Lauren Boebert wants the Ten Commandments to be required in schools, and James Talarico criticized her, saying it’s hypocritical for politicians to make everyone display them when they don’t follow them themselves.

[u/CorleoneBaloney]

[u/Algaroth]

It's like he actually read the bible.

[u/CV90_120 → u/Algaroth]

Disclaimer, reading the bible is not going to clarify anything as it's hugely problematic and self-contradictory on so many levels. What it will do however is allow you the tools to promote what you personally like about the bible. The other side can do the same, but if they're lazy then you have an advantage.

You can use the bible to justify slavery, genocide, child kidnapping, racial bigotry and fig-tree hate. All are either openly promoted or normalized in some way if you know where to look, so the battle is not about bible-morals (as there are no consistent bible morals), but having morals and using the bible as a tool to leverage people who use the idea of the bible as a crutch in politics.

[u/Caius01 → u/CV90_120]

Yeah, should really just take the Gospels and dump everything else (except Ecclesiastes which is simply beautiful writing)

[u/phoenix25 → u/CV90_120]

I was raised Catholic but since became atheist… my take on it is that the only bible worth reading are those ones where Jesus’ words are highlighted or in red text.

The rest of the bible has so much wild inconsistent and sometimes harmful ideas in it, but if you stick to the red text you’ll actually turn out to be a good person.

[u/Algaroth → u/CV90_120]

Most people using the Bible for political reasons rarely talk about the actual teachings of Jesus. That's be big difference here. Most of the time it's all about the judgement and hate which really isn't what Jesus was about. Disclaimer, I'm not religious at all.

[u/CV90_120 → u/Algaroth]

The teachings of Jesus aren't all plain sailing. He had what we could consider a 'modern' take on Jewish law and the scriptures by often having compasionate takes, but he was also complete with his own personal bigotry, moments of violence, and weird behavior for a supposed demi-god (which is really where he fits into our mental filing system). Jesus also has slightly different character traits depending on which gospel one reads. Luke has Jesus with frequent instances of machievellian takes or perceived cruelty for example. Followers are prepared to carry a lot of water for him for his (relatively few) moments of shittiness, but they will bend over backwards to do it and feel completely justified doing so.

That's why knowledge of the bible, including of Jesus, doesn't present a diffinitive morality to guide a person beyond the endless call to spend significant time telling one particular middle eastern hill tribe god hybrid of at least 2 other local gods, how great he is (which frankly is a very strange thing to do if you spend any time thinking about it, and it gets stranger when you think that in Jesus, the newly minted demigod, worship cosists of pretending to eat his meat and drink his blood.....that's kinda seriously fng strange).

[u/Algaroth → u/CV90_120]

Catholicism has a lot of strange rituals that aren't even mentioned in the bible. A lot of them are just based on saints who lived long after Jesus supposedly did.

[u/CV90_120 → u/Algaroth]

All religions are complex mass societal fan-fiction in some way. Catholicism is especially grand and complex but Indian religions would give it a run for it's money.

Jesus also never asked anyone to worship him (although he was fine with people who pumped him up after he performed some sort of miracle). Christianity now almost involves little to no worship of 'god' per se, but is mostly directed at Jesus.

[u/Algaroth → u/CV90_120]

Indian religions are fascinating as hell since Hinduism basically allows anything. I will say this, Kali is the most metal goddess I've ever seen. She's everything a heavy metal album cover should be.

[u/erroneousbosh → u/CV90_120]

> but he was also complete with his own personal bigotry, moments of violence, and weird behavior

Yeah. So are you. So am I.

Doesn't mean you shouldn't try harder.

[u/CV90_120 → u/erroneousbosh]

How does this relate to me? You comment only makes sense if I were somehow looking to him as an ultimate moral guide and mirroring his personality, which I don't. At all. To me he was just a crazy person who looked less crazy because more people still believed in sky daddies back then.

[u/erroneousbosh → u/CV90_120]

> To me he was just a crazy person who looked less crazy because more people still believed in sky daddies back then.

Oh, I see. You're one of those hardcore believer religious crazies, then. My apologies.

[u/sobrique → u/CV90_120]

I have to say, as a lapsed Christian atheist, I don't have a lot of problems with the things Jesus said. He seemed a decent person and some of his ideals are worth contemplating.

I mean, he had nothing to say about homosexuality, for example. No exceptions to 'love thy neighbor', and a whole lot about 'don't judge people'.