This has got to be one of the most disturbing posts I’ve seen in a while. You’re actively warping the Bible and trying to bend it to fit your narrative.
You constantly leap to conclusions that are at best farfetched, or downright blasphemous…
John 6:15 Jesus, knowing that they intended to come and make him king by force, withdrew again to a mountain by himself.
This comes in the followup of the feeding of the 5000. The crowd, amazed at his power, looks to Jesus as a national savior - someone who will overthrow the Romans and restore Israel’s power. Jesus shows very clearly that he does NOT want to seize worldly power - his mission is to change people’s minds and hearts. Literally, his is an ideological mission, the opposite of what you wrote.
Mark 12:17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.” And they were amazed at him.
Jesus doesn’t say politics don’t matter. He masterfully draws a line between what are worldly concerns, and divine allegiance. Paying taxes doesn’t threaten your relationship with God, but confusing political loyalty with spiritual devotion can.
It pains me how the core of Jesus’ message here is being missed: in Genesis, we are told that humans bear the image of God. What Jesus is saying is that the coin has Caesar’s image - give it to him. But WE bear God’s image - so we should give ourselves to God. The Pharisees and the Herodians understood this, and were amazed, and yet somehow the best we can do nowadays is to completely miss the beauty and the meaning in his message, and instead mistake it for “Jesus doesn’t do politics”.
John 15:19 “If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you.”
Again, you disregard the context and you’re try to make it sound like Jesus is arguing that him and his followers are not involved in the affairs of this world, when the very opposite is true. Jesus is speaking to his followers just before his arrest, so he is preparing them to face the persecution and hardships that are to come. They are very much a part of this world, and they want to change it - because of that, they will suffer greatly. What Jesus is telling them is to not compromise their values for the sake of fitting in; to be faithful even when they are criticized or mocked; that they are not without a tribe, but instead they are part of a very different one.
Matthew 6:9, 10 “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’”
Again you keep pushing your narrative that Jesus is talking about something other than human ideology, when your very quote says the opposite: “[Father’s] will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. What this prayer says is we want Jesus’ teaching to shape the world, and our lives, right now. This isn’t some abstract wishful thinking, this is a pledge that we will work so that God’s will be done through us, now, everyday, in the real world.
Please, spend some time reflecting on the context of the words and why they were spoken. If you pull them out of context and mishmash them in the way you want, then sure, they may have come from the Bible, but they’re are no longer God’s word - they are your own, so don’t misattribute them to Jesus.
I suspect maybe you wouldn’t want that! I’ve spent some time learning about religion and the Bible, and yet I’m an atheist, I don’t believe God exists.
While I don’t see the Bible as the literal word of a god, I do see it as a remarkable book that contains many important teachings, and it has definitely shaped a big part of my morality. I just wish it didn’t focus so much on blind obedience and faith in some higher power, so that we could look more closely at the ways in which it shows us how treating each other with love and respect would create a wonderful place for all of us, without having to wait for some future heavenly reward. I can see how that would hurt its success as a religion though…
In any case, I’m sure there’s people out there that share the mindset, and that are much more eloquent than me. Personally, my red flags are preaching about obedience, trust and faith. For me these are NOT the core of the gospel, quite the contrary. Jesus constantly refers to the “kingdom of god”, but to me this isn’t some place where god is the ruler: it’s a new reality, here on earth, where the poor, the meek, the broken, the sinners, the “lepers”, the outsiders, are all worthy of love and respect. It’s about accepting suffering and sacrifice, not in the hopes of getting out of here and being rewarded elsewhere, but because we all need to be willing to share our part of the burden and the work of making the world a better place.
Urgh, that sounds a lot like preaching, so I’ll shut up. You do you. But if we’re kind to each other, we’ll all have a better day.
Yeah you just made me double down on my statement. An atheist who actually finds value in the moral code in the bible while acknowledging its faults and negative influences without just yelling Bible Bad Religion Bad Fuck God. I’ve always wanted to read the bible with better context and explanations like in a literature class, but I never found this balance.
I have no issues with that, that’s a legit opinion. Also 100% agree on blasphemy being a tool of social control, there’s no shortage of historical examples to prove it.
My issue is with misrepresenting something to try to prove a point, like the guy I replied to was trying to do.
Indeed it is, but it’s a fascinating book regardless. Unfortunately it has been used to justify horrendous things almost from the moment it was written, and as shown above, continues to be used to try to just anything up to this day.
This has got to be one of the most disturbing posts I’ve seen in a while. You’re actively warping the Bible and trying to bend it to fit your narrative. You constantly leap to conclusions that are at best farfetched, or downright blasphemous…
This comes in the followup of the feeding of the 5000. The crowd, amazed at his power, looks to Jesus as a national savior - someone who will overthrow the Romans and restore Israel’s power. Jesus shows very clearly that he does NOT want to seize worldly power - his mission is to change people’s minds and hearts. Literally, his is an ideological mission, the opposite of what you wrote.
Jesus doesn’t say politics don’t matter. He masterfully draws a line between what are worldly concerns, and divine allegiance. Paying taxes doesn’t threaten your relationship with God, but confusing political loyalty with spiritual devotion can.
It pains me how the core of Jesus’ message here is being missed: in Genesis, we are told that humans bear the image of God. What Jesus is saying is that the coin has Caesar’s image - give it to him. But WE bear God’s image - so we should give ourselves to God. The Pharisees and the Herodians understood this, and were amazed, and yet somehow the best we can do nowadays is to completely miss the beauty and the meaning in his message, and instead mistake it for “Jesus doesn’t do politics”.
Again, you disregard the context and you’re try to make it sound like Jesus is arguing that him and his followers are not involved in the affairs of this world, when the very opposite is true. Jesus is speaking to his followers just before his arrest, so he is preparing them to face the persecution and hardships that are to come. They are very much a part of this world, and they want to change it - because of that, they will suffer greatly. What Jesus is telling them is to not compromise their values for the sake of fitting in; to be faithful even when they are criticized or mocked; that they are not without a tribe, but instead they are part of a very different one.
Again you keep pushing your narrative that Jesus is talking about something other than human ideology, when your very quote says the opposite: “[Father’s] will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. What this prayer says is we want Jesus’ teaching to shape the world, and our lives, right now. This isn’t some abstract wishful thinking, this is a pledge that we will work so that God’s will be done through us, now, everyday, in the real world.
Please, spend some time reflecting on the context of the words and why they were spoken. If you pull them out of context and mishmash them in the way you want, then sure, they may have come from the Bible, but they’re are no longer God’s word - they are your own, so don’t misattribute them to Jesus.
Man, I wish you’d offer bible courses
I suspect maybe you wouldn’t want that! I’ve spent some time learning about religion and the Bible, and yet I’m an atheist, I don’t believe God exists.
While I don’t see the Bible as the literal word of a god, I do see it as a remarkable book that contains many important teachings, and it has definitely shaped a big part of my morality. I just wish it didn’t focus so much on blind obedience and faith in some higher power, so that we could look more closely at the ways in which it shows us how treating each other with love and respect would create a wonderful place for all of us, without having to wait for some future heavenly reward. I can see how that would hurt its success as a religion though…
In any case, I’m sure there’s people out there that share the mindset, and that are much more eloquent than me. Personally, my red flags are preaching about obedience, trust and faith. For me these are NOT the core of the gospel, quite the contrary. Jesus constantly refers to the “kingdom of god”, but to me this isn’t some place where god is the ruler: it’s a new reality, here on earth, where the poor, the meek, the broken, the sinners, the “lepers”, the outsiders, are all worthy of love and respect. It’s about accepting suffering and sacrifice, not in the hopes of getting out of here and being rewarded elsewhere, but because we all need to be willing to share our part of the burden and the work of making the world a better place.
Urgh, that sounds a lot like preaching, so I’ll shut up. You do you. But if we’re kind to each other, we’ll all have a better day.
Yeah you just made me double down on my statement. An atheist who actually finds value in the moral code in the bible while acknowledging its faults and negative influences without just yelling Bible Bad Religion Bad Fuck God. I’ve always wanted to read the bible with better context and explanations like in a literature class, but I never found this balance.
Don’t worry, blasphemy is just a way to control workers or peasants.
Fuck jesus! Jesus is an asshole! God is evil!
See, nothing happened…
I have no issues with that, that’s a legit opinion. Also 100% agree on blasphemy being a tool of social control, there’s no shortage of historical examples to prove it.
My issue is with misrepresenting something to try to prove a point, like the guy I replied to was trying to do.
Fair enough!
Still, don’t forget it’s just an old book, interpreted by people over the ages too…
Indeed it is, but it’s a fascinating book regardless. Unfortunately it has been used to justify horrendous things almost from the moment it was written, and as shown above, continues to be used to try to just anything up to this day.
There are way more interesting books out there …
Use of undeclared identifier 'jesus'. Unused variable 'Jesus'. Undefined type 'evil'.That didn’t compile.
Also, “Jesus” and “jesus” are different.