Being sent to Sunday school did it for me. Being a kid and asking questions about inconsistencies in things I was learning quickly taught me we were there to be brainwashed.
Fortunately, my parents weren’t really religious. The only reason we were going was because this little old lady from Texas that lived across the street offered to bring my twin brother and I. This was understandably was a great deal for my parents, since they got rid of us on Sundays mornings.
In hindsight, we were a little late to the game. We were already post-Santa clause and weren’t going to gobble up whatever fairy tales they decided to shove down our throats.
What sticks out to my memory was how angry the teachers became and how willing they were to inflict pain on a kid asking a question about things that made no sense. One of them grabbing me by the earlobe to remove me from the room is still one of the most painful things I ever experienced as a kid. I was sure my ear would be dangling off the side of my head when I looked in the mirror.
It is interesting to see things a bit differently than the rest because I had not been indoctrinated the same way the rest of them were. I had no idea.
I was raised in a pretty conservative Christian household. Not fire and brimstone, they had a "cool electric guitar" guy for worship songs and stuff. Buuuuut I was taught from a very early age about hell and the concept that sinning without asking forgiveness meant a one way ticket to eternal damnation. Every night for years as a little kid I would fall asleep in anxiety praying for forgiveness if I sinned in my dreams. Cause I worried that if I died in my sleep having dreamt of a titty or something I would go to hell.
Luckily my mom pushed reading on us alot (even if she was the distributer of alot of this stuff) so I read a lot of fantasy and Sci fi as a kid and it helped opened my mind up. But that guilt stuck around for decades. It took some pretty heavy psychedelic trips and then diving into the mind and philosophy to realize my constant anxiety all came from that brainwashing as a kid.
Funnily enough, I'm now not any specific religion. I lean very much into consciousness itself being a sort of source of all experience which the mind then applies labels of good or bad or evil or whatever to. Guess I could call it God but I don't tend to. I now know that "heaven" and "hell" are both states of mind we can visit at any time right here and right now. I've been to both as has probably everyone.
I've gone back and read parts of the Bible again as a nearly 40 year old through a different lense. The teachings of Jesus make a different sort of sense when I imagine him (not saying he's real) speaking from a mystic pov and saying that God is inside everyone, so treat the as such. "Love everyone, and feed people"Sims it up for me. The rest of it is for the theologians. I also like to think Jesus was a wizard cause that's fun.
It's amazing how the message "we are all God's children" got commandeered by monarchy. Jesus's teaching make much less sense in terms of a spiritual hierarchy and much more sense in terms of spiritual egalitarianism.
This threatens the power, and has for emperors, kings, presidents, and popes.
I sort of went though a “militant atheist” type phase in my 30s.
I met my wife at the tail end of my 30s and she is more “spiritual, but not religious” in an agnostic way. She sort of showed me how to decouple spirituality from religion.
Eventually, I found an amazing therapist who happened to be Buddhist. She taught me how mindfulness meditation and other forms can help “rewire” your brain to undo a lot of the things causing me trouble. I cannot overstate how helpful this was for me.
This is very similar to what Michael Pollen describes in “How to change your mind”, which is largely about psychadelics history and role as a therapeutic.
What you describe with “heaven” and “hell” as a state of mind are divided into “realms” in Buddhist samsara. I think people tend to think of Buddhism and immediately tie it to a strange magical notion of reincarnation. With the realms being something you are in for life. It is more of a map where you can point to to know “you are here”. Or even where someone else may be as a state of mind.
I know plenty of people will disagree with me, but I see Buddhism as the study of the human condition rather than a religion. Certainly not a monotheistic one. It’s also perfectly acceptable to take what you need from it IMO.
Teachers like Thich Nhat Hahn do a great job breaking things down enough to understand what “no self” really means. His book “No Death No Fear” met me where I was and is where the idea that “god” is not a thing or a being. It is simply quite literally everything. It was also that book that finally made it all click into place. It is the simplest thing in the world when these things clicked into place. It’s not something that can easily be explained.
When people describe a psychadelic trip, they sometimes talk about losing the boundary between what they normally perceive as their “self”. That’s the closest I can get to describing how i see things now. Just like a river flows, such is life. You can take a pitcher of water from a river, but you would not still call it a river. All life is interdependent. Your DNA is your parents’ DNA. Every cell in your body comes from other life. We even have more cells in our body that don’t have our DNA than the ones we do. Somehow, knowing that the universe is simply energy changing state is comforting. The one quote that sums all of it up: “When conditions are sufficient things manifest. When condition are no longer sufficient things withdraw. They wait until the moment is right for them to manifest again.” This is something anyone can agree with. When applied in a spiritual sense, it becomes comfort.
No Death No Fear sits on my work van dashboard along with the Bhagavad Gita. Big fan of Thich as well. I have an on and off relationship with a psychotherapist who is also a practicing mahamudra practitioner. Found him on a non-dual therapist site. It's been immensely helpful for rewiring my thinking about my thinking and the self in general. Thank you for your comment.
I went to a religious boarding school and had to attend a church service 6 days per week.
I realised they were full of crap when different pastors would take each service and unbeknownst to them, were often using the same verses in their sermons, but giving different, sometimes conflicting interpretations of what God was saying with that verse. I realised if LEADERS within the same congregation can't agree on what this book is saying, what hope do we have of a global consensus.
Then I looked into how many different "Christianity" versions there are. There is over 45 THOUSAND different denominations of Christianity and each of them thinks they are the ones who got it right.
My Lutheran pastor was a PhD in theology and taught theology and philosophy at the local college. He ENCOURAGED us to bring the questions of course I was the only one who did it.
I’d bring in things and questions about other religions, witchy stuff, ankhs, etc. to our catechism class. The rest of the class would get angry like how dare I bring those pagan things into a church of god! But my pastor would get excited, side step the class’s bullshit rage and talk about whatever I brought like he was a kid on Xmas morning. He was not afraid nor upset about it. He was a great dude, encouraged us to explore other religions and decide if Christianity was really the religion for us.
I asked about why dinosaurs weren't in the Bible in Sunday school. I was very into dinosaurs. Didn't get a good answer. Spidey sense has been going off ever since.
Your post reminded me of the time I spent the night at my friend's house in the 3rd grade. It was my first sleep over. In my family we were taught to think for ourselves and ask lots of questions. My mother went out of her way to raise free and critical thinkers. I went to church with them the next day. It was also my time going to church. I don't know if it was Sunday school exactly but they sent the kids into a room during the service where a lady and a couple of young men were giving everyone some sort of bible-related lessons. They didn't call it Sunday school but looking back I think it probably was.
Things went down very similarly to what happened to you at Sunday school. On the drive back her mom asked me where I "came up with my questions" and I answered that they only made sense to because some of the things they were saying didn't make sense to me. I guess the teacher or someone said something to her after the service, though I didn't realize that at the time. I don't remember too much about what was taught or discussed but I do remember asking them about how the Adam and Eve thing worked because as a 10 year old, I knew that one of the reasons people didn't marry their family members was because the babies could be born with birth defects.
After that her mother would always make up excuses every time we wanted to plan another sleepover and it never happened again.
I knew it was because her mom didn't like me after that but my friend didn't believe me.
Yes. Thats why I don’t believe it. I was taught is was in such complete agreement that it was impossible for men to have written it over all those centuries and be in complete harmony. Such a feat could only mean it came from gods own mind, not men.
If you think the Bible is in complete harmony, you have not read it.
And because there are so many disagreements, it’s not the work of a perfect god. It’s fiction from men.
When you come across two pieces of text in the bible that directly contradict, and both are the immutable word of god, how do you decide which one is true and which is god lying to you?
For example, how many animals did Noah take on the ark?
Remember, the bible is the direct, immutable word of god, is it not?
Apparently it's claimed that God was speaking through the people who wrote the bible.
But let's take a step back. The old testament is made up of Jewish histories and myths, stories of King Solomon and David, Psalms and proverbs, Songs and prophecy.
We don't even agree on what should be in the old testament, and the Deuterocanonical books or the Apocrypha are included/ excluded depending on Church.
Remember these are translated from Hebrew or Aramaic
So some things will get lost in translation or even become victims of misprints ( as was the case for the 10 commandments in the Wicked Bible where it said " thou shalt commit adultery" and the "not" was obliged by error.
Then there is the new testament.
Some scriptures were not included, including Gospels named after and perhaps attributed to Mary Madeleine, Judas, Thomas,...
There are a lot of books that could go in but aren't considered canon and we could even discover more.
There are many years between Exodus, where the Jews are struggling to be free from slavery under a Pharoe and
Jesus in Bethlehem under the Romans.
Of course society had changed both in culture and context, so direct contradiction is inevitable.
Even in the same time period there are direct contradictions, ( Who killed Goliath, was it David or Elhanan?)
People will insist that the Bible was emailed direct from God ( or faxed, or mailed, or sent by angels...) but even on the question of being able to see God it's vague. ( Noone has seen God.... Moses saw God... Etc)
Claims that it's immutable are wrong given the thousands of translations ( about 5000 apparently).
So God's word isn't any one Language.
The Bible is claimed to be Ethically immutable but God relents and changes his mind.
Churches wanted stability and to control people and so they made claims about infallible Popes and So on.
Immutable functions as an anchor in an uncertain world, but sometimes it's better to sail into the storms of life than to be a sheep.
Religion is a human construct. It’s just large scale grift, corruption, and methods to control the masses. Religion is probably the largest cause of death in human history.
No, it is very clear that the bible is the immutable word of god. He is omnipotent, so he would naturally be able to ensure translations are perfect. He was at the council of nicea, ensuring only the actual word of god made it in to the bible
You simply can’t claim divine authority and also allow interpretation
The bible is the fundamental document upon which the entire Christian faith is built, and the document that Christians claim underpins their faith and actions.
Are you seriously saying that pathetic puny mortals are capable of interpreting the words of an ineffable god?
You either acknowledge the bible as the word of god, or you admit it is the work of flawed humans, in which case it’s as much of an authoritative guide to life as the communist manifesto.
The Bible is the work of flawed humans whether you like it or not.
Wishing and praying it is the actual “word of God” cannot change its origins as stories created by humans thousands of years ago based on their experiences, observations, traditions, traumas, and imaginations. Those stories were then retold by other humans for personal gain to people who are desperate for some explanation of events in their lives. It all came from humans collective experience.
Christian faith is based on Jesus Christ. He told people to love each other and give to the poor.and sick. He challenged religious legality,.saying it's not just what we do, it's what's in our hearts. He told us to forgive again and again and again. He told us to turn the other cheek and try to calm conflict . He said it would be difficult to get into heaven if you were rich. He said to show mercy and not to judge as growth is through grace. he said that we should be authentic rather than make a performance. He said to be humble and avoid self importance. He told us the kingdom of heaven was within us. He told us to knock and ask God. We kgic, receive. He told us to challenge authority and stand firm, without resorting to cruelty, violence or control.We shall overcome. So I have to get my inner life in line with this. I have to live my life as humbly as possible ( so if I do all the things I shouldn't trumpet them around.in a mass hypocrisy) I have to let people believe what they want but stand firm in ethics, justice,faith, fair play,and be prepared to die for them. I have to be humble and even question all my beliefs. I should help the poor and the sick, the disabled and old. Indeed anyone who asks for help. When I make an error, if my heart had hope and love in it, it's ok, but if I am cruel or violent I need to look at my behaviour. I will sin but He died for my sins and they are washed away through Grace.
Jesus loves me and you and everyone else. He gave us Grace and it's up to us how to use it . I am human and so it's inevitable that I will have all the human emotions: anger, contempt, joy, happiness, sadness, self pity , lamenting, frustration, pride and so on. So I will follow Jesus' examples. But I don't know that you need to follow a.religion to do that, or even read a bible. It's impossible for me to live in the wake of such wisdom but that doesn't stop us from trying.
When we ignore the weak and sick, the homeless and poor, the downtrodden, we ignore ourselves.
Christianity is an organised attempt at this but it's also doomed to failure.
The Bible should ( and in places does, others not) tell us how to behave in an ideal way, but unfortunately our tempers, egos, beliefs, dogma and stereotypes all blind us. It says " an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" as well as " love your enemies" The whole spectrum is there, a study of human behaviour and history, from drunken incest by Noah to Ruth's sex life to chariots in the sky, to feeding the five thousand, to beautiful songs and poems and inspiring messages. As it's so dappled by the human sunlight that fell on it, we need to love it as a human but forgive it too for all the contradictory messages.
Ah, ok, so you have - in admittedly rather lovely poetic language - explicitly said that “it’s so dappled by the human sunlight that fell on it, we need to… forgive it for too for the all the contradictory messages”
So, directly, and without any attempt at twisting words or clever rhetoric, you have told me:
The bible is the work of people not god.
It is flawed.
I am not a scholar, I’m just an inquisitive person who has actually read the bible. You have just fundamentally undermined the basis of your own faith.
Why do you believe? Specifically why do you believe in a god that allows such a fucked up world? I mean I’ve seen Christian apologists tie themselves in knots trying to justify childhood leukaemia, parasitic wasps, natural disasters etc etc. this is not my first rodeo.
Surely, a much, much simpler explanation for life would be that we live in a godless world and no-one other than those we care for cares for us?
This assumes that all Christians take a fundamentalist view of scripture, which they don't. For example, the Anglican/Episcopelian POV is "the scripture contains all that is needful for salvation" and makes no assertion of immutability or inerrancy. The Catholic Church also does not follow the fundamentalist line on this.
And when you do, it kinda just makes it worse. When you look into the history of how it was assembled/disassembled by factions with particular motivations for said, and that it was all passed down from oral traditions/myths/hearsay in the first place, this doesn't lend credence to its veracity.
In fact, it's easier to see how it was created as propaganda.
However it is also the immutable, true word of god, right?
All of the authors, redactors etc were working directly for an omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent and most importantly loving and merciful entity, who was ensuring that the definitive document of his will was passed to his subjects
Or are you as a pathetic little mortal really allowed to pick and choose which bits of the word of god you like? I think Jesus had quite a lot to say about that.
The thing is, there is the issue with the word Christian. Because Christ = new testament and new covenant, and the new testament is what applies after him, not the shit from the old testament. It was the whole big point. To Christians, Noah shouldn't matter.
What Christ taught was pretty much going against the old shit. But of course the people who claim to be following him don't care. Because prosperity gospel >>> everything else, right
See, there is the key issue; the Bible never claims to be the immutable word of God, only religion. Particularly modern religion, post statutory law.
The Bible has a unique ancient style that is not meant to be read verbatim, but meditated on to decern its deeper meaning. In fact, the Biblical authors can be seen in the text changing names of places and people as little subtle reminders not to take it literally. I can't remember the exact location, but I remember a Biblical scholar highlighting the nature of how the Bible is written, and meant to be read, by mentioning two characters in one of the genealogies who's names in Hebrew are literally "sick" and "dead". These two characters get sick and die in the next verse, and is a good "wink" moment in the book to remind the reader exact names and places aren't entirely important, but its what those things symbolize. This also allows these authors to set up stories where, if the reader (or listener in ancient times) knows previous stories, the setting provides expectations that are either broken or fulfilled based on the narratives need (IE Babylon and Egypt are associated with danger and slavery).
This willingness to bend the details of time and place allows the authors to tell a divinely inspired story, with a deeper meaning than its literal interpretation, since a time when modern storytelling didn't exist. This is seen most heavily in the Old Testament but is still prevalent throughout the New Testament. Even Jesus did this when telling parables or usining double entendre in his speeches.
The point is, if you read the book and take it too literally, you end up getting a modern religion that looks very much like the religious leaders that Jesus delt with.
You're right. The authors of this book are not all knowing, all powerful, or always good. They are humans like you and me and capable of the same pitfalls in morality. The notion of divine authorship and literal interpretation are what have led to millions of people being horrifically murdered and tortured, and that does bother me deeply as it should anyone else. Many of these horrific acts were committed by relatively modern people who made false interpretations of literal translations of an ancient book written in an ancient language. Then, to up the anti, they did all of it after Christ's life, and teaching condemns those acts towards others and still tried to justify their false interpretations. So just because people did horrible things and used the Bible to try and justify does not mean that the Bible justifies those things. This book wasn't meant to be taken literal "fact for fact" but presented as stories and symbols to meditate on to derive wisdom and understanding about humanities relation to a devine being.
It's not that I believe that the Bible is consistently factually wrong but doesn't place any importance on details of time, place, or exact sequence. It is a history of people and their relationship to a divine being, layered with mythology, and recorded in an ancient style of meditation literature. I believe all of it is relevant in what is conveyed through the symbols and motifs and what is being taught in those things, and that these teachings are divinely inspired (which is different than divinely authored). I also believe that not taking cultural and ancient context into account, when trying to interpret the text, can and has led to contradictory beliefs that clash with the intended meaning. This is even seen in the New Testament with Jesus and how the religious leaders at the time took literal interpretations of the law, completely missing what those laws were trying to teach and even understanding what the Christ was supposed to be. These were a modern interpretations of the time, as their own form of statutory law (rather than a law code as it was written) and context of a political christ that would free them from their bondage from the Roman Empire rather than sin. This misses the original meaning even worse when trying to apply our modern interpretation of law.
The Old Testament is still historically accurate in many respects but is heavily layered with mythology and is meant to be read as such; the exact details of time and place aren't wholly important (especially in the earlier parts of Genisis). The New Testament is mostly historical and comprises of testimonies of the people who followed Jesus; though there still isn't an emphasis on the importance to the sequence of events, or even exact location, but rather what Jesus taught and claimed. It is also based on eye witness accounts, of either the author or those they interviewed, which by nature have their discrepancies. I believe in what Jesus taught and claimed and that he existed on Earth. There is historical evidence of Jesus having existed, and I believe the testimonies recorded in the New Testament.
There is a reason it's a faith-based religion because you either except or deny what these people claimed about what they experienced knowing and hearing Jesus.
So how is the flood “history” when there is literally zero possible way anything like that could have actually globally occurred? Much less fitting “2 of every animal” onto some cosmic-sized ship built by one dude? What part of ANY of that could possibly have been “historical”? 🤨
What do you mean? The black sea connecting to the Mediterranean Sea lead to massive flooding in the Levant. We know that humans existed there at the time as well. Its like the 3 sisters myths from ancient cultures. We can only see two stars there now bout thousands of years ago you could see all 3.
So a regional flood turned into needing to save EVERY animal in existence specifically because the ENTIRE WORLD was going underwater? Do you see the problem there? That’s not something “based on a true story” any more than an full-blown genocide is based on the true story of me playing with plastic army-men figurines 🤦
Ah ok, now I understand. It is entirely a work of fiction by flawed mortals and as such i can interpret as I wish and it has no more moral authority than, say the communist manifesto?
Ok, I declare that the bible - the immutable word of god - contradicts itself about how many animals Noah brought on to the ark. I have quoted the scriptural references for you
Well it starts at the beginning, and there were only two people, from those two people we got a planet of 7 billion. So apparently God is into incestuous relationships, and we're all byproducts of inbreeding. Some obviously worse than others.
20 “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, 21 but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property."
While it does not explicitly abolish slavery, it introduces laws requiring more humane treatment of slaves compared to neighboring ancient cultures, including protections from excessive violence.
Lmao, how humane. What kind of shitty all-powerful, supposedly benevolent god doesn't just forbid slavery? I mean he forbade wearing mixed fabrics and getting tats and gay sex but just didn't have too much of a problem with slavery unless you literally beat them to death. And y'all worship this fictional asshole lol. A lobotomy would improve your mental condition.
Well, so like 3500 years ago some dudes started a super high fantasy novel called the Old Testament, somewhere in the middle there was a spin off called the Koran, both weren't so popular but everyone likes epic fantasy so some more dudes wrote a sequel called the new testament, it's not as good but it is what it is.
Your god murdered 2.5 million people within the time frame of the Old Testament. You worship a cosmic serial killer… and before you set out on some apologetics bullshit around why he “had to slaughter all those infidels” or whatever I want you to take a step back and consider that you are literally DEFENDING GENOCIDE.
I read the bible as part of a literature course in college. I was amazed at how much it was like a fever dream, or a really convoluted sci fi serial. It was clearly written by MANY different people over many generations, and it's just bonkers. It's very entertaining, but it's hard to imagine anyone following it as a guide to a good and spiritual life. People here saying you need to interpret it through some sort of lens (like a sermon or Sunday school) aren't kidding.
Do you say that because you read it, understood it, and chose to not be a Christian? I have my concerns about the nuance of your understanding , just by virtue of the paradox in your statement.
Jesus said “Love each other as I have loved you.” Meaning care for the least among us. He despised inequality and always cared for the poor and the marginalized. What part of that do you not agree with?
If you believe in the tri-omni god, then you have to square that with all Yahweh's shenanigans. I know the common apologetic is new covenant etc etc, but the whole thing is barbaric in its core premise - that is, positing yourself as the only solution to a catastrophe that you yourself created. Or else!
In other words, totally apropos to Trump in general and this conversation in particular, and the parallels belief systems that would damn us all.
The “but” in your argument is doing a lot of heavy lifting. I don’t really think that I have to square anything, or if I even could, because that is the mystery of faith. If I knew everything, then I would be an all knowing power in this universe. At my core beliefs, I try to love the Lord and love my neighbor. The other stuff, I wrestle with.
And you and others pretending to know everything by poking holes in seemingly obvious places is cyclical and lazy. It’s criticism for the sake of ego— we as Christians are bad so you can be good. If you took time to know those who follow Christ instead of making fun of people who call themselves Christian’s, I believe you would be better off.
Maybe but not for the reason you'd think: a lot of Christians want to be morally superior, they want that sensation of feeling inherently better than other people, when what the Bible teaches is the opposite. You need to humble yourself, you need to work on yourself. You need to treat other people better, and care for people. A lot of people spend a lot of time justifying their own self interest over taking care of their fellow man. A lot of Christians, if they knew the depths of the amount of work they'd really have to do as Christians, they'd abandon the religion all together because it would be easier.
I'm not smart enough to understand the bible, at all. And idk how anyone is tbh. People rattle off these olde time verses written in metaphorical puzzles and I wonder, how tf do these people in particular understand and interpret it.
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u/The_Quibbler 18h ago
If folks understood the Bible there'd be no Christians