I mean, it still has the good stuff. Churches just focus on the parts that blame the working class.
I started going to a progressive church (mainly bc my dad made me lol) and it’s SO INTERESTING learning about how the Bible is literally just the most basic “be nice to each other, you dumbasses” and people will take it and start beating each other over it
A few weeks ago they had the head of the local mosque to talk about Palestine along with an Activist that visited there. It was mainly educational where you could ask questions and stuff.
I personally am not particularly religious in the idea that God personally effects everything but it’s damn neat once you stop nitpicking every little thing like other churches and look with an open mind.
For example, the first depiction of a baptism in the new testament was someone who didn’t fit in the binary man/woman social standards. He (iirc) had his balls removed for religious reasons. The proper ‘old testament’ way of getting baptized wouldn’t let him in, so they went to a river instead. Most churches tell it like this, but you can interpret it as the new testament is open to people outside the social rules (specifically gender) and is saying to accept all.
Probably not 100% accurate as I’m telling a retelling that I forgot part of (thanks, ADHD) but that’s just an example.
I really don’t feel too strongly about religion though. I don’t want to sound like a full Bible supporter in every way, ethics and just being nice are way more important than what an old book says to me.
I was essentially shoved through a normal church and learned to shut it all out as… trans …, but it’s been super cool to learn about how its not what conservatives say it is.
A lot of the last half of the New Testament (the books that are “A letter to [the churtch at] <place>” ) spends a decent amount of time on “don’t trust someone just because they say they are holy” and “please stop trying to police other people’s faith and behavior”.
Nothing will make you more frustrated with self-righteous Christians, especially Republican/right-wing christians, than reading the Bible.
Here’s the thing though. A lot of the first two books of the New Testament is about how awful the Jews are and how Jesus was a cult leader who got his followers to abandon their families for him and even got his followers to steal for him. Reading Matthew and Mark in the light of today’s politics, Jesus looks like a right-wing grifter. Seems like they’re reading it right to me.
I love that story about the first New Testament baptismal. It’s so weird to think that that person was (after a fashion) Nonbin. It conjures this weird scene to me where Jesus is in some kind of board room and the Apostles are bringing him polling data.
“Jesus, I know we have a mission statement. I know, I know. “Love thy neighbour” “Love everyone” “We’re all Gods children”. No, totally love that, very cutting edge. No, we’re so onboard. I just think we really need to consider not loving some specific groups. Like, Nonbins, or Trans people, or the Gays. First century Judea is just not very progressive and some of these demographics are…”
Jesus flips whole fucking boardroom table
"What THE FUCK, Paul!? Are we going to have this fight every Dad-damned week? Listen to me. Listen. It’s core to the brand. Do you understand me? The whole brand! We don’t love SOME people. We don’t love JUST the Hebrews, or JUST the Romans. EVERYBODY. If it’s not EVERYBODY, then what the fuck are we doing here? Seriously.
It’s the whole goddamn brand. I promised a “New Way”. You want to take my vision - my divine purpose- and make it just like every other religion on the block. Totally dilute our entire brand image. Why would anyone choose the son of a carpenter, if I was going to be picky? Ok? That’s the core question here. We are doing this for EVERYBODY.
No. No, of course I forgive you. I always forgive you. Just… get the fuck out and lay off the Queers."
The good tidbits are there.
The bad was always there.
Even early christians thought so.
Before the religion organized into a hierarchical orthodoxy, communities distant from the emerging establishment (not particularly attached to jewish traditions) in places like Alexandria were left to their own devices to figure out christianity: they formed loose households & study circles to interpret texts in the context of their own traditions & culture, and they drew their own conclusions.
Reading the older jewish scriptures & newer texts quite literally, they concluded there were 2 deities.
1 of whom, the unhidden Demiurge (Yahweh of the old testament) who had created the material universe, was a vengeful and ignorant deity inimical to human welfare.
Consequently, material existence is flawed & evil, and they must escape that realm by seeking personal knowledge of the other, hidden deity: the transcendent spiritual entity, the Silent Depth (or the Monad), who briefly inhabited Jesus with that revelatory wisdom or logos found in the newer texts.
In other words, there’s cool god (Jesus’s god) & evil genocidal god (Yahweh).
Moreover, they concluded that church authority isn’t needed: Jesus had awoken a spark of divinity in matter that would find its way back to its transcendent source with little need of episcopal authority or sacramental practice.
Sticklers with the evil trash god of older jewish scriptures didn’t like this idea, became early church authorities, denounced it as heresy, & purged all the texts they could of it.
Nonetheless, early christians thought there was bad in those texts & tried to handle it.
Weird how kings re-writing the Bible over and over again for thousands of years got rid of all the good stuff and left all the horrible shit…
I mean, it still has the good stuff. Churches just focus on the parts that blame the working class.
I started going to a progressive church (mainly bc my dad made me lol) and it’s SO INTERESTING learning about how the Bible is literally just the most basic “be nice to each other, you dumbasses” and people will take it and start beating each other over it
A few weeks ago they had the head of the local mosque to talk about Palestine along with an Activist that visited there. It was mainly educational where you could ask questions and stuff.
I personally am not particularly religious in the idea that God personally effects everything but it’s damn neat once you stop nitpicking every little thing like other churches and look with an open mind.
For example, the first depiction of a baptism in the new testament was someone who didn’t fit in the binary man/woman social standards. He (iirc) had his balls removed for religious reasons. The proper ‘old testament’ way of getting baptized wouldn’t let him in, so they went to a river instead. Most churches tell it like this, but you can interpret it as the new testament is open to people outside the social rules (specifically gender) and is saying to accept all.
Probably not 100% accurate as I’m telling a retelling that I forgot part of (thanks, ADHD) but that’s just an example.
I really don’t feel too strongly about religion though. I don’t want to sound like a full Bible supporter in every way, ethics and just being nice are way more important than what an old book says to me.
I was essentially shoved through a normal church and learned to shut it all out as… trans …, but it’s been super cool to learn about how its not what conservatives say it is.
A lot of the last half of the New Testament (the books that are “A letter to [the churtch at] <place>” ) spends a decent amount of time on “don’t trust someone just because they say they are holy” and “please stop trying to police other people’s faith and behavior”.
Nothing will make you more frustrated with self-righteous Christians, especially Republican/right-wing christians, than reading the Bible.
Here’s the thing though. A lot of the first two books of the New Testament is about how awful the Jews are and how Jesus was a cult leader who got his followers to abandon their families for him and even got his followers to steal for him. Reading Matthew and Mark in the light of today’s politics, Jesus looks like a right-wing grifter. Seems like they’re reading it right to me.
I love that story about the first New Testament baptismal. It’s so weird to think that that person was (after a fashion) Nonbin. It conjures this weird scene to me where Jesus is in some kind of board room and the Apostles are bringing him polling data.
“Jesus, I know we have a mission statement. I know, I know. “Love thy neighbour” “Love everyone” “We’re all Gods children”. No, totally love that, very cutting edge. No, we’re so onboard. I just think we really need to consider not loving some specific groups. Like, Nonbins, or Trans people, or the Gays. First century Judea is just not very progressive and some of these demographics are…”
Jesus flips whole fucking boardroom table
"What THE FUCK, Paul!? Are we going to have this fight every Dad-damned week? Listen to me. Listen. It’s core to the brand. Do you understand me? The whole brand! We don’t love SOME people. We don’t love JUST the Hebrews, or JUST the Romans. EVERYBODY. If it’s not EVERYBODY, then what the fuck are we doing here? Seriously.
It’s the whole goddamn brand. I promised a “New Way”. You want to take my vision - my divine purpose- and make it just like every other religion on the block. Totally dilute our entire brand image. Why would anyone choose the son of a carpenter, if I was going to be picky? Ok? That’s the core question here. We are doing this for EVERYBODY.
No. No, of course I forgive you. I always forgive you. Just… get the fuck out and lay off the Queers."
You can read Codex Sinaiticus online, it’s from around 400 AD.
The good tidbits are there. The bad was always there. Even early christians thought so.
Before the religion organized into a hierarchical orthodoxy, communities distant from the emerging establishment (not particularly attached to jewish traditions) in places like Alexandria were left to their own devices to figure out christianity: they formed loose households & study circles to interpret texts in the context of their own traditions & culture, and they drew their own conclusions.
This interpretation became known as gnosticism.
Sticklers with the evil trash god of older jewish scriptures didn’t like this idea, became early church authorities, denounced it as heresy, & purged all the texts they could of it. Nonetheless, early christians thought there was bad in those texts & tried to handle it.