I get what he’s saying, these are the concerns which are pivotal to the difference between having a religious state versus a secular state,
Within any religion, or even any other deep system of teachings, its norms are dictated by “the initiated”, an ingroup, It’s the same in this regards with Islam and other churches, and even with trades and other professions. Plumbing, law, medicine - whatever. If somebody makes it their personal choice to identify with a certain group of people, they are adopting for themselves a personal responsibility to live within its code of conduct. If a person says he is a Muslim living among Muslims, and is yet determined to steal, neither they nor I should be surprised if he is treated with the culturally appropriate consequences - even if they are abhorrent to me.
The “disconnect” here is that the west proposes what is a secular state, but one which is largely founded upon religiously-derived ethics. So there is a huge blind spot with regards to the norms behind appropriate expectations, rules, and punishments. For example, in the US you are free to choose your religion. Provided that your religion allows (forces) you to live like a capitalist white person with its own certain kind of familial and financial responsibilities. The idea of people actually living according to the laws of their traditions seems quite scary for westerners who fancy themselves as being fairly cosmopolitan - yet, the politically-correct trend of the day is to embrace multiculturalism! The elephant in the room might be that other cultures are not only going to be superficially different - they might have completely different values and assumptions about things which naive people assume to be ethically neutral ** in their part of the world.
I suspect that in any country with an inseparable state religion, that interpretations tend to be rather harsh. In the US, stance on interpretations of the Christian bible soften over recent years because of the necessities of practicing their traditions within a secular state. Once your very existence in a state implies adherence to religious law, there is no defense, no choice. But this is also why I think that having no mainstream is preferable to any totality. Justice and choice exist through living in multiplicity.
** Edit: I meant to say “ethnically neutral” instead of “ethically neutral”, but it kind of works either way.
Just spitballing here, but one possible reason why religion is persistent in so many cultures might be because it imparts a wholly unearned feeling of superiority over other groups of people external to it. This has the benefit of also explaining the rise of the right wing in Europe - merely trading one triumphalist doctrine for another.
Luke 12:47-48:
he is not approving of slavery but using an analogy his audience will understand. He is actually saying “if you have been very successful, you are expected to contribute more to society”.
Matthew 18:23-35
Again nothing to approve of slavery. He describes to his audience the way that bad masters behave (that they would be familiar with) and tells them that God will treat them as bad servants if they do not forgive people who upset them.
Matthew 24:45-51
Telling people that not only must they treat their employees properly, but their employees must treat the people they manage properly, again hardly seems an endorsement of slavery.
Your three examples of “supporting slavery” all turn out to be “be a good employer”.
It seems to me you don’t understand the context. Jesus’s schtick is to talk to people with examples that are familiar to them. If I was to write that you shouldn’t lose your temper with people working on support in a call center, that would not mean I support bad managers in call centers.
You also have this one track thing about “if Jesus was divine…” Books have been written about what that might even mean, but it’s irrelevant if you are trying to respond to me. I regard Jesus as another religious teacher whose views were influential enough for people to record them, like Gautama, Jeremiah, and a few others. I don’t expect him to be a 20th century liberal (I said that above). I do expect him to represent an advance on the prevailing mores, and he did that.
Calling him “a bit of a twat” - I’m not sure on what reliable evidence you base this, but on the whole I’ll suggest that someone who talks a load of fruitbats out to stone a woman for adultery into slinking away in embarrassment was a bit of a hero. It’s not something I (or you, I suspect) would care to do and I’m not about to visit tribal Pakistan, Somalia or Iran to find out.
Enough of this. The gulf between the recorded Jesus and this daft Saudi cleric is unbridgeable, and that’s all we need to know.
Because people are crazy and need to hold on to whatever silliness they can to get through the day at times?
We were having a couple slices last weekend and this guy comes in to get a couple to go. He had the most adorable dog in tow. He told us his name, and that he was a Maltipoo who just got his nails clipped.
We chatted for a few minutes, and when he was grabbing his slices from the counter to leave, he said to make sure that we visited this web site about abolishing the Fed and the IRS. It appears according to him that we’re the only planet in the galaxy to be slaves in this way. When others visit the earth they can’t believe it. Also he was sure my wife had lived many past lives.
So yea, people love to hold on to dumb crap…
Look, atheists have rarely been more than 5% of the population. In those places where they were more dominant - like the CCCP under Stalin, or China after the Cultural Revolution - there was neither more nor less human failure to live up to our ideals that I can see. Claims to the contrary, by either side, always boil down to saying “well, my side’s atrocities are excusable”.
Meanwhile you ought to look up some of the stuff I referenced if you are unclear on what John Brown thought. And if you find that recommendation condescending and smug (yes I saw your first draft) I can’t help you with that. I’m not a Christian, but I am an ordained minister, and I have read the bible multiple times in multiple translations. I’ve also read first-person accounts of conversations with John Brown, Henry Ward Beecher, and Ephraim Nute, all of whom devoutly believed that slavery was accursed by the Christian deity. Am I supposed to say your theological and historical errors are perfectly OK when it seems to me that you’re just exercising anti-religious bigotry and have never actually studied religion at all?
False analogy.
Do murderers get tax relief in the US? Do they sit in House of Lords in the UK? Do we not have police forces to try to reduce its incidence? Do we have special songs glorifying murder sung in big expensive buildings - oh, yes, we have those but they are not approved of by the mainstream.
In case you hadn’t realised, I am not “religious”; I think religion is an important thing in society that we need to understand, and I try to understand it. Theologically I am an atheist. And, as an atheist, I say that arguments like yours are just plain embarrassing.
I think you can feel assured that the percentage of atheists has always been much higher than this, there just used to be a much higher opportunity cost for daring to admit it aloud.
Utterly ridiculous. Who ever heard of such a daft idea. No-one would believe that intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against you.
Thank you for helping to make my over-arching point: that doctrinal rigidity of any stripe leads inevitably to atrocities. Religion (specifically, the Abrahamic religions), however, contains within it an additional poison in it, wherein any dissent or wobbliness can be seen as an affront to a judgmental and unappealable higher power. Whatever evils that transpired under Stalin or Mao, that in large part died with them. You can outlast a tyrant, but you cannot outlast an eternal God.
As for the deleted condescension line, that’s because I elided over your qualifier on “if you aren’t American…” I still find your laundry-list litany condescending, but not nearly to the degree I took from the misreading, and scaled back the bile. The advantage of not having doctrinal rigidity.
I’d go so far as to say that believing anything tends to be a problem, sooner or later. Belief is just a way to avoid being sufficiently rigorous in constantly re-appraising everything.
When Leela told the people in the lighthouse that The Doctor taught her that it is better to believe in science than religion, many skeptics said “Yea!” but I said “No! You aren’t supposed to believe in science either! That’s bad science!”. But I think she was pragmatic enough to know this, even if she didn’t articulate it well.
ETA: But yes, science is not something to “believe in”, it’s just a process with proven results. And its conclusions need only be accepted until such time that they are superseded by later advances.
This is what inspired my detour here into science fiction thinking. This is basically the premise of Herbert’s novel “God Emperor of Dune”, where Emperor Leto II makes himself practically immortal to impose his “tough love” upon humanity. With the added narrative kink of his real prescience - he does actually know the future, so he cannot be assassinated, and his tyrannical decisions are always correct by cosmic standards, if unbearable by human standards. Once somebody comes who is smart and capable enough to do away with him, humanity will then be sufficiently mature to take over its affairs.
My bad for being lazy. How aout Ephesians 6:5?
If that’s not a clear endorsement I don’t know what is.
Considering he’s simply an amalgamation of preceding solar deities, he had no teachings to actually record.
There are some excellent quotes by the Jesus character (“render unto Caesar” being a favourite), but anyone who’d consider themselves a deity (Mostly attributed to John) is in my book, a bit of a twat.
The Saudi cleric is however, a lot of a twat.
EDIT: my bad again. Ephesians 6:5 is not one of Jesus’ quotes.
when you believe some made up stuff and you goal is to get others to believe in made up stuff, you have to restrict critical thinking, thinking for yourself, free thinking, science and any sort of system that challenges and tests beliefs, parts of logical thinking, etc. basically anything that could potentially challenge the concocted belief.
anything that is true, doesn’t get any less true with more information, or by challenging it, or questioning it. the truth is reinforced by more information. if any system argues against these things chances are pretty good it is a steaming pile of BS.
this is the basis of the schism between science and religion.
and for the people going to say you can have both, yes you can, it is called cognitive disconnect/cognitive dissonance.
not many people know that he wasn’t even an historical figure, that as you correctly state he is a made up amalgamation of preceding myths. with all the meticulous roman records from the time, not a single mention of this supposed rebel rouser, nor is his crime/punishment recorded along with all the other crimes and punishments from the time.
