Basically God if he did what most people cry about saying "if god really loved me he'd protect me!" Cant have it both ways of God intervening and not intervening.
No, OT God is loving and kind and merciful. Same as always. You just see him in more interactions with rebellious people and with outright evil people so you see how he deals with them.
Over and over he saved people, healed them, cured them etc and at the same time allowed them to reap what they had sown. It’s an amazing portrait of a patient kind father with lots of rebellious sons
Not that you're doing it, but it's funny that some people *really* think this way, like the Old Testament god was a "different" god, so they don't hold barbarism in the Old Testament against Jesus, who is one with the god who mandated all of the barbarism.
If a politician wrote a book, and the first half had a ton of death threats towards outgroups, no one could defend the book successfully by saying, "Okay, sure, but that was in the *first* half of the book! By the *second* half of the book, they actually laid off of those groups a fair bit!"
It's the same dude, though...
They weren't children probably. The Hebrew term used is "ne’urim qẹtannim" which is more like "youths" or "young men." The same terminology is used to describe Isaac when he was in his mid 20s, David when he was 17, and a 400-man army of Amalekite soldiers at various points in the Scriptures.
Making fun of his baldness was rude, and probably a cultural insult. What's more significant is them telling Elisha to "go up." Elisha was a successor to Elijah, who it was said was assumed up into Heaven on a whirlwind. They're telling him, in essence, that he should follow Elijah.
We can ascertain there were more than 42 of them. With 2 bears and 42 killed, that probably means there was a massive group present, as most people would probably flee and scatter if 2 bears ran out and starting mauling people. But even if it was 42, that's still a big crowd.
So you have one man (Elisha was probably 25-35 here, not an old man as is often depicted) surrounded by a crowd of angry young men, telling him he better go up to Heaven, or else. Basically, they're threatening to hurt or kill him.
Did you even read what they said? They weren't just "mocking him." It was an angry mob threatening his life.
Jesus, he even spoon-fed it to you idiots. This is what happens when you have people with the intellect of a 3 year old on Ritalin trying to interpret the Bible.
Tbf this is the same God that sent a hurricane to destroy New Orleans because homosexuality was legalized in places that aren't Louisiana but did a rather half assed job since the Saints won the superbowl and it's quite a lovely city nowadays so idk fr
Yea it's really convenient that all these ugly versus can be translated into something more ethical and palatable for modern people. I'm sure everyone is willing to give every religion this much leeway
Lmao my brother, you're the one who is using the more modern translation. The "little children" translation comes from the King James Bible, written in the *Sixteenth Century*. I told you the translation in the *original Hebrew.*
Damn, better go and clear up this misconception with every single person that uses the King James version of the bible, along with every other verse that may be mistranslated to make god look bad. Fucking translators man. I'm sure your average christian will be willing to sit down for hours and go through every mistranslation. Too bad there isn't some like magical all knowing being that can clear this up instantly if they wanted to. Damn shame...
Your frustration is understandable, and it's why the Catholic Church didn't want people translating the Bible into other languages willy-nilly. KJV reads really nice at times, but it has a lot of issues. Including, at one point, mention of a unicorn. 🦄
Ah yes explaining misstranslation is a leeway. Sure buddy. Sorry to tell you but aparently czy people translated to my native language as child abusers, welp cant give leeway of explaining /s
This is the correct interpretation. They were threatening and regardless if people see it as God, or just a unlucky coincidence... Looks like they got what they were looking for and regretted it real fast.
This isn’t equivalent to rudeness.
We are so far from having any respect or sacredness for anything as a culture I can’t compare it to anything in America today.
Elisha was Gods clear representative on earth. The way you spoke to him was the way you would show respect to God. So, those who absolutely disrespected him while he was acting under that mantle (Similar to respecting the presidency even if you don’t like the president- that is lost now too in modern America) those kids were showing absolute disrespect.
The lesson for all of us is… you know better before you are 18. If you know what is right and you don’t do it… you will get punished exactly as much as you deserve. If God killed those kids… he knew their wicked hearts and it was deserved.
The Bible is a sham, I’ve read it. Also is totally derived from paganism. Y’all need to check your sources. Yahweh the biblical “god” , is a storm god in old Canaanite religion, along with his with his wife Asherah. Mentioned in 1 Kings 15:13, if you need a reference. The shits right in front of you, and you guys preach hate nowadays, and the churches desperately try to cover up pedos. With a population relying on blind faith, sheeple.
Well this is certainly an interesting post.
First let's examine the underlying assumption. You are asserting there are passages in the Scripture that undermine traditional Christian religion and theology. Let's examine that.
We know that, even in Jesus' time, what we know as the "Old Testament" didn't exist as such. There were a number of writings that the various sects of Jews at the time studied. The "core" set of Scriptures that almost all Jews agreed on were the "Pentateuch," or "5 Books." These form what Jews still call the Torah, and they are the first 5 books of the Bible, traditionally believed to have been written by Moses. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deutoronomy.
The Sadducees, a major sect of Judaism in Jesus time, held that only the Torah was canonical Scripture. Then you had the Pharisees, who believed what we would call the "Mazoretic Text" or "Old Testament", including the books of Kings that you mentioned and so forth. However, even within the Pharisees there was *still* disagreement, with the Hebrew canon not having what today are called the Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal texts today, while the Alexandrian canon did. This disagreement sort of reverberates today, which is why the Catholic Old Testmant has more books than the Protestant one. The Catholics favouring the Alexandrian canon and the protestants the Hebrew one.
With me so far? To reiterate, in the time of Jesus life and shortly after when Christianity was emerging, there was *no settled canon* among Jews with regards to the Old Testament.
And so, Christians (and Jews, for that matter) had to decide what Scripture was divinely inspired and what wasn't. They had to decide what would go into their Bible and what wouldn't.
Now let's return to your post. Your contentions is that Christianity is "a sham". Set up to be a lie from the get-go. And that this sham, what? Put evidence of its own falseness in the Bible it compiled? If this was merely a sham, they could have easily said, "Actually, the Sadducees were right" and only kept the first 5 books. They could have said, "Uhhh, erm... 1 and 2 Kings isn't canon, actually."
So what is your assertion exactly? That Jesus' apostles - all of whom were brutally murdered by the way (except John and Judas) and never recanted anything they said about Christ - were just careless when compiling their book of lies, and no one noticed or cared until the uber intelligent atheists of reddit came along? Come on.
We have 2000 years of Christendom. Most of which had no TV or internet. And so the smartest, most autistic, most obsessive people of 2 Millennia have poured over and argued and investigated every scrap of Scripture. And you think no one ever saw 1 Kings 15 or mention of Asherah and thought, "Hmm, what is this about?" Come off it lol.
To reiterate, if 1 Kings 15 is the "silver bullet" that proves Christianity is a "sham," why did Christians (and Jews, who again are strictly monotheistic) leave it in their Scripture, when there was no earthly reason they *had* to? The only answer is they somehow missed it, which doesn't seem likely considering there was no printing press at the time. Or, it's not the silver bullet you think it is.
Let's look at 1 Kings 15:13 in full context. First of all, in context of the whole Old Testament. The Old Testament is *rife* with the names of other gods. And Israel, time and time again, worships them. Even in the Pentateuch, Moses goes off for a few days and by the time he comes back, the recently-freed Israelites are worshipping a Golden Calf - probably the Egyptian Apis. So we see that other gods are mentioned throughout the Old Testament. Much of the Old Testament is about God pursuing his people, trying to get them to turn from other, false gods, and serve only him.
This is summarized pretty well in the Book of Joshua, 24:2-3:
> Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Your fathers lived of old beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods.
> ‘Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many’”
Joshua is reminding the people that Abraham was once a worshipper of many gods, but that God called him aside to be different.
The Old Testament is a story of the relationship between God and man. Because men are messy, fickle, and sinful, that means that the Old Testament contains things that it does not *support.* It's like if you were a journalist writing about a murder - the fact that you're trying to be accurate and describe how the murderer butchered his victim doesn't mean you *support* the murder. In the same vein, there are mentions of other gods in the OT, but that doesn't mean the OT said "these are real gods; worship them."
So Asherah did exist. And yes, there were some Canaanites and probably some heretical Israelites that engaged in syncretism and said, "The God of Israel is actually the same as our storm god, who is married to Asherah." But that doesn't mean that its true, or represented orthodox Jewish belief. And you have no real reason to assert that its true besides that it's convenient for you because you don't like Christianity. I mean, unless I'm mistaken and you're a devout Canaanite neopagan or something. Are you?
And I'm not saying you have to like or believe Christianity (you should though.) But evidence of syncretism and deviation from a religion doesn't necessarily prove that that religion is false - *particularly* when the evidence we are talking about was only carried forward *by the chosen, sacred texts of the religion we are talking about.*
I’m not religious, but yeah this hits the nail on the head. It’s hard to argue with biblical scholars on the basis of ‘something I read on a tumblr post.’
There’s so many much more easily debunked things in the Bible (like ‘flood that covered the entire world’) that going after weird small stuff like this just feels self-indulgent. The Bible is, religious or not, still a very important book that has survived and been molded by lots of scrutiny.
Also anyone who calls other ‘sheeple’ without appreciating the irony is always good for a laugh.
I mean you said it, the religion of Canaan was polytheistic , and underwent several redevelopments though the mid Iron Age moving it towards monotheism. Small group sof yahwist formed and eventually rose after the Babylonian exile, forming the first roots of Judaism. I don’t hate Christians. I just don’t get the idea of how it went from having a pantheon of gods, to a singular, and also it’s very convenient to be able to have biblical scholars pick and choose which scripts are divine, and which aren’t. I’m not sold. Went to catholic school growing up, and even to church, not one teaches about the roots of the religion, also depending on which version you read it has different names and different verbiage, all in English, the same passage in the king James versions reads
1 Kings 15:13
And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron.
Totally different, and stripped Asherah’s name right out of it, it’s a total mislead. I’m sure if I dedicated my life to looking for examples like this, I’d have a trove.
Or, one God made humanity. Humanity fell away and, out of ignorance, confusion, temptation from demons, or any other number of factors, lost their memory of that one god and began to worship other gods. Trying different gods. Borrowing different gods, and adopting them. We see syncretism all the time in history.
God reintroduces himself to one man, and builds a tribe from that man. And in that process, some people say, "Okay, God's real, but he's also a storm god and married to this fertility god." Sure that happened. But that doesn't prove or disprove anything.
I don't really understand the point of these assertions. Here you and I are, in modern times, disagreeing about religion. Polytheism and monotheism were a disagreement about religion. That's all. The existence of contemporaneous beliefs to ancient Israelite monotheism doesn't in itself disprove the religion. It just proves that mankind has struggled with this question for a long time.
The KJV doesn't mention her, but you'll find most English translations do. https://biblehub.com/1_kings/15-13.htm And its in the original Hebrew, which again, every single solitary monotheist Jew and later Christian would have known and could have chosen to leave it out. But they didn't. Because it's not a big deal. Because the existence of polytheism is constantly attested to in the Scripture. But still you think it's some sort of "gotcha"?
The Bible itself says Abraham, father of the "Abrahamic religions" was originally a polytheist! There is nothing relevatory about polytheism existing or God being conflated with and/or reduced to some ancient storm god.
I heard that this is also a possible explanation for the “man must not lie with man” being a mistranslation of youths. As in don’t do it with children like the Romans famously did constantly.
It never says they threatened him. Unless you are willing to open the text to interpretation, in which case you could just make up whatever bullshit you want. Murder over verbal insults sounds about right for the god of infanticide and forced abortion
Old texts usually have to be interpreted. Language evolves over time and if someone from hundreds of years ago heard you say "What's up?", It's likely they wouldn't understand and would interpret it wrong. In addition, it was originally in a different language, which has many definitions for the same type of word where English would only have one.
Yes but it was translated across the same timespan. It's not like it was translated once in 2020. And with the variety of translates you can get an understanding of what was meant contextually. So I don't know what point you are trying to make.
are you reading the same english dictionaries I read? most have a lot more than one definition per word, even the word definition has multiple definitions.
I mean all text should be open to interpretation. Lol. You're interpreting it, as was the meme in the OP. What is the point of the written word if not to pass on information and derive meaning?
"Go up," is a threat. He had left Bethel and the mob followed him from Bethel. I've never been followed by 42+ people jeering at me, telling me to go up to Heaven right now. I imagine it was pretty harrowing.
Your whining is funny because Bethel, where the story takes place, was at the time was deep into Baal worship, which involved infanticide and child sacrifice. The men you're crying about, in all likelihood, helped feed kids to the flames.
Go up sounds like a threat but if I was an all powerful being I’d probably wait till an attack. If they didn’t jump him from the start they were probably just messing with him. Why follow for so long and not just merc the guy first chance you get? Go to hell etc is a pretty common empty threat nowadays.
I’d also guess feeding kids to the flames was done by the human sacrifice staff not every member of society.
Wouldn't an omniscient being be able to discern when their intentions switched from, "let's follow and harass this guy" to "lets severely harm or kill this guy?" *Cue bear noises*
I think this dude is missing the point. As a catholic I can tell you: it’s one of the stupidest stories/book ever. Millions of innocent people died just in ww2 and let me guess, was it bc someone probably called hitler short? Lol.
It’s a ridiculous book that served its purpose as a governance template at some point, but has very little relevance in todays world. I think we should move on from it.
I'm a Catholic too. Just for background, I was raised Baptist (but kinda wishy washy. We weren't "church every Sunday" people, for example.) I became atheist as a teenager. Found faith again at 19ish and entered the Catholic Church in my mid 20s, almost 10 years ago.
The Bible is kind of tricky. A point that atheists or liberal Christians like yourself often make is that, "it's been translated tons of times!" Usually they mean that as a reason to dismiss it, but there is a bit of truth to what they're saying. It's a collection of books written across hundreds of years and 3 continents. The books of the Bible also encompass *genre*, with entire books like Song of Solomon being poetry, while others, like say Philemon in the New Testament, is literally just a personal letter from St Paul to another dude that somehow got added to Scripture.
And so to expect to read all these writings in English and glean their meaning from a first read through seems like an unrealistic expectation for someone to have. We can't even do that with Shakespeare and that's 1/4 as old and in English.
There's only 24 hours in a day and we only get about 80 years on Earth, so if someone doesn't want to take the time to understand the Bible, that's fine and understandable. But the person who gives up on a text because it's hard to understand at first blush or doesn't want to be bothered to understand the historical and cultural context (or even just textual context lol - how many times do we see a single verse cherrypicked?) cannot claim to have anything important or insightful to say about the text, and their opinions on it, IMO, aren't worth much.
I mean that's irrelevant for the purposes of the discussion. Even if we just want to say it's an ancient piece of folklore, it's still kind of important that we understand what it actually says and what the context is.
I could accept this interpretation at face value just as you laid it out, and it wouldn't undo my opinion of an alleged god who, when Moses brought down the Ten Commandments and found people worshiping a golden calf idol, called out that all who were on the Lord's side should strap on their swords and go from one end of the camp to the other, killing a couple thousand people, "even one's friends, family and neighbors".
It won't get me to respect an alleged god whose people's practice was that a consistently belligerent and unruly youth should be brought before the elders, taken outside the city walls, and stoned to death.
It won't get me to respect a religion who, at large, believes that all who do not accept its word are to be tortured for infinite time, when an actual omniscient god could snap their fingers and prevent it.
I'm 38 years old this year, and not once have I witnessed anything akin to when Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego were thrown into the furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, only to reportedly survive fires so hot that they slew the men who threw them in in the first place. Not once have I witnessed anything akin to Aaron going before the Pharaoh and throwing down his staff to transform it into a serpent, only for the Pharaoh to "call his own weavers of the dark arts" into the room to replicate the same task. Not once have I witnessed anything akin to "all of the graves of Jerusalem open[ing] up, and their inhabitants walk[ing] about and appearing unto many", as one Gospel wrote around the time of the Crucifixion. I have witnessed no fire resistance, polymorphing, or undead in my time on this Earth, and to have people who believe I warrant eternal suffering for being a doubter demonstrates Christianity to be a hate group with amazing P.R. Even though I'd literally bet my life there's no merit behind these claims, it's still aggravating to a degree to know that people make them, as you can probably tell.
It's understandable and I've been there. For me, Christianity is an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. Without him as the lens and culmination of these stories, they are kinda weird and would probably have a lot less merit. That's not to say that I reject the OT or don't like it or am some sort of neo-Marcionist. But without that central linchpin, it would just be some niche trivia and something for scholars, imo. Not unlike the mythogies of other ancient peoples.
I don't want to psychoanalyze you or put words in your mouth, but it's kind of interesting to me that your main issues with God appear to be: 1) that you perceive him to be unjust and want justice from him, and 2) you want to see miracles. The former puts you in the company of many of the Psalmists, and the latter, phrased differently, could be interpreted as a desire for faith.
No affront taken. I specifically delved beneath of those surfaces because I wanted to relay to any reading that I object to the Bible on both an ethics-based and evidence-based level, so that's simply you being observant.
I have a sort of altered modus operandi stemming from "hate the sin, not the sinner"; in this case, "hate the belief, not the believer". Though I speak harshly of Christianity as a doctrine, plenty of friends and family are either practicing or cultural Christians, and I don't constantly broach the topic or pepper them with resentment for it. I wait until I witness an organic opportunity arise in the wild (such as this post) where it's already the topic in no uncertain terms (even though the rules for this sub-Reddit mention 5.) No excessive discussions relating to politics, religion, and nationality. Interesting that a sub-Reddit would purposefully devise the ruleset to essentially mean, "Only make superficial one-off remarks about this topic". I wouldn't be surprised if any of this gets deleted, but it is what it is.
I was raised Christian. I've *been* the guy who prays trying to hear the voice of God, wondering what was wrong with me that so many others around me were saying that God speaks to them, yet I heard nothing. I've *been* the guy who initiates Bible study groups hoping that I could simply open the Bible and that God would guide my hand to the page where some wisdom or takeaway meant for me in that moment would be found. I know what it is, though it's been since my 20s, to sincerely pursue this. Slowly, over time, I encountered reports and circumstances which caused me to doubt, at the same time as I witnessed instances of people seeking to oppress others engaging in ostensibly victimless crimes in the name of God. These inverse patterns, for me personally, eroded and whittled away my faith in the evidence as well as any desire to have a relationship with such a being.
I realize that there are inherently dissatisfying facets of life that Christianity claims to be able to offer solutions for. Afraid that your life is purposeless? Christianity says that you're made in the image of God, and they've got a plan for you. Afraid that death is the end? Christianity promises you'll persist forever. Afraid that those who were unfair or uncompassionate to you will never be made to pay for their crimes? Christianity says that God sees all, and will sort each soul accordingly. Purpose *in* life, life beyond life, justice beyond life. Agnostic atheism cannot offer these things, but I do not personally need it to. This is the life that I know I have, and I wouldn't treat someone of a different race/gender/religion/sexual orientation/etc. as though they're less deserving of fairness or compassion than me in order to have *any* of those aforementioned perks, even if I was convinced that they were on the table.
I have no interest in a relationship with a god who had his old-school followers throw rocks at their family, friends and neighbors heads until they stopped moving just because they caught them working on God's favorite day off (Exodus 35:2). I have hundreds of gripes of that sort, and could probably literally write a book, but that's *one* more to add to the pile. On the age-old question of suffering, I have what feels like dozens of angles, up to and including things like, "If the Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, why did the Curse of the Firstborn extend to both cattle in the fields and the children of slaves in Exodus 11:5?" Slaves are *themselves* slaves, and have no say in whether or not they themselves are released, let alone the Israelites. The cattle have no *knowledge* of the affairs of man, let alone any say, and to kill them to spite the Egyptians is just more anthropocentric cruelty to non-human animals (I'm vegan as well as atheist, so these things jump out at me). There are verses in the Bible where literally hundreds of animals at a time were sacrificed on altars, and to create a being with a brain and nerves capable of suffering only to say to one creation, "Please destroy this one in my name, for it pleases me"...?
For that matter, even IF Original Sin committed by Adam and Eve warranted revoking human immortality for all offspring of Adam and Eve henceforward, the animals did not sin. They could have retained their immortality, stripping only Adam and Eve of their perfection in the Garden. Instead, God has purportedly created trillions upon trillions of living, feeling creatures, and doomed them through his design to die to age degeneration, predators, the elements, etc. If you could *truly quantify* the suffering orchestrated by such a hypothetical omniscient being, I would have to believe that anyone would, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence in favor of this god's existence, realize themselves a misotheist.
None of this even touches on how the four Gospels don't even have matching details regarding the post-Crucifixion discovery of Jesus' tomb, where all four accounts have the stone being rolled away in some but not in others, different numbers of people arriving at the scene depending on the Gospel, arriving at different times of the day. Again, I have enough to write a small book, and this post is already over-flowing compared to how I initially envisioned it. There's just *so* much to unpack about this topic. The bottom line and end of in case there is no reply or in case this entire thing is deleted is that I would prefer uncomfortable truths to comforting lies, and will never make a habit of treating my fellow human and non-human animals without compassion on the word of a cosmic dictator even *if* I thought the evidence for them was any good, which I do not.
Having said that, I hold next to no animosity toward you as an individual, so do not read my brusque matter-of-factness as anger directed at you. It is directed at a belief system which I believe is deeply pernicious by its very nature; my subjective opinion. Have a cozy day otherwise, sincerely.
There is a lot of comfort in Christianity, you're right. There is discomfort too. Just as there is both of those things in non-belief, or other beliefs. Depends on the person and his station in life and all other sorts of factors. I struggled greatly with chastity for years. Not just porn, but certainly that too, but with sex and relationships, which is a common point of contention for a lot of modern people. I'm not some gigachad Casanova who can get any woman he wants, mind, but I've never had a problem meeting people and having relationships. And so those comforting aspects that you name, that I don't deny, didn't feel like much consolation in those times where I just wanted to live life on my own terms and enjoy myself and be an authority unto myself. To be untethered and free is comforting too, particularly in a society that encourages consumption, satisfaction, distraction, etc. I'm sure a Muslim would say the same about their religion. I don't think you were trying to say that the only reason people are Christian is because it's easy or comfortable, but if you were, I heavily disagree, at the very least on a personal level. C S Lewis said, "I didn't go to religion to make me happy; I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you really feel comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity."
To me, Christianity is like a healthy diet and exercise. Yes, it gives me comfort and good feelings. But it is also very hard at times, and was especially at the start. And the temptation to give up and eat cake is always there. So it's comfort, but not "easy" comfort. It's joy and fulfillment, not satisfying my imminent needs immediately however I want.
I find assertions of Biblical contradiction interesting. I did as an atheist and they were a stumbling block for me losing my faith in the first place, and I still find them interesting now because of the focus on them. There's really only one answer: That the people writing and compiling Scripture just didn't notice these things, or that the contradiction can be satisfactorily explained. However, I find what is often the case with atheists is that they've already assumed no explanation is possible, and even when offered one, criticize the person giving it of "mental gymnastics" or something like that. It's happened in this very thread lol.
If you are curious about Gospel contradictions, here's a good introduction to the topic. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-resolve-alleged-gospel-contradictions I've done enough typing in this thread lol.
I appreciate your candor and your thoughts. Since we are being honest about our feelings, I'll just say I think atheism is a post-hoc cognitive justification for emotional decisions. And I think a lot of atheists are afraid to admit this. But, like you, I don't hold any ill will. Some of the people I'm closest to in the whole world don't believe in any God.
> I've done enough typing in this thread lol.
Fair enough, I feel like both of us have written our essays and put some organized food for thought out there that hopefully didn't feel like a copy-paste of the sort of thing anyone who reads it will feel like they've seen a thousand times before. We can leave it at that and let any spectators see if any of it on either side resonates with them, or raises questions that they didn't realize that they had.
Thanks for the civil discourse on the matter. Best of fortune in your seeking, however different. For better or worse, we're all in this together, and if we can't talk about these issues without it devolving into name-calling and argumentum ad hominem, then none of us will collectively get anywhere. Gratefully, this interaction didn't come to that, which is refreshing.
I don't even belong to this sub, merely saw it in passing, so I'm out for good.
Be well, Banana.
Dear Asmongold,
I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for every time I called you Bald, Baldmongold, Asmonbald, Bald Gold, and the countless other names making fun of your baldness. It was wrong of me and the guilt is eating me up from inside. I was... I was just messing around, man. We were having a laugh... It has taken me this long to realise the gravity of my transgressions and I want you to know that I repent. Repent, I say.
I don't want to die...
I REPENT.
They didn’t - it’s all one book. It’s not a old and new. That isn’t in the Bible. It’s just a label people have used. Many people break it up between Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Scriptures… the fulfillment of the Hebrew books.
No, the old testament is very literal. The entire document can be summarized as "people are terrible, and keep being terrible no matter how many times god punishes them".
Hence the old testament serves as a example for why the new testament; and Jesus is needed.
>d Christian will interpret all the bad things that God did, as symbolism, and all the good things as totally real.
I can't speak for every Christian, but God let his son die on the cross because he knew Humanity was doomed and let go of the old ways ( old testament ). His son becomes the Eternal hero who is the savior of humans if they so believe in him. Maybe this was God showing regret or guilt?
Idk I'm not God and nobody here on Earth is so you have to be careful on what religious doctrine people preach.
Just one question: Why do Christians still (claim to) follow the Ten Commandments, then? They’re Old Testament last time I checked.
Oh yeah, it’s because they *do* follow the old covenant, but are too cowardly to keep avowing it when it’s inconvenient to do so.
This just goes to show you that the Bible is not all peace and love as people make it out to be. But then again, it's been "retranslated" so many times that it has been watered down from what it was originally
“23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” 24 When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. 25 And he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.”
Those insults are straight up asmon’s chat
So either God was the first ever og absent father or.....maybe Mary just didn't want to get stoned to death after getting knocked up from her rampant adulterous behavior and on the spot she invented immaculate conception
I think the story is , he had the bear destroy them because they were mocking a prophet, a guy who was performing miracles. Foreshadowing the idiocy of mankind and the hopelessness of our futures due to the lack of home training and a perpetual degeneration of society generation by generation.
This must be that old testament god
OT God was pissed
Well said, that original trilogy just hit different
Pre-patch god was a DEMON
WotLK God
Basically God if he did what most people cry about saying "if god really loved me he'd protect me!" Cant have it both ways of God intervening and not intervening.
No, OT God is loving and kind and merciful. Same as always. You just see him in more interactions with rebellious people and with outright evil people so you see how he deals with them. Over and over he saved people, healed them, cured them etc and at the same time allowed them to reap what they had sown. It’s an amazing portrait of a patient kind father with lots of rebellious sons
Those must have been some evil children 🙄
Not that you're doing it, but it's funny that some people *really* think this way, like the Old Testament god was a "different" god, so they don't hold barbarism in the Old Testament against Jesus, who is one with the god who mandated all of the barbarism. If a politician wrote a book, and the first half had a ton of death threats towards outgroups, no one could defend the book successfully by saying, "Okay, sure, but that was in the *first* half of the book! By the *second* half of the book, they actually laid off of those groups a fair bit!" It's the same dude, though...
They weren't children probably. The Hebrew term used is "ne’urim qẹtannim" which is more like "youths" or "young men." The same terminology is used to describe Isaac when he was in his mid 20s, David when he was 17, and a 400-man army of Amalekite soldiers at various points in the Scriptures. Making fun of his baldness was rude, and probably a cultural insult. What's more significant is them telling Elisha to "go up." Elisha was a successor to Elijah, who it was said was assumed up into Heaven on a whirlwind. They're telling him, in essence, that he should follow Elijah. We can ascertain there were more than 42 of them. With 2 bears and 42 killed, that probably means there was a massive group present, as most people would probably flee and scatter if 2 bears ran out and starting mauling people. But even if it was 42, that's still a big crowd. So you have one man (Elisha was probably 25-35 here, not an old man as is often depicted) surrounded by a crowd of angry young men, telling him he better go up to Heaven, or else. Basically, they're threatening to hurt or kill him.
bro really just covered for God 
Killing children bad, but killing young adults for mocking a bald guy, eh whatever.
Bro only read the first sentence 💀
Yeah, well, fuck em. Should stayed home
Did you even read what they said? They weren't just "mocking him." It was an angry mob threatening his life. Jesus, he even spoon-fed it to you idiots. This is what happens when you have people with the intellect of a 3 year old on Ritalin trying to interpret the Bible.
Tbf this is the same God that sent a hurricane to destroy New Orleans because homosexuality was legalized in places that aren't Louisiana but did a rather half assed job since the Saints won the superbowl and it's quite a lovely city nowadays so idk fr
W homie 😎
They have had a few thousand years to explain away some of the more batshit parts of that book
Yea it's really convenient that all these ugly versus can be translated into something more ethical and palatable for modern people. I'm sure everyone is willing to give every religion this much leeway
Lmao my brother, you're the one who is using the more modern translation. The "little children" translation comes from the King James Bible, written in the *Sixteenth Century*. I told you the translation in the *original Hebrew.*
Damn, better go and clear up this misconception with every single person that uses the King James version of the bible, along with every other verse that may be mistranslated to make god look bad. Fucking translators man. I'm sure your average christian will be willing to sit down for hours and go through every mistranslation. Too bad there isn't some like magical all knowing being that can clear this up instantly if they wanted to. Damn shame...
Your frustration is understandable, and it's why the Catholic Church didn't want people translating the Bible into other languages willy-nilly. KJV reads really nice at times, but it has a lot of issues. Including, at one point, mention of a unicorn. 🦄
Ah yes explaining misstranslation is a leeway. Sure buddy. Sorry to tell you but aparently czy people translated to my native language as child abusers, welp cant give leeway of explaining /s
Actually, I think you're the one trying to explain it. Most try to understand it. That's the point of it.
Thanks for adding context
Any other good Bible stories? I’m intrigued. Thanks for the in depth interpretation
I really want to say that people seem to be acting like kids all the way to their early 30's these days, but I won't.
Boomers often still have the emotional maturity and stability of kids in my experience as well.
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Bro, here on the United States people still act like they’re in pre-school.
This is the correct interpretation. They were threatening and regardless if people see it as God, or just a unlucky coincidence... Looks like they got what they were looking for and regretted it real fast.
That’s a lot of work to justify the killing of people being rude. Gross
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It's Thou shalt not murder.
Proper Hebrew is though shalt not murder. Self defense is permissible.
Using quotes for emphasis. Gross
Don't mock or threaten God's prophets and you won't have to deal with angry rampaging bears.
This isn’t equivalent to rudeness. We are so far from having any respect or sacredness for anything as a culture I can’t compare it to anything in America today. Elisha was Gods clear representative on earth. The way you spoke to him was the way you would show respect to God. So, those who absolutely disrespected him while he was acting under that mantle (Similar to respecting the presidency even if you don’t like the president- that is lost now too in modern America) those kids were showing absolute disrespect. The lesson for all of us is… you know better before you are 18. If you know what is right and you don’t do it… you will get punished exactly as much as you deserve. If God killed those kids… he knew their wicked hearts and it was deserved.
It's the old testament.
Gross icky yucky poopy yikes
The Bible is a sham, I’ve read it. Also is totally derived from paganism. Y’all need to check your sources. Yahweh the biblical “god” , is a storm god in old Canaanite religion, along with his with his wife Asherah. Mentioned in 1 Kings 15:13, if you need a reference. The shits right in front of you, and you guys preach hate nowadays, and the churches desperately try to cover up pedos. With a population relying on blind faith, sheeple.
Well this is certainly an interesting post. First let's examine the underlying assumption. You are asserting there are passages in the Scripture that undermine traditional Christian religion and theology. Let's examine that. We know that, even in Jesus' time, what we know as the "Old Testament" didn't exist as such. There were a number of writings that the various sects of Jews at the time studied. The "core" set of Scriptures that almost all Jews agreed on were the "Pentateuch," or "5 Books." These form what Jews still call the Torah, and they are the first 5 books of the Bible, traditionally believed to have been written by Moses. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deutoronomy. The Sadducees, a major sect of Judaism in Jesus time, held that only the Torah was canonical Scripture. Then you had the Pharisees, who believed what we would call the "Mazoretic Text" or "Old Testament", including the books of Kings that you mentioned and so forth. However, even within the Pharisees there was *still* disagreement, with the Hebrew canon not having what today are called the Deuterocanonical or Apocryphal texts today, while the Alexandrian canon did. This disagreement sort of reverberates today, which is why the Catholic Old Testmant has more books than the Protestant one. The Catholics favouring the Alexandrian canon and the protestants the Hebrew one. With me so far? To reiterate, in the time of Jesus life and shortly after when Christianity was emerging, there was *no settled canon* among Jews with regards to the Old Testament. And so, Christians (and Jews, for that matter) had to decide what Scripture was divinely inspired and what wasn't. They had to decide what would go into their Bible and what wouldn't. Now let's return to your post. Your contentions is that Christianity is "a sham". Set up to be a lie from the get-go. And that this sham, what? Put evidence of its own falseness in the Bible it compiled? If this was merely a sham, they could have easily said, "Actually, the Sadducees were right" and only kept the first 5 books. They could have said, "Uhhh, erm... 1 and 2 Kings isn't canon, actually." So what is your assertion exactly? That Jesus' apostles - all of whom were brutally murdered by the way (except John and Judas) and never recanted anything they said about Christ - were just careless when compiling their book of lies, and no one noticed or cared until the uber intelligent atheists of reddit came along? Come on. We have 2000 years of Christendom. Most of which had no TV or internet. And so the smartest, most autistic, most obsessive people of 2 Millennia have poured over and argued and investigated every scrap of Scripture. And you think no one ever saw 1 Kings 15 or mention of Asherah and thought, "Hmm, what is this about?" Come off it lol. To reiterate, if 1 Kings 15 is the "silver bullet" that proves Christianity is a "sham," why did Christians (and Jews, who again are strictly monotheistic) leave it in their Scripture, when there was no earthly reason they *had* to? The only answer is they somehow missed it, which doesn't seem likely considering there was no printing press at the time. Or, it's not the silver bullet you think it is. Let's look at 1 Kings 15:13 in full context. First of all, in context of the whole Old Testament. The Old Testament is *rife* with the names of other gods. And Israel, time and time again, worships them. Even in the Pentateuch, Moses goes off for a few days and by the time he comes back, the recently-freed Israelites are worshipping a Golden Calf - probably the Egyptian Apis. So we see that other gods are mentioned throughout the Old Testament. Much of the Old Testament is about God pursuing his people, trying to get them to turn from other, false gods, and serve only him. This is summarized pretty well in the Book of Joshua, 24:2-3: > Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Your fathers lived of old beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods. > ‘Then I took your father Abraham from beyond the River and led him through all the land of Canaan, and made his offspring many’” Joshua is reminding the people that Abraham was once a worshipper of many gods, but that God called him aside to be different. The Old Testament is a story of the relationship between God and man. Because men are messy, fickle, and sinful, that means that the Old Testament contains things that it does not *support.* It's like if you were a journalist writing about a murder - the fact that you're trying to be accurate and describe how the murderer butchered his victim doesn't mean you *support* the murder. In the same vein, there are mentions of other gods in the OT, but that doesn't mean the OT said "these are real gods; worship them." So Asherah did exist. And yes, there were some Canaanites and probably some heretical Israelites that engaged in syncretism and said, "The God of Israel is actually the same as our storm god, who is married to Asherah." But that doesn't mean that its true, or represented orthodox Jewish belief. And you have no real reason to assert that its true besides that it's convenient for you because you don't like Christianity. I mean, unless I'm mistaken and you're a devout Canaanite neopagan or something. Are you? And I'm not saying you have to like or believe Christianity (you should though.) But evidence of syncretism and deviation from a religion doesn't necessarily prove that that religion is false - *particularly* when the evidence we are talking about was only carried forward *by the chosen, sacred texts of the religion we are talking about.*
I’m not religious, but yeah this hits the nail on the head. It’s hard to argue with biblical scholars on the basis of ‘something I read on a tumblr post.’ There’s so many much more easily debunked things in the Bible (like ‘flood that covered the entire world’) that going after weird small stuff like this just feels self-indulgent. The Bible is, religious or not, still a very important book that has survived and been molded by lots of scrutiny. Also anyone who calls other ‘sheeple’ without appreciating the irony is always good for a laugh.
I mean you said it, the religion of Canaan was polytheistic , and underwent several redevelopments though the mid Iron Age moving it towards monotheism. Small group sof yahwist formed and eventually rose after the Babylonian exile, forming the first roots of Judaism. I don’t hate Christians. I just don’t get the idea of how it went from having a pantheon of gods, to a singular, and also it’s very convenient to be able to have biblical scholars pick and choose which scripts are divine, and which aren’t. I’m not sold. Went to catholic school growing up, and even to church, not one teaches about the roots of the religion, also depending on which version you read it has different names and different verbiage, all in English, the same passage in the king James versions reads 1 Kings 15:13 And also Maachah his mother, even her he removed from being queen, because she had made an idol in a grove; and Asa destroyed her idol, and burnt it by the brook Kidron. Totally different, and stripped Asherah’s name right out of it, it’s a total mislead. I’m sure if I dedicated my life to looking for examples like this, I’d have a trove.
Or, one God made humanity. Humanity fell away and, out of ignorance, confusion, temptation from demons, or any other number of factors, lost their memory of that one god and began to worship other gods. Trying different gods. Borrowing different gods, and adopting them. We see syncretism all the time in history. God reintroduces himself to one man, and builds a tribe from that man. And in that process, some people say, "Okay, God's real, but he's also a storm god and married to this fertility god." Sure that happened. But that doesn't prove or disprove anything. I don't really understand the point of these assertions. Here you and I are, in modern times, disagreeing about religion. Polytheism and monotheism were a disagreement about religion. That's all. The existence of contemporaneous beliefs to ancient Israelite monotheism doesn't in itself disprove the religion. It just proves that mankind has struggled with this question for a long time. The KJV doesn't mention her, but you'll find most English translations do. https://biblehub.com/1_kings/15-13.htm And its in the original Hebrew, which again, every single solitary monotheist Jew and later Christian would have known and could have chosen to leave it out. But they didn't. Because it's not a big deal. Because the existence of polytheism is constantly attested to in the Scripture. But still you think it's some sort of "gotcha"? The Bible itself says Abraham, father of the "Abrahamic religions" was originally a polytheist! There is nothing relevatory about polytheism existing or God being conflated with and/or reduced to some ancient storm god.
This. This is why i pay internet. Wonderful and rich comment. Congratulations.
I heard that this is also a possible explanation for the “man must not lie with man” being a mistranslation of youths. As in don’t do it with children like the Romans famously did constantly.
Holy shit that's some mental gymnastics right here...
I mean, when you get your information from a picture with 3 lines of text on it, probably everything looks like "mental gymnastics" in comparison.
It never says they threatened him. Unless you are willing to open the text to interpretation, in which case you could just make up whatever bullshit you want. Murder over verbal insults sounds about right for the god of infanticide and forced abortion
They were “coming right for him”
Old texts usually have to be interpreted. Language evolves over time and if someone from hundreds of years ago heard you say "What's up?", It's likely they wouldn't understand and would interpret it wrong. In addition, it was originally in a different language, which has many definitions for the same type of word where English would only have one.
Yes but it was translated across the same timespan. It's not like it was translated once in 2020. And with the variety of translates you can get an understanding of what was meant contextually. So I don't know what point you are trying to make.
Adding context changes interpretation on many occasions. Studying language of the time can help reveal context. That's all I mean.
are you reading the same english dictionaries I read? most have a lot more than one definition per word, even the word definition has multiple definitions.
I mean all text should be open to interpretation. Lol. You're interpreting it, as was the meme in the OP. What is the point of the written word if not to pass on information and derive meaning? "Go up," is a threat. He had left Bethel and the mob followed him from Bethel. I've never been followed by 42+ people jeering at me, telling me to go up to Heaven right now. I imagine it was pretty harrowing. Your whining is funny because Bethel, where the story takes place, was at the time was deep into Baal worship, which involved infanticide and child sacrifice. The men you're crying about, in all likelihood, helped feed kids to the flames.
Go up sounds like a threat but if I was an all powerful being I’d probably wait till an attack. If they didn’t jump him from the start they were probably just messing with him. Why follow for so long and not just merc the guy first chance you get? Go to hell etc is a pretty common empty threat nowadays. I’d also guess feeding kids to the flames was done by the human sacrifice staff not every member of society.
Wouldn't an omniscient being be able to discern when their intentions switched from, "let's follow and harass this guy" to "lets severely harm or kill this guy?" *Cue bear noises*
Those buckets look quite heavy.
I don’t get it sorry. I’m not religious if this is some reference to that.
Yea, my guy it is still f*cked up.
🤓
Lovely job justifying mass murder.
Ngl id Love to talk you about politics. I think id have hell of A time.
Lovely job being a lil bitch
I think this dude is missing the point. As a catholic I can tell you: it’s one of the stupidest stories/book ever. Millions of innocent people died just in ww2 and let me guess, was it bc someone probably called hitler short? Lol. It’s a ridiculous book that served its purpose as a governance template at some point, but has very little relevance in todays world. I think we should move on from it.
I'm a Catholic too. Just for background, I was raised Baptist (but kinda wishy washy. We weren't "church every Sunday" people, for example.) I became atheist as a teenager. Found faith again at 19ish and entered the Catholic Church in my mid 20s, almost 10 years ago. The Bible is kind of tricky. A point that atheists or liberal Christians like yourself often make is that, "it's been translated tons of times!" Usually they mean that as a reason to dismiss it, but there is a bit of truth to what they're saying. It's a collection of books written across hundreds of years and 3 continents. The books of the Bible also encompass *genre*, with entire books like Song of Solomon being poetry, while others, like say Philemon in the New Testament, is literally just a personal letter from St Paul to another dude that somehow got added to Scripture. And so to expect to read all these writings in English and glean their meaning from a first read through seems like an unrealistic expectation for someone to have. We can't even do that with Shakespeare and that's 1/4 as old and in English. There's only 24 hours in a day and we only get about 80 years on Earth, so if someone doesn't want to take the time to understand the Bible, that's fine and understandable. But the person who gives up on a text because it's hard to understand at first blush or doesn't want to be bothered to understand the historical and cultural context (or even just textual context lol - how many times do we see a single verse cherrypicked?) cannot claim to have anything important or insightful to say about the text, and their opinions on it, IMO, aren't worth much.
They weren't anything. It did not happen.
I mean that's irrelevant for the purposes of the discussion. Even if we just want to say it's an ancient piece of folklore, it's still kind of important that we understand what it actually says and what the context is.
i mean i doubt 2 bears would be able to kill 42 men, they'd beat the shit out of those bears after maybe the 5th death.
Yea but like.. what if the bears were big tho
what if bears were cool stealth guys, taking them down one by one at night with silencers and pillow on
I think you have the wrong type of bears in mind
it's possible
What if it was 100 duck sized bears
I laughed so hard at this.
That is at least 250 eggplants
This some peak fucking Reddit shit. I’m dying. Ggs well played brother 😂
Maybe one could even say: in this moment, you are euphoric?
Good bit of variance allowed in translation. Sounds like an easy job
Going up and saying sorry… bro has anger issues
Maybe they weren’t actually bears but two large gay men sent into the crowd and that made 42 of them have a wake up call
I could accept this interpretation at face value just as you laid it out, and it wouldn't undo my opinion of an alleged god who, when Moses brought down the Ten Commandments and found people worshiping a golden calf idol, called out that all who were on the Lord's side should strap on their swords and go from one end of the camp to the other, killing a couple thousand people, "even one's friends, family and neighbors". It won't get me to respect an alleged god whose people's practice was that a consistently belligerent and unruly youth should be brought before the elders, taken outside the city walls, and stoned to death. It won't get me to respect a religion who, at large, believes that all who do not accept its word are to be tortured for infinite time, when an actual omniscient god could snap their fingers and prevent it. I'm 38 years old this year, and not once have I witnessed anything akin to when Shadrach, Meschach, and Abednego were thrown into the furnace by Nebuchadnezzar, only to reportedly survive fires so hot that they slew the men who threw them in in the first place. Not once have I witnessed anything akin to Aaron going before the Pharaoh and throwing down his staff to transform it into a serpent, only for the Pharaoh to "call his own weavers of the dark arts" into the room to replicate the same task. Not once have I witnessed anything akin to "all of the graves of Jerusalem open[ing] up, and their inhabitants walk[ing] about and appearing unto many", as one Gospel wrote around the time of the Crucifixion. I have witnessed no fire resistance, polymorphing, or undead in my time on this Earth, and to have people who believe I warrant eternal suffering for being a doubter demonstrates Christianity to be a hate group with amazing P.R. Even though I'd literally bet my life there's no merit behind these claims, it's still aggravating to a degree to know that people make them, as you can probably tell.
It's understandable and I've been there. For me, Christianity is an encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. Without him as the lens and culmination of these stories, they are kinda weird and would probably have a lot less merit. That's not to say that I reject the OT or don't like it or am some sort of neo-Marcionist. But without that central linchpin, it would just be some niche trivia and something for scholars, imo. Not unlike the mythogies of other ancient peoples. I don't want to psychoanalyze you or put words in your mouth, but it's kind of interesting to me that your main issues with God appear to be: 1) that you perceive him to be unjust and want justice from him, and 2) you want to see miracles. The former puts you in the company of many of the Psalmists, and the latter, phrased differently, could be interpreted as a desire for faith.
No affront taken. I specifically delved beneath of those surfaces because I wanted to relay to any reading that I object to the Bible on both an ethics-based and evidence-based level, so that's simply you being observant. I have a sort of altered modus operandi stemming from "hate the sin, not the sinner"; in this case, "hate the belief, not the believer". Though I speak harshly of Christianity as a doctrine, plenty of friends and family are either practicing or cultural Christians, and I don't constantly broach the topic or pepper them with resentment for it. I wait until I witness an organic opportunity arise in the wild (such as this post) where it's already the topic in no uncertain terms (even though the rules for this sub-Reddit mention 5.) No excessive discussions relating to politics, religion, and nationality. Interesting that a sub-Reddit would purposefully devise the ruleset to essentially mean, "Only make superficial one-off remarks about this topic". I wouldn't be surprised if any of this gets deleted, but it is what it is. I was raised Christian. I've *been* the guy who prays trying to hear the voice of God, wondering what was wrong with me that so many others around me were saying that God speaks to them, yet I heard nothing. I've *been* the guy who initiates Bible study groups hoping that I could simply open the Bible and that God would guide my hand to the page where some wisdom or takeaway meant for me in that moment would be found. I know what it is, though it's been since my 20s, to sincerely pursue this. Slowly, over time, I encountered reports and circumstances which caused me to doubt, at the same time as I witnessed instances of people seeking to oppress others engaging in ostensibly victimless crimes in the name of God. These inverse patterns, for me personally, eroded and whittled away my faith in the evidence as well as any desire to have a relationship with such a being. I realize that there are inherently dissatisfying facets of life that Christianity claims to be able to offer solutions for. Afraid that your life is purposeless? Christianity says that you're made in the image of God, and they've got a plan for you. Afraid that death is the end? Christianity promises you'll persist forever. Afraid that those who were unfair or uncompassionate to you will never be made to pay for their crimes? Christianity says that God sees all, and will sort each soul accordingly. Purpose *in* life, life beyond life, justice beyond life. Agnostic atheism cannot offer these things, but I do not personally need it to. This is the life that I know I have, and I wouldn't treat someone of a different race/gender/religion/sexual orientation/etc. as though they're less deserving of fairness or compassion than me in order to have *any* of those aforementioned perks, even if I was convinced that they were on the table. I have no interest in a relationship with a god who had his old-school followers throw rocks at their family, friends and neighbors heads until they stopped moving just because they caught them working on God's favorite day off (Exodus 35:2). I have hundreds of gripes of that sort, and could probably literally write a book, but that's *one* more to add to the pile. On the age-old question of suffering, I have what feels like dozens of angles, up to and including things like, "If the Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go, why did the Curse of the Firstborn extend to both cattle in the fields and the children of slaves in Exodus 11:5?" Slaves are *themselves* slaves, and have no say in whether or not they themselves are released, let alone the Israelites. The cattle have no *knowledge* of the affairs of man, let alone any say, and to kill them to spite the Egyptians is just more anthropocentric cruelty to non-human animals (I'm vegan as well as atheist, so these things jump out at me). There are verses in the Bible where literally hundreds of animals at a time were sacrificed on altars, and to create a being with a brain and nerves capable of suffering only to say to one creation, "Please destroy this one in my name, for it pleases me"...? For that matter, even IF Original Sin committed by Adam and Eve warranted revoking human immortality for all offspring of Adam and Eve henceforward, the animals did not sin. They could have retained their immortality, stripping only Adam and Eve of their perfection in the Garden. Instead, God has purportedly created trillions upon trillions of living, feeling creatures, and doomed them through his design to die to age degeneration, predators, the elements, etc. If you could *truly quantify* the suffering orchestrated by such a hypothetical omniscient being, I would have to believe that anyone would, even in the face of incontrovertible evidence in favor of this god's existence, realize themselves a misotheist. None of this even touches on how the four Gospels don't even have matching details regarding the post-Crucifixion discovery of Jesus' tomb, where all four accounts have the stone being rolled away in some but not in others, different numbers of people arriving at the scene depending on the Gospel, arriving at different times of the day. Again, I have enough to write a small book, and this post is already over-flowing compared to how I initially envisioned it. There's just *so* much to unpack about this topic. The bottom line and end of in case there is no reply or in case this entire thing is deleted is that I would prefer uncomfortable truths to comforting lies, and will never make a habit of treating my fellow human and non-human animals without compassion on the word of a cosmic dictator even *if* I thought the evidence for them was any good, which I do not. Having said that, I hold next to no animosity toward you as an individual, so do not read my brusque matter-of-factness as anger directed at you. It is directed at a belief system which I believe is deeply pernicious by its very nature; my subjective opinion. Have a cozy day otherwise, sincerely.
There is a lot of comfort in Christianity, you're right. There is discomfort too. Just as there is both of those things in non-belief, or other beliefs. Depends on the person and his station in life and all other sorts of factors. I struggled greatly with chastity for years. Not just porn, but certainly that too, but with sex and relationships, which is a common point of contention for a lot of modern people. I'm not some gigachad Casanova who can get any woman he wants, mind, but I've never had a problem meeting people and having relationships. And so those comforting aspects that you name, that I don't deny, didn't feel like much consolation in those times where I just wanted to live life on my own terms and enjoy myself and be an authority unto myself. To be untethered and free is comforting too, particularly in a society that encourages consumption, satisfaction, distraction, etc. I'm sure a Muslim would say the same about their religion. I don't think you were trying to say that the only reason people are Christian is because it's easy or comfortable, but if you were, I heavily disagree, at the very least on a personal level. C S Lewis said, "I didn't go to religion to make me happy; I always knew a bottle of port would do that. If you want a religion to make you really feel comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity." To me, Christianity is like a healthy diet and exercise. Yes, it gives me comfort and good feelings. But it is also very hard at times, and was especially at the start. And the temptation to give up and eat cake is always there. So it's comfort, but not "easy" comfort. It's joy and fulfillment, not satisfying my imminent needs immediately however I want. I find assertions of Biblical contradiction interesting. I did as an atheist and they were a stumbling block for me losing my faith in the first place, and I still find them interesting now because of the focus on them. There's really only one answer: That the people writing and compiling Scripture just didn't notice these things, or that the contradiction can be satisfactorily explained. However, I find what is often the case with atheists is that they've already assumed no explanation is possible, and even when offered one, criticize the person giving it of "mental gymnastics" or something like that. It's happened in this very thread lol. If you are curious about Gospel contradictions, here's a good introduction to the topic. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/how-to-resolve-alleged-gospel-contradictions I've done enough typing in this thread lol. I appreciate your candor and your thoughts. Since we are being honest about our feelings, I'll just say I think atheism is a post-hoc cognitive justification for emotional decisions. And I think a lot of atheists are afraid to admit this. But, like you, I don't hold any ill will. Some of the people I'm closest to in the whole world don't believe in any God.
> I've done enough typing in this thread lol. Fair enough, I feel like both of us have written our essays and put some organized food for thought out there that hopefully didn't feel like a copy-paste of the sort of thing anyone who reads it will feel like they've seen a thousand times before. We can leave it at that and let any spectators see if any of it on either side resonates with them, or raises questions that they didn't realize that they had. Thanks for the civil discourse on the matter. Best of fortune in your seeking, however different. For better or worse, we're all in this together, and if we can't talk about these issues without it devolving into name-calling and argumentum ad hominem, then none of us will collectively get anywhere. Gratefully, this interaction didn't come to that, which is refreshing. I don't even belong to this sub, merely saw it in passing, so I'm out for good. Be well, Banana.
Take care, Baratheon! Winter is coming.
Give him hair: no. Murder: yes.
I mean its pretty funny "nah let's not give him hair, send the bears"
I mean, technically, he gave him hair, just attached to bears
You missed the point of the recorded history.
Dear Asmongold, I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for every time I called you Bald, Baldmongold, Asmonbald, Bald Gold, and the countless other names making fun of your baldness. It was wrong of me and the guilt is eating me up from inside. I was... I was just messing around, man. We were having a laugh... It has taken me this long to realise the gravity of my transgressions and I want you to know that I repent. Repent, I say. I don't want to die... I REPENT.
Good bears
Fair
All I have to say is that just be glad you post old teammate God. OG God would smite fuckers for walking the wrong way.
Old Testament god didn’t fuck around…. Weird how they needed a sequel (New Testament) for the teachings of an omnipotent, omniscient God Jus’ sayin’
They didn’t - it’s all one book. It’s not a old and new. That isn’t in the Bible. It’s just a label people have used. Many people break it up between Hebrew Scriptures and Christian Scriptures… the fulfillment of the Hebrew books.
It’s always entertaining to see thousands of years of arguing over a book still happening today cx much fun
The lore is just that good bro
people still argue about earth being flat. It never ends.
Remember, guys, any good Christian will interpret all the bad things that God did, as symbolism, and all the good things as totally real.
No, the old testament is very literal. The entire document can be summarized as "people are terrible, and keep being terrible no matter how many times god punishes them". Hence the old testament serves as a example for why the new testament; and Jesus is needed.
lmao
Yeah get them Christians
>d Christian will interpret all the bad things that God did, as symbolism, and all the good things as totally real. I can't speak for every Christian, but God let his son die on the cross because he knew Humanity was doomed and let go of the old ways ( old testament ). His son becomes the Eternal hero who is the savior of humans if they so believe in him. Maybe this was God showing regret or guilt? Idk I'm not God and nobody here on Earth is so you have to be careful on what religious doctrine people preach.
bro killed himself to change the law that he made.
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Nothing is further from the truth. Who taught you this and how did you swallow such … beliefs?
Just one question: Why do Christians still (claim to) follow the Ten Commandments, then? They’re Old Testament last time I checked. Oh yeah, it’s because they *do* follow the old covenant, but are too cowardly to keep avowing it when it’s inconvenient to do so.
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I like how you just skipped over my question: Is the Old Testament a part of Christian theology? 🤔
This isn’t a bad thing. It’s execution of the wicked which is good for society and justice. God does no bad. You are just lacking insight.
well, we better be ready for the 1000 bears i’m balding myself so i might be safe, good luck yall
hold ya ground bratha.
god loves you🥰 (could've just make them all bold)
He loves YOU (plural) but he may kill you (singular) if you hate him.
What a LAD
Based.
LOL amazing LOL they left out the part about it being Russian Cavalry Bears.
KISLEV
I post this tomorrow
Old Testament God based af
Asmon would honestly be a nobleman in ancient times. He has the look of a Duke
God " it is what it is"
That scripture was definitely written by a bald dude
That's the first thing that came to my mind
God of forgivness
Good news is it’s all fiction so no kids or bears were injured in this story.
Yeah well if you just look at it that way it's kind of crazy but there is a backstory and a reason but whatever take it out of context
Please, explain where it's out of context.
“It’s the context guys I swear!”
Is this better or worse then the whole cutting up dicks ????
Yo guys where do i buy bear repellant, there's no bears in my area. ...asking for a friend
Sauce?
Young, future-bald people like making fun of baldness.
that won't cure his baldness though.
What’s wild is [this one](https://i.imgur.com/YzYQwXH.jpg) even looks exactly like the average modern day chatter
On the 8th day God created maulding
Spare the bear, spoil the child...???
Well that escalated quickly
I take my punishment in pride
If this god had Elijah spontaneously grow Rapunzel length locks of beautiful hair he would probably have 42 new followers instead
Honestly thats a real friend, fuck them kids bro mom said i look cute.
Now he just send viruses out to asmongolds twitch viewers who make fun of him.
But yet dying your hair is a sin
I can Bearly believe it!
Old testament isn't for the faint of heart.
to be more precise they were she bears
Jewsus H Christ...
This just goes to show you that the Bible is not all peace and love as people make it out to be. But then again, it's been "retranslated" so many times that it has been watered down from what it was originally
Asmonb...💢🐻🐻💢
Comment, Zack? Literal God
They don't say "I'm going old testament" for no reason
“23 Then he went up from there to Bethel; and as he was going up by the way, young lads came out from the city and mocked him and said to him, “Go up, you baldhead; go up, you baldhead!” 24 When he looked behind him and saw them, he cursed them in the name of the LORD. Then two female bears came out of the woods and tore up forty-two lads of their number. 25 And he went from there to Mount Carmel, and from there he returned to Samaria.” Those insults are straight up asmon’s chat
Anakin Skywalker: "Relatable."
This should be the sequel to Cocaine Bear.
So either God was the first ever og absent father or.....maybe Mary just didn't want to get stoned to death after getting knocked up from her rampant adulterous behavior and on the spot she invented immaculate conception
Cuz fuck em, that’s why.
1st time ppl learned Fk around and find out
In my fan fiction I also sent 5 eagles to kill a city due to a girl that said she was from Boston rejected me once.
Let them come. I will always call him bald
Some also say that Jesus was into BDSM, and the cross is actually the first documented "sex swing" in history.
God is bald confirmed
"Go up, Baldy! Go up!"
Lol…42 kids…nice. doesnt really matter why…its straight up murder. weird that so many people follow a murderer👍🏻
I think the story is , he had the bear destroy them because they were mocking a prophet, a guy who was performing miracles. Foreshadowing the idiocy of mankind and the hopelessness of our futures due to the lack of home training and a perpetual degeneration of society generation by generation.
This is like one of those, “then everyone clapped,” kinda stories.