this post was submitted on 16 Feb 2025
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Showerthoughts
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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted, clever little truths, hidden in daily life.
Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts: 1
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I will say this, I can’t think of a thing Jesus says in the Bible that isn’t pretty based. He prioritized pragmatism over rules and protocol, compassion and understanding over judgment, generosity over greed, forgiveness over scorn, acts over words. Everyone following his death like Paul seem to be the ones that start to miss the point.
The desire to control people who follow compassionate teachings is what turned sound advice into the dogma we see today. It’s an unfortunate history, not unique to Christianity.
It's the institutionalisation of religion that's a problem.
If everyone would just focus on finding their own connection with god/the universe/whatever, nobody would have a problem.
Fuck churches and using religion for politics.
That's why we have the separation of church and state at least - although not enough and currently it's backpedaling...
Weeps in Utahn
Umm there's a few
When he spoke of division instead of peace (Matthew 10:34-36, Luke 12:51-53)
Acting like a gate keeper of Salvation (John 14:6)
Slavery and servanthood (Luke 12:47-48)
Gentiles as ‘Dogs’ (Matthew 15:21-28)
There's a few more, but I'm too lazy to keep going. The problem with the bible is it tried to be too many things at once. Especially trying to sell the concept of fear and love in one, which isn't possible.
I grew up Christian and no longer believe but with the exception of Matthew 15:21-28, which you only quote a piece of, you are taking these out of context.
Matthew 10 is Jesus sending his apostles to preach his word. The bit about not bringing peace but a sword is a reference to the changes he promised and the suffering he tells the apostles they will face for preaching his word. This is also where Jesus tells them to separate from family that turns their back on Jesus' word.
It's not an endorsement of violence.
John 14:6 is properly read in context. You cannot follow a path different than the one Christ set and get to heaven. The guy who constantly steals, cheats, abuses people, and only pursues wealth or the praise of others isn't a "good guy" in most religions. This isn't as controversial as you make it out to be.
Luke 12:47-48 is part of a parable which discusses how since you cannot know when Jesus would return you always need to be ready.
This isn't an endorsement of slavery nor is it a refutation of it, rather, it is part of a metaphor and wasn't taken literally. If you got this one off a website or infographic rather than your own knowledge of the texts it's a trash tier source. If this came from your own knowledge WTF this is one of the most famous passages in the whole book you shouldn't be fucking this one up if you know the NT.
The last part is the only thing actually taken correctly in context. Jesus wasn't there for the gentiles. The idea he was here for all comes from all the Paul related writings aka the gentile who never met Jesus IRL.
When you see something that looks as off as these quotes do you should look at the larger passage because they rarely mean what the atheists think they do.
Matthew 15, yes, shows the point.
I highly disagree on Matthew 10, that seems like strong apologetics. I don't see how saying he brings the sword means his people will suffer from spreading his word.
John 14, still is gatekeeping. Also theres some irony there with the wealth of the church
On Luke 12, yeah I get it. He also doesn't condone slavery when having that discussion at all. Yes he uses the metaphor of servants awaiting their master's return to illustrate accountability and judgment. But damn that's a bad metaphor, equating followers to slaves. If you read further you also see v47 refers to someone who understands what God expects but willfully ignores it. Jesus warns that such a person will face severe consequences. Kinda like a slave being beaten for not listening, cool... Then in v48 he goes on that if the servant still does wrong but does not fully understand their responsibility. As a result, their punishment is lighter. Again, equating followers to slaves, and still punishing someone for something they don't understand, very chill. Not only does he seem to not have issues with slavery, he seems to agree with some of the principles of it.
The quotes don't seem off to me, they seem to express the point I was trying to make. Maybe I could have offered more color or explanation but I stand by what I called out.
Go read all of Matthew 10. It might take 2 minutes tops. It's very clear. It isn't violent in a "imma kick your ass violent" it is about breaking apart families that refuse to follow Christ which IMO is a different problem.
John 14 makes sense in context and at the time it was written the Church was poor.
I think your perception of John is colored by a misunderstanding if the place slaves had in society and how they were viewed. Jewish slavery laws are NOTHING like chattel slavery. Slaves were humans and while less than their master it isn't as evil as a modern American might think. Literally every society had slavery at this time.
The don't look off to you because you don't see them in their fuller context and you seem to not understand how specific things like slavery were different.
I won't argue Matthew since either way you look at it, it's bad. Right there we've shown not everything he says is loving.
Yes, everyone had slaves. But slavery is slavery, I'm not interested in the different flavors of slavery or justifying it because everyone did it. Jesus speaking about it and relating his people to slaves while not condemning it seems evil af to me. It's owning people, it's clearly wrong.
I don't misunderstand the difference, but you seem to think Jewish slavery was apparently not that big of a deal. I think owning someone, even if they seem like part of the family, is still wrong. Indentured servitude is wrong. Trying to split hairs is just justifying it. Jesus said "and a servant who knows what the master wants, but isn’t prepared and doesn’t carry out those instructions, will be severely punished." Doesn't sound loving to me.
Here are some of the rules for Jewish slaves, and the consequences for hurting them
A master who knocked out a slave'gs eye or tooth must let him go free. No punishment, you just get to be free without an eye now.
If a master beat or harmed a slave, the slave could go free. Again no punishment, you just get to actually be free
Kind seems like they aren't treated fair. Jesus could have said something about that, but he never did. In fact he spoke to it without issue.
Most of that was written hundreds of years later (and rewritten several times since), so who knows what was added later for religious control purposes.
He could have sat around all day stoned off his nut.
I like stoned Jesus. Weed stoned, not biblical punishment stoned that is.
There is a stoner band called Stoned Jesus. Look them up, it is pretty rad if you are into that kind of music.
I agree he said a lot of cool stuff for sure but ultimately he was an apocalyptic preacher. I think it's immoral to tell people they need to accept your God or you'll go to hell, personally, so that's one not cool thing.
Pretty messed up given that belief is not something you can even really choose.
Yup. Born and die in a place where it wasn't possible to believe because knowledge hadn't spread yet? Believe it or not straight to hell.
There's no such thing as hell in the Bible. Jesus said sinners would cease to exist.
Honestly ceasing to exist sounds like my heaven, good thing I'm gay. Will miss out on the gay orgy but at least I won't be here.
Matthew 13:42
If you're pious, you live forever in heaven. If you're sinful, you die. No eternal torment, no hanging out with demons. Dead.
While forgiveness is good, I’m not sure forgiving all sin just for following Jesus is so great.
It’s literally thoughts are more important than acts. I’m not convinced.
Drag doesn't understand the relevance. We're talking about whether hell exists
In Christianity it typically exists. The support for it in scripture isn’t very strong though.
Hell is arguing about the existence of hell on Lemmy, I guess.
I'm not a biblical scholar but my understanding was there was biblical basis for it. Especially mentioned by Jesus as he was an apocalyptic preacher. Something like this sounds like it fits the bill pretty well:
Like I said though I'm not a biblical scholar. Although I'm not sure simply being denied an infinite reward is that much better really. It's still effectively an infinite punishment for something you have no control over.
The closest thing to hell in the Bible is shoal. And that's just the word for the ground people are buried in.
Hell came long after either Bible was canonized.
What's the whole weeping and gnashing of teeth thing, is that something different to hell?
That's the rapture. That hasn't happened yet. Jesus is describing what'll happen on Earth.
Fucking paulists ruined Christianity
I agree. His motivations were purely political in order to keep people in line when he realized this new movement wasn't going away any time soon.
Which is why on one hand we have Jesus calling for freedom of oppression, while Paul was telling slaves to obey their masters, even the cruel ones
Religion has always been politically motivated to control people.
Reminds me of the classic Bill Hicks bit about Jesus and crosses.