The Bible Is an Outdated Relic of bullshit

[themickey]

The authors probably carried away, stoned on religous humbug.

Many present day christians are carried away by religious humbug.
"It's in the bible so it's true".
"Paul said it, so it's true".
"Matthew said it, so it's true".
"James said it, so it's true".
"Jesus said it, so it's true".
"Moses said it, so it's true".
"Abraham said it, so it's true".
"Genisis said it, so it's true".
"Revelations said it, so it's true".

"No iffs or butts, its black and white, no argument, its rock solid gospel 100% true".
This is how modern day people still think, incredulous.
100% die hard cultists.

 

[themickey]

What's even funnier, these christians believe wholeheartedly christ will save them and then they go out and buy guns for protection.
You can't make this stuff up.

 

[BKR88]

christians believe wholeheartedly christ will save them and then they go out and buy guns for protection.

Your understanding of Christianity is a bit foggy.

 

[themickey]

Your understanding of Christianity is a bit foggy.

Everything in life is a bit foggy, except the bible and christians, they see and know everything.

Jesus said, “for judgment I have come into this world, so that the blind will see and those who see will become blind.” Some Pharisees who were with him heard him say this and asked, “What? Are we blind too?” Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.

(Scripture can be twisted to mean what ever you want it to mean.)

As Jesus approached Jericho, a blind man was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard the crowd going by, he asked what was happening. They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” He called out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me” Those who led the way rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and ordered the man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I want to see,” he replied. Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.” Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus, praising God. When all the people saw it, they also praised God.

And any fairytale or exageration becomes the truth.
Writing fiction is not difficult.

What is truth, what is fiction?
We don't know!
Except christian cultists and their bible claim to know all truth.

The bible is black and white, emphatic, no shades of grey.
And therein lays a big problem.

 

[themickey]

Every truth written in the bible is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Every lie written in the bible becomes the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

 

[themickey]

While researching cults, I began to wonder if I’d been raised in one
By Erina Reddan
March 28, 2024
https://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/li...f-i-d-been-raised-in-one-20240313-p5fc6s.html

It’s so easy to be judgy about people who get caught up in a cult, right? Even if you don’t want to be. I mean, it wouldn’t happen to us. We’d see right through all that weird stuff – like the specific language that means nothing to outsiders, knowing that only believers are on the right path, the rules which make no sense, and the charismatic leader who is clearly a bit off.
That’s what I thought when I started digging around, researching my latest novel that looks behind the walls of The Sanctuary, an imagined closed religious community dedicated to clean, organic living and environmentalism.

We held a comprehensive set of beliefs that, without a normalising lens, are hard to get your head around. Credit: istock

While there may be no single definition of a cult, they share a few potent ingredients, such as general isolation from the rest of society, an unquestioning adherence to a set of beliefs, a strict authoritarian hierarchy of power and a rock-hard sense of being among the chosen ones.
Hmmm. I recognised quite a few of those ingredients. I hadn’t joined a cult. But maybe I’d been born into one.

I grew up in a large Catholic family on an isolated farm outside Melbourne. I went to a Catholic school, we went to Mass on Sunday, we socialised with other Catholics. We basically didn’t mix with anybody else. We did know one or two non-Catholics and they were nice but they weren’t going to heaven. Not like us.
We held a comprehensive set of beliefs that, without a normalising lens, are hard to get your head around. Such as Mary’s virgin birth, eating Christ’s body and drinking his blood, going to hell if you missed Mass on Sunday. We even had a shared language that defined us, such as transubstantiation (bread and wine in the Eucharist becomes Christ’s real body and blood) and the Blessed Trinity (three Gods in one, but really it’s just one God).
We held a comprehensive set of beliefs that, without a normalising lens, are hard to get your head around. Such as Mary’s virgin birth.

Then there were the rules about when you ate and what you ate, such as no eating before Mass, and no meat on Fridays, which I loved because we got to have fish and chips once a week – religiously. You had to regularly confess your sins, which led to considerable pre-reconciliation whispering as us kids figured out which sin we could make up this week.
And most damagingly, there was the unquestioned power of the god-like parish priest. And we all know now what that resulted in. In fact, the 2017 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse inquiry identified my parish and the local boy’s secondary college as one of the active centres of paedophilia.

I didn’t question any of these rules and beliefs.
The contest of ideas I discovered at university knocked our brand of Catholicism out of me. Yet, still, years later when I had my own family, the kids eventually did some of the sacraments so they wouldn’t feel too out of place at family church events.
When my youngest child was preparing for their First Reconciliation, we dutifully read the children’s Bible stories from the Old Testament every night as requested. Now this child, who had previously declared that they wanted to be an “evil overlord” when they grew up said to me one night, “Oh mama, I’m getting a lot of good ideas about how to be an evil overlord from God.”
I laughed out loud. I hadn’t seen it before. I had completely normalised that God could legitimately require Abraham to prove his undying devotion by killing his son. Or that it was perfectly acceptable that God would test Job’s excellent piety by taking away his possessions, his family and then his health. Yeah, now that I think about it, my child was spot on: you could say that the God of the Old Testament did abuse his power as leader.

Obviously, it was a unique set of conditions that meant I experienced cult-like conditions as a child. Very few people can now live in that kind of isolation. We have the internet, which beams in all sorts of ideas all the time. As well, the modern Catholic Church has shared leadership between priests and parishioners, so authority no longer rests in a single godlike being.

There are thousands of cults across the world, from self-help cults, to political and religious cults. Many of them don’t look anything like the doomsday cult, Heaven’s Gate, which ended in mass suicide, as members tried to catch a passing comet in 1997. Or Australia’s own Ideal Human Environment, which began in the ’80s as an experiment in happiness, harmony and ideal living. In 2019, leader James Salerno was imprisoned for unlawful sexual intercourse with a child, and the truth about the abuse behind those closed doors was exposed. The IHE had been operating for 30 years.

None of us joins a cult – we join a movement to make ourselves and the world a better place. But my experience taught me that it’s a fine line between intentional community and cult. That line is defined by how power is exercised.

So, whether you’re seeking your own happiness, or a new way of making the world a better place, like that great meditation group you just joined or that conspiracy idea that is sweeping around you, take care. Watch what happens when you ask questions. If they close you down, or make you feel guilty for asking in the first place, I’m guessing it is a good idea to keep asking those questions.

 

[themickey]

While researching cults, I began to wonder if I’d been raised in one

This about the catholic faith, but protestants, don't think you are off the hook.

 

[themickey]

When I was a kid in NZ and raised in a christian family, there was this adult who made numerous headlines in the newspapers.
I genuinely thought this guy was sent by satan, that he was demonic.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Geering

This guy is now 106 years old and still alive!

 

[themickey]

From Wiki....

Heresy charges edit
In 1967, Geering gained a high-profile when he was charged with "doctrinal error" and "disturbing the peace and unity of the (Presbyterian) church".[14] The case was brought before the 1967 General Assembly of the PCANZ, and dismissed without being much discussed.[15] The charges were brought by a group of conservative laymen and a conservative minister. During his church trial, he claimed that the remains of Jesus lay somewhere in Palestine and that the resurrection had been wrongfully interpreted by churches as a resuscitation of the body of Jesus. He also rejects the belief held by all monotheistic faiths that God is a supernatural being who created and continues to look over the world.[16]

 

[BKR88]

Except christian cultists and their bible claim to know all truth.

Christian cultists ....... yes, but that can be said of any organization. There's always some that are brainwashed into believing everything their guru says.

Many Christians probably get pretty close though to being "cultist" with the Bible.
I'd say it's much less the case with the younger generation though. My parents were MUCH more strict with regards to the Catholic/Christian teachings than I or my brothers/sisters.

The bible is black and white, emphatic, no shades of grey.

Definitely not for me. There's plenty things in the Bible in which I question the actual message compared to what we've been taught. That's what separates the cultists from regular members of any group. The ability to question the message rather than taking every word as gospel.

But my experience taught me that it’s a fine line between intentional community and cult.

Watch what happens when you ask questions. If they close you down, or make you feel guilty for asking in the first place, I’m guessing it is a good idea to keep asking those questions.

Agree