The Jesus Christ of the New Testament was a dark skinned communist who belabored loving and helping immigrants to his followers, whipped the greedy, and informed them they would go to hell if they didn't stop being selfish fucks.
If the Jesus of the new Testament both existed and returned, the "Christian" right would be first in line to kill him again so they could get back to worshipping this guy:
I think it would be hilarious if Christianity turned out to be true and the rapture really happens, but they're the ones all left behind and even atheists get to go up. They're minds would explode LMFAO
The Jesus of the Bible also believed the Kingdom of God would be a literal Kingdom that would arise within the lifetimes of his followers.
That is what happens when you actually read the Bible literally, instead of metaphorically.
Also, I forget which Gospel it is, but one of them features a zombie apocalypse of the dead rising out of their graves when Jesus dies on the cross.
Also, more to your original theme: Jesus was fucking homeless for his adult ministry.
He and his followers just stayed at random people's places who were sympathetic to his movement.
He did not have a steady job, he was not a productive member of society and he certainly did not have a nuclear family.
If Jesus was here today, he'd be shunned, starved, imprisoned, likely become a drug addict and die on the streets, and this would be by design and with approval of many of his most outspoken followers today
I'm more than a little convinced that if Jesus walks the earth today, he is really into EDM and you're only really coming across him on the festival circuit.
but one of them features a zombie apocalypse of the dead rising out of their graves when Jesus dies on the cross.
Matthew. I am not sure exactly what the author was thinking at the time. It does align with what a minority of Jews believed would happen (Ezekiel hints at it) as well as Paul's letters so I want to say he invented it to align but it almost feels like he got it from the oral tradition.
He did not have a steady job, he was not a productive member of society and he certainly did not have a nuclear family.
I almost feel bad for mentioning this because it is minority view but I think Paul had a conception of him as a Nazar from birth, like Samson. As you said he is living this sexless, unproductive life, wandering around, barefoot, telling people that the Lord will provide. It could also explain the incident at the temple. From what we can tell Paul knew something hostile happened there but not what exactly. Nazarsbl were required to give an offering to end their lifestyle and at the same time the Temple almost always turned them away as insincere.
So Paul thinks the orders of events are something like this:
Jesus is a born Nazar He goes around until he feels his tasks are completed. Shows up to the temple with his followers. Temple says no way, get out. His followers convince the Temple. They let him into the first gate. Satan sees defeat so gets involved and starts a brawl. Infests Pilot and Pharisees. He gets crucified. Satan thinks he has won. Turns out God disagrees and accepts the perfect sacrifice. And since the ending the Nazar oath was a forgiveness offering it all works out nicely, Jesus gets everyone forgiven.
As a counter point Jesus would have also said "What on earth is a 'government program'?"
They had them at the time.
If the real Jesus stood for all the same values that you do, why are you an Atheist?
Assuming all the stories are true and accurate, Jesus from the Bible was a pretty chill dude and good human. His dad, on the other hand, makes Hitler look like Mr Rogers. So there's that.
I used to believe it all, but the more I learned, the more I questioned, the more I questioned, the more it all fell apart.
Notable things that led to my deconstruction/atheism:
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The sheer number of times the Bible has been edited. From key words omitted or added to entire books added or removed. It's like a cobbled together series of Grimms Fairy Tales and Op Ed news articles by hundreds of people for over a thousand years. If it was real then why has it been edited and changed so much though history? Couldn't a god that wrote that make it divine and unalterable.
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The sheer number of contradictions.
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The fact that there are countless thousands of other religions all claiming to be the only one. Most have their own books. Their own prophets. Their own stories. There's a ton of overlap and commonality, almost as if they all pull from similar cultural stories. If any religion were true, wouldn't that god have some way to make their religion the only one? And if you want to argue that it is a test of some sort then it's a crazy test because it's impossible to ever choose one out of thousands of clones and spinoffs.
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If it is all true, why did the god need people to write a book to tell the story, but did it hundreds of years after the Jesus stuff and thousands of years after the creation stuff? Couldn't the lore book have been created and existed on a little pedestal for all to see or something? What about the millions of people that died before it was written? What about all the people that have lived and died having never heard about it even once? It's unfathomable.
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If religion is good and right and moral then why are priests, pastors, and other religious leaders the ones committing so many SAs and other awful behaviors? Similarly, why is an entire political party so intertwined and permeated with religion while committing the most awful of actions?
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Lastly, go read the old testament, specifically all the stories where the response to almost everything is murder and genocide. Like, one person commits some sin and the god just murders everyone and burns the whole city down. Seriously? That's "good"? That's worthy of belief and worship? The flood story. The Jericho story. The Sodom and Gammorah story. Etc etc. That god's solution to everything is psychopathic mass destruction and death. You'd think a good god would come down and be like "Hey guys, let's talk".
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For me, I don't need jesus to give me morals, I have them on own. I don't believe in a angry guy in the clouds creating this. It's mind blowing to me, that people believe in it, it's clearly a form of control. There are many religions, what makes one right over another? Feelings? I like to think more scientifically and logically.
Because Jesus or any other mythical figure is not required for anyone to have the same or similar values.
Your logic doesn't follow. Evidence for the existence of Jesus and god -- either the Yahweh or any of the other ones -- is scant (in the case of Jesus) or nonexistent (in the case of his dad). Sharing similar values to what Jesus allegedly had is not evidence for his existence, nor that of any gods. In this context, the "real" Jesus is as he is depicted in scripture. That doesn't necessarily mean he was a real person in reality, so don't get that part twisted. What the poster you're replying to is interpreting a character as he was written.
It's exactly the same thing as claiming, "Captain Picard would not do XYZ, because it is inconsistent with how he was written in every single episode." That may be so, and maybe we all know who Captain Picard is and what he does, but that still doesn't make Picard a real person. Having a taste for tea, Earl Grey, hot does not require that any person actually believe that Picard physically existed, nor that his published actions were anything more than the fancy of some scriptwriters.
I don't think there was a real Jesus but I concede you do have a point. Everyone builds Jesus in their own image, even atheists. It takes effort not to. The natural tendency of anyone who was ever infected with this meme or has Christian friends is to try to find something redeeming about him.
Have heard male homosexuals tell me he was gay, heard black power types tell me he was black, heard a scholar in Greek literature tell me he was a secret Hellenistic Jew, heard him described by hippies as a hippy, by fire and brimstone types that he laid down the law, by SJW that he was a social activists, by communists that he was a communist, by a pacifist that he was a pacifist, by rabbis that he was a rabbi....
He can't be all of those things, he can however be none of those things. He is the blank slate that people scribble on what they want, and what they want is a version of themselves with super powers.
Obviously. I am an atheist today because I went to Catholic school where I had to read the bible. Nothing makes better atheists than those who actually read the bible.
Isaac Asimov famously said "Properly read, the Bible is the most potent force for atheism ever conceived."
Mark Twain:
It ain't the parts of the bible that I can't understand that bother me, it's the parts I can understand.
Its not that they don't read it. They only read the self serving parts of it. They ignore the parts that they don't agree with. This of course makes them false christians. They focus on the ten commandants but ignore the slavery and outright barbarism in the rest of the old testament. For the majority of false american christians its the pick and choose part of the bible. They also ignore the teaching of Jesus in the new testament. The parts that tell them to be tolerant, to not cast the first stone are reinterpreted to to take offense at anything that someone else does that they do not like. All their hate and all their hang ups are their own but they use their version of the bible to support their hate and intolerance. None of them ever question how god seems to always want what they want. Destruction.
They only read the self serving parts of it.
Of the King James version.
And then they don't read King James' other books, like Daemonologie, "a philosophical dissertation on contemporary necromancy and the historical relationships between the various methods of divination used from ancient black magic." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daemonologie
duh
At least KJV is in the public domain unlike many other translations.
Oh, it's not so that they don't read it. It's rather that …
While I agree with your sentiment, the problem with the Bible is that it doesn't contain democracy. It only really has examples of god ordained despots. So one can "follow the Bible" and have results that are wack.
Israel was supposed to still be loyal to King David even though he was a liar, murderer and adulterer. Jesus has the opportunity to tell people to reject Caesar but instead choose to more or less tell them to let Caesar be Caesar and keep whatever is God's separate. It was tacit acknowledgment that sometimes you have to obey evil rulers. (St Paul carries this on in Romans)
So obviously that was necessary in first century Judea. The problem is that's the only scenario the new testament deals with.
Add to that that all Jesus' ethics are person based, without a single word of what a government should or shouldn't do. Minus all the common sense tradition amalgamated in Europe over 1600 years, and you have the religious right of America.
Those kids would be very upset if they could read
And Thank you for using this version of the meme template.
They seem to have it read to them by their pastor/Minister/whatever and just memorize what they've been told.
They own Bibles, but only open them to quote what they've been told already.
All the stuff in-between is just filler.
Just like school. They just cheat off of others.
As someone who unfortunately has had contact with such people, I can assure you that the most extreme of them read their Bibles (KJV ONLY!) every day. For these fundamentalists the Bible is literally their laws, and so extensive knowledge of scriptures becomes a core part of how they exert power over each other and maintain their social hierarchies.
They pick and choose which parts they want to follow and ignore. They interpret things how they wish to support their worldviews.
I was raised by these people. We read the Bible every day, and the family had weekly study sessions where we would all read a portion together and discuss it. We definitely went through the entire thing.
The problem is not that they don't read the Bible. The problem is that they have developed an obscurantist interpretational framework which allows them to ignore the plain meaning of the text and twist it to conform with their ideology.
Completely agree, very well said. I remember feeling agitated that someone I knew, like that, had interpreted at least one verse from the sermon on the mount to make it mean the exact opposite of what it was saying. Wish I could remember which line.
They don't read the Bible. They quote parts of it to suit their needs, the hypocrite fucks.
Usury is banned in the Bible, but it's essentially what the US runs on.
Hell, based on the Bible no Karen should ever quote the Bible in an attempt to teach someone.
1 Timothy 12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or to exercise authority over a man; rather, she is to remain quiet."
Mixing fabric? That's a stoning. (And not the good kind.)
"Extensive knowledge of scripture" don't make me laugh
My favorite is when you point out all the shit from their Bible, they don't follow, and they hit you with "oh that's from the old testament, and Jesus did away with all of that."
I'm also always amused at the concept of a perfect infallible being not getting it right the first time and having to push out the revised new testament.
Every time I see a Red Lobster I really just want to get a good stoning in.
Which is funny in the saddest way. Imagine if they applied that time and effort to literally anything true or real or verifiable.
Or if they actually applied the teaching of Jesus to their peoples and didn't use it as a carrot and stick for the poor to give them money.
Most haven't. Many have. Most of those that have just cherry pick the parts they care about.
The remainder that have read and understood it just compartmentalize the cognitive dissonance. They ignore that the being they profess their undying love for was an unemployed, unmarried vagrant that wandered around with his buddies, that spread philosophy and free food and medical care to strangers, that spoke out many times against the rich, the performatively religious, bigots, opportunists, violence, and retribution, that encouraged one to live a minimalist life, to humble yourself before your sick, poor, and foreign brother, to wash the feet of sinners, and that was an activist whose chosen forms of protest included flipping tables and chasing money changers from a temple with a whip. But no, I'm sure he wanted you to make sure gay people don't get married, or whatever.
I mean duh, they're descended from the intellectual reflex that believed translating the book and receiving mass in your own language were sins.
Of course they don't read the book, they believe only their priest can read it "right", and they probably look at accusations they don't read the book with confusion over "Well of course not! Don't tell me you anarchist lunatics are reading it yourselves!"
Some do, but they all end up with "i'm an atheist now" podcasts
It still bothers me that I don't have the same story other people have. Reading and studying the Bible didn't deconvert me.
I love how the good liars would tell christian right wing book banners about a book that contains a story about 3 daughters who got their father drunk and had sex with him and they'd ask them if the book should be banned.
Reading the Hitchhiker’s Guide before the Bible really helped me understand how much fantasy is written in. Reading the Bible is what made me an atheist
For a second there, I visualized The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Bible.
Some of them read the Bible, never read the news. They just listen to what they community says. If everyone you know and trust says president Jimmy bean is the most fantastic Christian devout president ever why would you question it?
I mean they already don't possess much critical thinking skills at that point, at least in this kind of context.
M&D made me go to Baptist summer camp. gave me a haircut before leaving and again once trapped there. turned me into the atheist I became. now basically an informed agnostic. too many religions to hate will make you just a hater. see them coming a mile away.
Lies.
They only read the parts they agree with from the Bible.
None of them have. Like the Trinity was invented at the first ecumenical council of Nicaea over 300 years after the stories of the gospels. The word and concept have no biblical basis whatsoever. So even back before the biblical canon was finalized they weren't reading it and made it up as they went.
This is nitpicking, but it was not so much invented as formally agreed upon as the true canon, the true theology.
Many prominent Christians of the time and in the hundreds of years prior developed all kinds of alternatives to the Trinity.
They were just formally made heretics at that point.
And thats not even starting to get into the myriad of 'Gnostic' groups with sometimes radically different books and theologies.
I disagree with the implication that the Bible or even Jesus' teachings as told by the New Testament, are left wing or right wing. It doesn't map to modern politics at all because it's ancient, their politics were just different, and also it's not univocal, it's hundreds of authors who all had different politics and different willingness to import their politics into their religious text.
Because of that, you can easily read it to confirm your biases, no matter what they are. Apostles went out as married pairs to spread the Gospel in early Christianity, that's in the Bible, so women are equals and should be allowed to be priests? But also women should cover their heads and be silent in church, that's in the Bible too. So who should we listen to? There's no "right" answer except whichever confirms your biases.
Even if you are trying to read it historically, I'd argue the historical Jesus (from the Q source sayings and implications from what different authors added or subtracted from Mark) was remarkably egalitarian for the time but he was doing it from the perspective of an apocalyptic preacher, eg he said his followers should give up all their money to the poor, but it was because the world was going to end during the current generation... which was 2000 years ago. So does that even apply as a life lesson in the modern day if the world isn't ending?
So the religious right may well have read the Bible, and come to a different conclusion than you, and they're not necessarily wrong, and neither are you.
Yep.they get their info from "preachers" who themselves cherrypick the parts that align with their messages
At the very least they haven't read past the Old Testament.
Because US Christians are a bastardized offshoot
Going to be honest: They read the Bible or at least parts of it. But most do not truly process what they read. Not to mention that pretty much all of them are reading biased translations of translations of translations where a lot of nuance and caveats and original meanings are lost, if not completely mutated into something that's antithetical to the original meaning.
But anyway, gays are bad but shrimp is okay as are my tattoos and the 70% cotton, 20% rayon, 10% polyester socks I'm wearing. Time to stone a whore.
Not to mention, they’ve lost the cultural primer to understand, even if they had the original texts.
Like, even people who study this shit for a living don’t fully understand what they’re getting at or all the cultural references. But it probably safe to say that if it was “prophetic” it was probably a thinly veiled criticism of someone powerful.
The creator of this meme never read Calvin and Hobbes. Stop desecrating Watterson's work.
They start on the Old Testament and give up after a certain point.
That’s my story. I mean, it really is boring stuff told in the most bland way possible.
Yeah I pretty much only got past Adam and Eve
What sucks is I'm actually really interested in the more like meta physical side of Christianity like biblically accurate angels and stuff but no body talks about the actually cool stuff
I am atheist tho, I'm just really interested in religion as a concept
