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1. Griffith (griffith@5dollah.click)'s status on Sunday, 24-Dec-2023 14:02:08 JST Griffith
   Gnosticism intuitively makes more sense than any other form of Christianity, and I’m tired of pretending it doesn’t.
   • djsumdog (djsumdog@djsumdog.com)'s status on Sunday, 24-Dec-2023 14:02:03 JST djsumdog

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     • midway
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     Being all of God's children, makes human beings equal under God. We can only be equal under God because we are inherently unequal. Interpreted one way, do not covet because your father will reward you in heaven (Book of Job story). The Marxists claim this is an an opiate so people don't fight for good now. The ultra-progressive wants actual equality for humans that are unequal: equity. They want the equality God promises in the afterlife, but right now when it's not deserved. It's really interesting to look at and understand that balance.

     As far as rich bad/sell all your possessions: Jesus is the idea of the perfect. No human being can help every homeless person on the street. Even church ministries will tell you there are some homeless people they have to turn away, because they will not follow the simplest rules, and pull everyone else down. Jesus is the ideal that was never real, because it cannot be real. But it's what humanity aspires to as the ultimate ideal. Unfortunately, it's tempered by that Parable from season one of Fargo (pictured below)

     Christianity certainly did give us the modern idea of victimhood being virtue. But it was in the context of suffering refining people like a stone being rounded in the stream. The post-modernist raises up the victim, but without all the other stuff to temper it.

     I agree, the idea of being a slave to sin and redeemed by God to be kinda fucked up; as well as the atonement of blood sacrifices. At the same time, rituals help us deal with doing horrific things, like killing other animals to eat, or infanticide (killing what society cannot take care of).

     I don't think Christianity alone can survive in its current form another thousand years, but I am curious what it could be supplemented or replaced with. You don't get to chose not to have a religion, only which religion to believe in.

   • midway (midway@soapbox.midwaytrades.com)'s status on Sunday, 24-Dec-2023 14:02:04 JST midway

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     • djsumdog
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     My issues with Christianity at least in it’s pure literal form is that it’s based on slave morality which is, inherently, communist in nature.
     
     - We are all God’s children and thus all equal
     - The meek shall inherit the Earth
     - It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye if a needle than a rich man to get into heaven
     - If you want to be perfect, sell all your possessions, give it all to the poor and follow me.
     
     This is why when the first pilgrims came here they almost starved. They set up a utopian commune..with the expected results.
     
     There’s a reason it came up through the slave class. These messages are an easy sell to them.
     
     That’s not to say all their ideas are bad. And if you are willing to do some interpretation of the Bible and take it in a more metaphorical sense, it’s mostly harmless. But the literalists, like most religious literalists, do the belief system a lot of damage.
     Machismo repeated this.
   • djsumdog (djsumdog@djsumdog.com)'s status on Sunday, 24-Dec-2023 14:02:05 JST djsumdog

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     I don't see Christianity as evil. The morality of Christianity is the foundation of western society. British Civil Law is based on it (as Roman law was lost at the time). The slow growth of Christianity, and the increasing belief that all humans were equal in value in the eyes of God (while being unequal in the reality of man) is was lead to the morality against slavery. (If it was just Islam and Judaism, I don't think slavery would have disappeared for several more decades, if not centuries).
     
     I do not like some of the lingering aspects of Christianity; the push for collectivism instead of individualism. The early church in Acts was very communist. The modern commentators who stand by Israel with terrible reasoning, the constant moral banter and rhetoric about how reproducing is a moral necessity, and the incessant anti-porn quibbling ... it's all pretty tiresome.
     
     I see the value of what various forms of Christianity have given the world, but it has changed significantly, and it's splitting into more versions than we've ever dealt with before.
   • Griffith (griffith@5dollah.click)'s status on Sunday, 24-Dec-2023 14:02:06 JST Griffith

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     @FruitpilledPeachcel Hard to not look at Christianity and think it’s an evil religion at its core tbqhdesu.
   • Дистругъторул де чори (fruitpilledpeachcel@cawfee.club)'s status on Sunday, 24-Dec-2023 14:02:07 JST Дистругъторул де чори

     in reply to
     @Griffith but it doesn't because they assume the God of the OT is not the God of the NT.
   • Griffith (griffith@5dollah.click)'s status on Thursday, 18-Jan-2024 10:10:34 JST Griffith

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     • djsumdog
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     @djsumdog @FruitpilledPeachcel I think at its core it’s evil, whatever it’s branches. That’s my position. Not how bad the church is, how bad Christianity is itself.
   • Griffith (griffith@5dollah.click)'s status on Thursday, 18-Jan-2024 10:10:43 JST Griffith

     in reply to

     • djsumdog
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     @djsumdog @FruitpilledPeachcel I’ll be honest I’ll have to look into it, but a lot of it is the way an omnipotent being behaves in relation to non-omnipotent beings which is systematically abusive. The second part seems somewhat emergent. Right now I think it’s rearranging the pieces that are already on the board in ways that make sense. I simply won’t go further than that because I don’t know.
   • djsumdog (djsumdog@djsumdog.com)'s status on Thursday, 18-Jan-2024 10:10:45 JST djsumdog

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     • Дистругъторул де чори
     I'm curious. What aspects of Christianity makes you think it's evil at its core? Does it have to do with the seemingly abusive relationship between the Christian God and his followers? The idea of total depravity?
     
     My understanding of Gnosticism is that there is some secret knowledge that leads to greater understanding; leaving Plato's cave so to say. Is that what you're thinking of when you say Gnostic? (It's the basis of almost every modern liberation story: Matrix, The Lego Movie, etc.) If so, what makes Gnostic thinking better?
   • CatSoc :nv: (catlord@poa.st)'s status on Thursday, 18-Jan-2024 10:11:07 JST CatSoc :nv:

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     • djsumdog
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     @Griffith @djsumdog @FruitpilledPeachcel For me, I don't know if I would call it evil but the book of Job, the binding of Isaac, the life of Lot, the deluge, and various passages in the NT - convince me of the bible's human origin in the ancient jews and that it isn't "The Truth". I wouldn't call Huitzilopochtli or Zeus evil either, mind you. These are Gods of men and may or may not have a divine aspect, same as the God of the OT, and Jesus.