I’m curious about the Jesus Was Wrong sign.
Seemed like a pretty cool dude, and I probably wouldn’t have a problem with people who follow him, if they actually followed his teachings.
he told people to kill their family if they didn’t believe in him. better to kill them yourself then have god do it I guess. Jesus is not the cutesy communist that some want to paint him as
What?! Where do you get that?
Deuteronomy 13:6-11
6 If your very own brother, or your son or daughter, or the wife you love, or your closest friend secretly entices you, saying, “Let us go and worship other gods” (gods that neither you nor your ancestors have known, 7 gods of the peoples around you, whether near or far, from one end of the land to the other), 8 do not yield to them or listen to them. Show them no pity. Do not spare them or shield them. 9 You must certainly put them to death. Your hand must be the first in putting them to death, and then the hands of all the people. 10 Stone them to death, because they tried to turn you away from the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 11 Then all Israel will hear and be afraid, and no one among you will do such an evil thing again.
Jesus said that all OT laws would be upheld here:
Matthew 5:17-19
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. 18 For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished.
it may not have come directly from him as i misremembered, but there ya go
That is such an overly simplistic and reductionist take. I’m not even sure the most control and fear oriented, “OT” Christians would accept that interpretation. I’m not even sure that there are any hardcore Jews that would accept that interpretation.
From a Christian perspective, Jesus is evidently non-violent and encourages non-violence (“those who live by the sword, die by the sword,” “let he who is without sin cast the first stone,” and his refusal to start a riot in Jerusalem when he’s being tried.)
Also, I’d take your Matthew quote as Jesus seeing himself as in conversation with the Jewish corpus of teachings, not divorcing himself from it. He’s evidently NOT ok with the blind implementation of OT teaching. Anyway, I’ve got to clarify that the translation of Torah as “law” misses a lot of nuance. “Teachings” might be a better translation. “The Law and the Prophets” is basically shorthand for what Christians would call the “Old Testament”.
He obviously interpreted and prioritised Old Testament teachings to place love, mercy, and redemption at the heart of interpretation, so to say that, “Jesus wants you to kill your non-Christian family,” is absolutely disingenuous.
Religious people physically can’t comprehend non religious thinking. If I didn’t have Christianity shoved down my throat every day, I wouldn’t think about religion at all.
I mean that’s not likely. Humans have spiritual needs. I suspect what’s more likely is that the constant aggravation of Christianity being shoved down our throats massively distorts our idea of what religious thought and practice even is, and we don’t recognize our own needs and practices as being religious in nature.
In psychology, spirituality is thought of as how you relate to the Universe. Do you think it is a good place where positive things can happen? Do you think it is a bad place where suffering outweighs any potential value? One has to find a way to feel that existing in this Universe is tenable. That right there is religious thought.
We all have many needs of religious thought.
What utter crap.
The universe is mostly empty space with the occasional rock and ball of plasma. Assumptions of universal morality are just the result of an overactive tendency for our brains to find patterns in things. I do good things because I like doing them. This is likely the result of a bunch of evolved tendencies as well, but A) I am not making appeals to superstitious nonsense, and B) I can intellectually recognize that this feral drive I feel results in other sentient beings having a better life.
Taking all of that and saying, “YoU hAvE sPiRiTuaL nEeds!” is so completely absurd I don’t even have words for it.
