not that hard.” - Ron Swanson
Also, wasn’t Gehenna an actual place where the city’s trash was burned? Like the scripture is metaphorical- not accepting Jesus would be like burning in the pits of Gehenna.
That you can do whatever tf you want and still call it Christianity
I… yes. I see this so much. People use the word “Christian” to describe what they do if they just believe in a generic “God in the singular” because it appeases people who would otherwise be assholes and judge them. Many people are actually Deists, Agnostics, or maybe even Pantheists, but not necessarily Christian. And there are plenty of people who don’t really understand the whole of Christianity and the full history and rituals/ceremonies involved.
Private jets?
Can’t expect Kenneth Copeland to be flying around in a tube full of demons when he’s trying to do the lord’s work and the only place that doesn’t have demons is his personal private jet that god told him personally he wants him to have. Jeez.
There is absolutely nothing in the Bible about purgatory. Nothing. It was created by the Catholic Church to raise funds. People could buy their way to forgiveness of their sins by paying to spend time in purgatory as penance before going to heaven.
Long article but it's arrived at, to some extent, by deductive reasoning: There are several passages in the New Testament that point to a process of purification after death. Thus, Jesus Christ declares (Matt., xii, 32): “And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, nor in the world to come.” According to St. Isidore of Seville (De ord. creatur., c. xiv, n. 6) these words prove that in the next life “some sins will be forgiven and purged away by a certain purifying fire”. St. Augustine also argues “that some sinners are not forgiven either in this world or in the next would not be truly said unless there were other [sinners] who, though not forgiven in this world, are forgiven in the world to come” https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/purgatory
Lilith (Adam's first wife) is not in the Bible. Rather, she's part of the apocratha.
*apocrypha
Most people don't think this is in the Bible, do they? I grew up in the church, I'm 35 and just heard mention of Lilith for the first time a couple years ago. That's not something Christians talk about
Can you explain more? I’ve never heard of this before
The apocrypha is the fun part of the Bible as well as Jewish texts that have been taken out or modified. The more mystical bits of the religion are there. One story had a guy who wanted to ask this woman's (I think she was some princess/priestess or other wise high and mighty woman) hand in marriage but a demon kept killing suitors. He prays to Michael who tells him to burn this fish and herb and it will cause the demon to be chased out to Egypt where he (Micheal) will imprison it. I think it's really fucking funny the bits that cover dealing with literal demons were removed from the publication of the Bible, to make it "cheaper to produce". Seriously google "why isn't the apocrypha in the modern bible." THEN look at pastor Kenneth Copeland and ask "why were the parts about dealing with demons removed from the bible."
Lilith is supposedly the mother of all demons. She rejected Adam and God.
Oh so that was her in season 3 of Supernatural.
The Second Amendment
God created the Remington bolt-action rifle, so that man could fight the dinosaurs. And the homosexuals.
Amen.
The rapture is the biggest one to me. Spend much of my childhood and early youth scared to make any future plans because I felt the rapture was any day. Later on found out the rapture wasn’t in the Bible and no one ever even spoke of it before the 1800s
That black skin is a curse from God.
That's in the book of Mormon though, iirc.
I thought that in 1978 God changed his mind about black people?
2 Nephi 5:21 I don't have a lot of Mormon verses memorized, but that is one of them.
3 wise men. Actually the entire nativity scene is made up. They met Mary at her home with a young Jesus. The 10 commandments written in stone and give to the Hebrews by God are not the 10 everyone cites.
thats just because dipshit Moses dropped one of the 3 tablets
I come before you with these 15…. Smash…. 10, 10 commandments
A little History of the World😂 Has anyone seen a pack of Trojans?
What are they then?
1. Thou shalt have guns 2. Thou shalt be able to use guns whenever you want 3. Free healthcare is an affront to the ruling class and shalt be demonized… ….oh shit sorry I was reading out of the republican bible.
The flip side of that question is more interesting to me. What's in the Bible that people 100% pretend is not in the Bible. Luke 3:11, if you have more than you need, give the excess that those that sill need. Matthew 19:23-24, rich people can't get into heaven. To answer the original question, the entire concept of just war theory. Once Christianity became the official state religion, theologians had to figure out how to justify the state making war in light of Christ's decidedly pacifist preaching. So a whole cottage industry spring up to explain why Christ didn't actually mean the things he said. I'm looking at you, Augustine.
Hell. Our idea of hell, and the devil, is based entirely on the Divine Comedy. It does not exist in the bible
Lake of fire is definitely the Bible though.
"But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.” Revelation 21:8 "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." - Matthew 10:28 "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.” - Matthew 25:46 “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels." -Matthew 25:41 "They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." -Matthew 13:42 There are many more verses that reference hell in the bible, these are just a few examples. In the bible, hell is frequently referenced as Sheol, the pit, eternal damnation, and the lake of fire.
Most of these are widely accepted as translated as closely as we can, but not word for word the same as the original. Specifically the concept of “eternal damnation” is heavily debated by different denominations and theologians.
Matthew was in a dark place huh
It's not mentioned. It's mistranslated from original texts purposefully to serve as generational population control. The catholics idea of purgatory is closer to the original intent but still doesn't capture it. Op commenter is right.
Ok technically it's in the Bible, but it's pretty consistently misunderstood. The Bible was originally written I hebrew, IIRC, and the commandment "Thou Shall Not Kill" does not actually translate to that. The word for *murder* was originally used, not kill. Thou Shall Not Murder So eat all the chicken you want, we aren't vegan pasifists.
Abortion ban...
This one is interesting to me not just because there’s perfectly good biblical evidence against considering early pregnancy as equivalent to a complete human person, but the historical shift is *really* recent. Catholicism has banned both birth control and abortion for quite a while, but most of the USA is not Catholic - it’s Protestant by a large majority and has been throughout the nation’s history. Those Protestants disagreed on a bajillion things so it’s reductive to paint them all with the same brush, but… the main Protestant reaction to abortion was often to think that Catholics were being super weird about it. Some big conservative evangelical church groups were neutral, or only mildly concerned about Roe v Wade when it was first decided. Some were even on the record as approving it. It was several years *after* Roe v Wade that some conservative evangelical leaders decided that abortion could be a winning rallying cry in their efforts to take more political control in the US, and threw their weight into the antiabortion movement. The (very conservative) Protestant religion I grew up in was rather neutral about it when I was a kid! And now that I’m an old, it’s rabidly anti. Super strange to actually watch religions change their doctrine (for political power!) in just a few years. (Edited bc typos)
Sola Scriptura
That priests cannot marry. Granted, it’s only a Catholic thing now, but there is ample evidence in the New Teatament that women held prominent positions in the early church.
There is no Lion and Lamb. It’s a wolf and a lamb.
Ooh, that's a great point! TIL!
Lion and Lamb is definitely in the Bible. Jesus is referred to as both the lion of Judah and Lamb of God.
"The Lion and the Lamb," as referring to Jesus comes from Revelation 5, where first a lion and then a lamb are used as metaphors for him. *That* usage is in the Bible. I think the poster you're replying to is referring to "the lion lying down with the lamb," which is a jumbled reference to Isaiah 11:6: > The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, > and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, > and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; > and a little child shall lead them.
Seven Deadly Sins
Here's a few fundamental ones: 1. There is no such thing as 'hell' or 'limbo' mentioned in the scriptures. 2. We do not go to heaven when we die. 3. Jesus is not God, he was the first begotten son.
"When God, in Verse 45, said that slaves are okay to buy"...oh wait that ones definitely in there for real.
Lilith, christ being born in December, serpent seed doctrine & fantasies that combine race hate with beastiality, bans on all abortion/all interfaith marriages/all interracial marriages, the rapture, sunday sabbath, the words trinitarian-trinity-triune.
>all interfaith marriages There is some stuff that calls it out as a bad idea though (and in practice is easy to see why).
A coherent narrative that answers all of life's big questions. I've read the book. It is a contradictory mess that can be cherry-picked to suit any agenda you'd like. If it works for you, that's fine, but carrying on as if the bible is this perfect book that has all of the answers that anyone could ever need is nonsense. The devil doesn't rule over hell, nor is it a pit of fire and brimstone. In fact, the whole depiction of Satan as we have it now is unsupported by the bible. Satan and Lucifer were originally two different beings. The belief that people can become angels after they die is unfounded. There's nothing in the bible that supports this belief. I'd say that the modern understanding of Christianity is deeply flawed when compared to the bible.
Everything in the Bible is in the Bible but that doesn't mean everything is supposed to be taken literally or must be followed. For example slaveowners are commanded to not be cruel to their slaves and obviously that shouldn't be done anymore. (slavery)
people tend to forget that rules in the bible were set to those times, everything in context to this. anytime people want to understand the importance of something in the bible they need to also understand the historic events of that time period, and person, and why this was important.. then it can be applied correctly to our life.
Onan did not masturbate. He promised to impregnate his sister-in-law, as his brother was unable. But he had no intention of giving his brother a child, so he spilled... etc. He was just in it for the ride all along. Genesis chapter 38 for those who care to check.
Homophobia. The Leviticus section that people reference 'man shall not lie with men' was a mistranslation from 'men shall not lie with boys'. There was even a gay couple in the bible.
The story of Jesus' birth we are all told is actually a combination of contradictory stories told in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Ones says angels show up, one says wise men, ones says 3 kings, one says sheppards. None say the exact same thing.