no they surely just hate the lowercase t
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Yup. Ideology is religion and religion is ideology. We tend to want to be a part of something bigger, but the people in charge of those bigger things can use it to justify hurting people “for the greater good”.
as time goes on I’m beginning to realize that religion is a tool of politics
Yeah that’s always been the point of religion. They needed some way to control people in the 1400s, so they told them that if they didn’t do what they were told, and incidentally pay the church a lot of money, then the big man in the sky would be unhappy. That was about the level of sophistication that a con required back then.
Even as recently as 200 years ago pastors didn’t really believe in god, it was just a convenient job to do if you were relatively well off but still needed employment, and didn’t want to do any laboring. That’s why a lot of them ended up being scientists, they were rich and bored.
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Christianity predates the 1400s
That’s not really pertinent to my point.
Also I’m thinking more of all of the people paying patronage to country parsons which absolutely is a product of the 1400s onwards.
Are you saying that year 0 was a thing?
You can’t get rid of superstitions nor politics. The most important thing that will help is education. A more educated populace is less gullible, but you can’t fix stupid. Stupid will always exist.
Quite frankly, Christianity can be used as a motivator for left wing philosophies helping the poor. If you actually read what Jesus’ said, it’s pretty good and damning for many self proclaimed american “christians”
Sort of, but you need to remember that his teachings were an individual philosophy and he didn’t want anything to do with government (render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s, render unto God that which is God’s).
Jesus taught that you should give all you have to the poor and follow God. Failing that, you should be generous in helping the poor. So I think he would advocate for charities, not taxation, since charitable giving is a choice and he wants people to choose to do the right thing. He would also criticize the very wealthy because they obviously have more than enough to share with the poor.
Good point, especially with 2 Corinthians 9:7
Thanks.
IMO, just paying your taxes doesn’t make you a good person, giving what’s left does. Ebenezer Scrooge’s big transformation wasn’t adopting progressive policies or anything, but giving abundantly.
Christianity doesn’t say anything about politics, it’s an individual thing.
Exactly, Paul tells Christians to leave those outside of the Church to be dealt with by God as well.
1 Corinthians 5:12-13
For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside. “Purge the evil person from among you.
I agree with your point generally (limit judgment to those within the church), I just urge caution about how far to take that.
Context
Paul is talking to a fledgling church (not ready for meat: see chapter 3), so they need to be extra careful about getting led astray. Corinth was known for sexual deviance, yet the Christians were accepting of something even the local non-Christians would see as wrong (sexual relationship with step mother), yet the Christians there seemed to accept it. Tolerance of that behavior is destructive to the church, so they need to actively push against it. Pushing the individual out of the church would encourage them to repent and also protect the church from further compromising their principles.
I know to urge caution, but what do you mean? Like we should punish murder because society sees it as bad as well. But when it comes to a topic such as same sex marriage, I think if it’s what the majority of society want, it should be legal and not hurting anybody, even if it’s not something that the Church should accept within religious life.
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Heard of Christian Marxism?
Marx generally opposed religion so it sounds like an oxymoron
You may be on to something there
…a lowercase ‘t’
…t…t…time to leave!
Obligatory ACAB
Uh…
Yes.
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I don’t know what to tell you if that was the first thing that tipped you off.
Without a doubt
for time to leave
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Longer answer… yeeeeeeessssss
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Don’t wanna argue with the premises here. But isn’t Christianity also a bit stupid for praying towards the instrument that’s been used to torture and kill their leader.
Just imagine you are Jesus and come into a modern church. You’d run away screaming with all those crosses triggering your PTSD. And that’s before you’ve even heard of all the atrocities they’re doing there in your name.
I’m not Christian but isn’t it just very emblematic of the Christian victim complex? Praying towards the instrument of your faith’s victimisation is sort of like taking the power back from that symbol and acknowledging the victimisation your belief system has gone through… As far as I can understand it at least 😂
I honestly don’t think most Christians even think this deeply about their own faith.
Sacrifice is a big thing in Christianity, the cross is the symbol of the biggest sacrifice that God did for us, on Christianity canon.
Totally. And it really makes sense when you think about it…
God is all-powerful, all-knowing and all-loving and he created man in his own image… And then doomed them all to an eternity of suffering because… reasons.
God was known for being petty and jealous, so he forced humans to destroy their food to prove that they love him.
God, being all powerful, I guess changed his mind about wanting people to burn for eternity, so being the all-powerful, all-loving being that he is, he changed his mind and deleted hell so that all humans could enjoy eternity with him… LOL jk.
No, instead he split himself into another being and became a human with the sole purpose of being murdered in 30 years so that humans didn’t have to burn for eternity…? Actually, I kind of lose the thread at this point. It’s never been clear to me why an all-powerful god would need to create such a bizarre, convoluted, byzantine means for redemption when he could have just snapped his fingers and made it all go away.
But all of that makes sense when you think about it as just another sacrifice to prove to god that you love him, and our rudimentary understanding of symbolism is all we need to prove this. After all, there’s no need to read any other books, therefore this has to be the deepest, most profound thing ever written. I mean holy shit, Jesus is the “lamb of god” that needed to be sacrificed! Just like when we burned our food! Wow, talk about deep connections. No human could ever think up such an amazing story with such deep symbolism!
Anyway… I lost my train of thought.
You might enjoy reading about Gnosticism, where the world was created by a dopey lesser god, and that’s why there is suffering.
I feel like this was a George Carlin bit or something…
As a Christian, I’ve always found that stupid, so I don’t do that and don’t attend churches that do. The second commandments says:
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image.
I’m pretty sure a cross counts here. I also believe Jesus taught a higher law, meaning the 10 commandments are outdated, and the only thing Jesus said to do to remember him is breaking and sharing bread and sharing wine (Communion in many churches). That’s it, that and “feed my sheep” (teach and help others).
I don’t get where everyone is getting the “wear and rub a crucifix for luck” idea. A silent prayer should be a lot more effective than directly violating the second commandment.
I choose to remember Jesus’ life. His death was an event, his life was full of teaching and wisdom, so I focus on how he treated others instead of how others treated him.
I like your perspective and wish Christianity aligned more with your post than whatever it’s doing now.
I’m not Christian, but I have observed that the worship of the cross and Christ’s death is directly tied to the theological idea of salvation, especially with evangelicals. If his death is the single most important part of your faith, then the cross becomes a symbol and reminder that you’re saved and not going to hell. It was primed to become a symbol and eventually an idol.
I also think historically the cross as a symbol for Christianity comes from the Greek letter chi (x) in the spelling of Christ. “X-tians” was a shorthand form way before the “taking Christ out of Christmas” nonsense.
But to the original point of the Klan burning the cross: I’ve read that they argue that cross burning is a medieval European affirmation of faith, something that is doing double duty of arguing that it’s an expression of their faith and connecting them to their “racial” roots.
Yeah, I think modern Christianity has really lost the plot. The most important part of Jesus’ life is certainly debatable, but surely him rising again is more important than his death? So if we want a symbol to remember being saved, surely the empty tomb with the rock rolled away is the better symbol.
But the only symbol Christ recommended is the last supper. That is how we’re supposed to remember him, and that’s why we go to church.
And Jesus never said we’re saved just because be died, otherwise why would he go around forgiving people manually? Surely that wouldn’t matter if they’re going to get saved unconditionally anyway. No, we need to actually change ourselves to be in line with his teachings. Love others unconditionally, give to the poor, and multiply the gifts God gave you for the benefit of others.
but surely him rising again is more important than his death?
Depends on how fixated a faith is on the “sacrifice of the Lamb.” There’s one interpretation that Jesus’ suffering and death is what appeased God and fulfilled the prophecy and ended the law of Moses. If you’re the kind of person that buys into God being the sort of deity that wants to kill himself in order to satisfy his own bloodlust, then yeah, I could see Christ’s death being the more important part.
Surely the resurrection should be emphasized as the result, but the death is what God demanded to atone for the sins of the world. The resurrection was just proof that he held up his end of the bargain.
I think that the Christ story suffers from the audience knowing details about the story that the characters don’t to the point that the big miracle at the end falls flat. Everyone just ends up focusing on the mechanics of Christs death rather than its purpose.
There’s one interpretation that Jesus’ suffering and death is what appeased God and fulfilled the prophecy and ended the law of Moses.
I agree with that (with caveats), but I still don’t see how that impacts the average Christian. How salvation is possible isn’t really important, the important thing is what we need to do.
If all we need to do is recognize Jesus, what’s the point of his ministry? Surely it all wasn’t strictly necessary to be bait the Jewish people into killing him.
Everyone just ends up focusing on the mechanics of Christs death rather than its purpose.
Exactly. It’s certainly important, but Jesus spent years teaching and setting an example and only a few days dying and resurrecting. That needed to happen, but it doesn’t replace everything else he told us to do.
If we claim to follow Jesus but fall to live the second commandment he gave (love others as ourselves), surely we’ll have issues getting to heaven. Likewise, if someone who has never heard of Jesus follows his commandments anyway by living another philosophy, surely they’ll be better off, no?
It’s all BS and they’ve completely missed the plot. Claiming to be saved just because of something Jesus did is the other side of the coin from the Pharisees, who claimed to be saved because they followed the letter of the law. It takes a little more effort than singing along at church…
You quote the third commandment but you believe they are outdated?
Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under earth: Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.
Even letters are images…
You quote the third commandment but you believe they are outdated?
Yes. What’s the problem?
The 10 commandments are still instructional, even if I the Law of Moses has been fulfilled. Matthew 5:17:
Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.
They’re still useful, but not they’re outdated, and they’re covered by the new law, which Jesus summarized as “love god and love your neighbor.”
Even letters are images…
Sure. Don’t pray to the Bible or any other physical creation. Pray to God.
it makes more sense when Christians were a persecuted minority, executed on sight by the Roman empire. You’re sharing in a symbol of sacrifice that could itself get you killed.
But that was 1500 years ago.
The core of Christianity is originally the redemption, not the threat that necessitates it and often is more prominent.
The cross is a symbol of the sacrifice made to redeem people from the threat of hell. More relevant here is that sin separates humans from God, and through that sacrifice, the connection is restored. It is a catalyst of redemption and reunion. In that sense, they don’t so much pray towards an implement of torture as an implement of liberation, salvation and mercy.
Given that those are hard things to put in a visual, tangible form and that humans tend to place a lot of value in visual, tangible representations, it’s basically the simplest symbol you could come up with as a nascent cult.
It’s not the only symbol, and particularly during the rise of the Roman church, you’ll note that icons of saints become very common too. Some places will even have the Crucifix feature the crucified Jesus as well, to drive home the point about sacrifice and gratitude.
Protestants later held that the worship of saints was tantamount to idolatry and did away with them again, leaving just the core of the message of redemption. There was in some places a conscious choice to pick the “empty” cross rather than the crucified saviour as a symbol that he is no longer dead.
All in all, given his divine wisdom and love for metaphors and similes, I’d think Jesus would understand the point of the cross…
…then proceed to trash the place out of rage over the waste of money and effort that went into gaudy churches and gold-embroidered robes instead of helping the sick and poor.
Not just their leader, early christians were violently prosecuted, they turned their symbol of oppression into the symbol of their faith in an ultimate act of defiance as well as love and forgiveness.
Besides what everyone else said it used to be a fish, and the ChiRo (the one that looks like an X and a P) Symbol. It’s easy to see the evolution into the cross.
They are stupid, yes, but also are against everything’s in the Bible so they don’t actually care about Christianity.
Well you have to keep in mind part of who they hate are those fucking papists.
They’re Christian in the sense of “everyone i don’t like is going to hell, and I’ve got to hand deliver their ticket there”
The Christian taliban.
Y’all’quaeda
Jesus was literally brown
And a Jew.
IIRC he also said that jews could be christians while keeping their jewish traditions, which is worse for those fake christians.
I think the idea is that he was a Jew but welcomed gentiles into the faith so technically all Christians are Jews in the eyes of Jesus.
Jesus didn’t came here to create Christianity, he was the fulfillment of a Jewish prophecy, Christianity exists because some Jews didn’t believe he was the Messiah.
It started out as a prank organization to scare black people… Those outfits they’re canonically supposed to be dressed as dead confederate soldiers haunting the south.
If you ask me they leaned too heavy into the racism, and not heavily enough into theatrics and costumes. The problem is they held onto some 1900s sense of injustice, and didn’t roll with the times, didn’t stay up to date. They didn’t evolve with justice or improve on their first poorly selected target… So they became violent and nasty instead.
A shame, I’d love a horse back theater group “haunting” cops and healthcare CEOs… In that timeline the KKK would be a different organization entirely.
If you ask me they leaned too heavy into the racism, and not heavily enough into theatrics and costumes
You know, I watched my wife work all day gettin’ thirty bags together for you ungrateful sons of bitches! And all I can hear is criticize, criticize, criticize! From now on, don’t ask me or mine for nothin’!
Hmm, we should start a rival organization. We can keep the ghost theme, but perhaps go with dead WW2 heroes that push against fascism and abuse of power of every variety.
Maybe the WWW? World War Wraiths. We can also defend the free internet due to the naming collision.
The Sextuple-U
“Sex U” for short
I’m in. And we can bring back the thing with women wearing bright red lipstick because Hitler didn’t like it. Am I just imagining rockabilly goths doing antifascist pranks and protests? Yes. Does that reduce this in the slightest? Not in the slightest.
So, gray hoodies and green fiddler hats?
