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These people don't have the right to call themselves Christian. They just use that word to back up their actions with unchallengeable authority.
And yet that's how the Christian majority chooses to vote.
Being a majority doesn't automatically make a group right. But unfortunately it does make them the loudest.
How is that not Christian exactly?
The Bible doesn't teach dominating and torturing people, for one.
Tell us you haven't read the Bible without telling us you haven't read the Bible.
Just in case you think that's all OT, Eternal torture was a NT invention. At least when OT God ordered you tortured and killed, that was the end of it.
I have read the Bible. In extreme detail, many times. "Hell" isn't a biblical teaching. It wasn't even a concept to the ancient Jews and Israelites. It's not OT or NT.
Show me something that directly supports a literal eternal torture from the Bible. And parables from Jesus aren't supporting scriptures, because of their very nature being parables, which are figurative stories to convey a lesson or point for teaching.
First off it was. Secondly the Romans had a concept of it and Christianity is basically paganism with a Jewish accent.
Oh, if it is to convey a message then why did Jesus say this?
Let me repeat the moneyshot because I think you will ignore it
Jesus is very very clear here that he speaks in parables so people who are not worthy won't understand and won't be able to repent or even stop what they are doing wrong.
Jesus is pretty clear in Mark that he talks in parables so some people won't understand and go to hell.
Mark 4:11-12
I really don't know what to say. You can read the gospels and see Jesus threatening people who refuse to kiss the ring with hell. You can see Paul doing the same. Do what I say or die and go to hell. Forsake your own family for me or die and go to hell. Hail me as king or die and go to hell. Bankrupt yourself and depend fully on God (with me as proxy) or go to hell There are even verses where the man argues that the mystical components of the universe must and do bend to his will. Claiming to rule the Sabbath would be on the level of a modern human claiming to boss gravity around. But not content with that we have stories of him beating the devil and arguing with God
How is this not threatening people? How is this not assuming authority over people? Literally telling people to abandon their children and follow him is not authority seeking?
🤣 What do you think hell is exactly?
Hell is not in the Bible.
The words often translated as hell are She'ol and Ge'henna.
She'ol is translated 31 times as hell, 31 times as grave, and 3 times as pit in the King James version.
The word itself is derived from sha'al which means "ask" or "request" because "the grave is always asking for more". Implying that death is always waiting. (Death in this context being the state of death, not "Death" the horseman, which itself is figurative).
She'ol is not a specific grave, but rather the "common grave of mankind". It refers to the state of being dead. As in "everyone goes 6ft under".
It doesn't refer to a "place of hell" and sure as hell (heh) doesn't refer to a place of torture.
Ge'henna is a short form for "Valley of Hinnom". It was a place outside of Jerusalem where Kings Ahaz and Manasseh engaged in idolatrous worship which included child sacrifices. Those Kings and their followers were executed and had their bodies dumped in that valley, left to rot and not buried, so that carrion eaters would desecrate their bodies and deprived from an honourable burial. And then the place was turned into a garbage dump to further dishonour them.
Jeremiah 7:31 - "They have built the high places of Toʹpheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinʹnom, in order to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, something that I had not commanded and that had never even come into my heart."
So saying someone went to Ge'henna was akin to saying someone displeased God so badly that they will not be honoured by Him and he finds their actions "detestable".
Nothing to do with a place of torture.
It isn't a command, since humans don't have that ability. Hell is described by Jesus in Luke 16. Humans being human, all sorts of temperal tortures have been justified as doing the victim a favor by potentially saving them from eternal torture, but I don't think that is explicit in the text.
As an aside, over half of Christians (Catholics and Eastern Orthodox primarily) consider the teachings of the church to be the primary root of the faith, not "sola scriptura" as came in with protestantism. All sorts of religiously justified torture arose on both sides of that divide though.
It makes more sense. The Bible has contradictions, sometimes within the same book. Matthew for example can't seem to decide who the dad is. If you go sola scriptura you are basically stuck squaring the circle. If you have a Pope they can issue an official version that overrides everything. That's why you see all those weird Bible literalists groups are prots.
“When a man strikes his male or female slave with a rod so hard that the slave dies under his hand, he shall be punished. If, however, the slave survives for a day or two, he is not to be punished, since the slave is his own property. (Exodus 21:20-21)”
“However, you may purchase male or female slaves from among the foreigners who live among you. You may also purchase the children of such resident foreigners, including those who have been born in your land. You may treat them as your property, passing them on to your children as a permanent inheritance. You may treat your slaves like this, but the people of Israel, your relatives, must never be treated this way. (Leviticus 25:44-46)”
"I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent."
Timothy 2:12
"But any woman who prays or prophesies with her head uncovered disgraces her head, for it is one and the same thing as having a shaved head. For if a woman will not cover her head, she should cut off her hair. But if it is disgraceful for a woman to have her hair cut off or her head shaved, she should cover her head."
Corinthians 11:5-6
"Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to curry their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord."
Colossians 3:22-24
"Teach slaves to be subject to their masters in everything, to try to please them, not to talk back to them"
Titus 2:9-10
“Slaves, be subject to your masters with all reverence, not only to those who are good and equitable but also to those who are perverse.”
Peter 2:18
You're cherry picking without context.
For example, the quote about slaves in Exodus was not a teaching. It's historical context about law at that time. That verse was intended to prevent brutalities towards slaves (which at the time were either hired labourers or in indebted servitude who literally sold themselves to pay off a debt, they were freed or "released" when the monetary value of their debt was paid off. It's not the same as the term for slavery we commonly associate with the it today). The only time a slave was to be beaten was for punishment, like attacking another person, stealing, raping, etc. It's not like they had the local Sheriff's office they could call, so land owners (who were often days away from nearby settlements) would be the legal authority of that area.
The wording that if a slave survives for a day or two was used to determine intent, as it was considered that if someone survives for a couple days after being punished then something else was also the cause of death, and not a direct result of the punishment enacted.
Ultimately the point here is that this isn't a "teaching" in any way. Some things in the Bible are just historical facts and context.
Timothy 2:12 (I know you mean 1 Timothy even though you didn't specify, because there's a 1 Timothy and a 2 Timothy) also needs context, because that scripture is about spiritual matters. It's like a chain of command for the purposes of order. This is something that you cannot pull a single scripture out and use only that as an example. There are many other scriptures that expand on this. For example, a man/husband is supposed to treat his wife like his own body and like a "weaker vessel" (implying a delicate and gentle approach), and anyone who does not hates himself and God.
Corinthians 11:5-6 - (which Corinthians? There's two of them) how is this torture? It's just about head coverings, and one that's often taken out of context. Verse 11 and 12 say *"Besides, in connection with the Lord, neither is woman separate from man nor is man separate from woman. 12 For just as the woman is from the man, so also the man is through the woman; but all things are from God."
Verse 15 also says "For her hair is given to her instead of a covering"
Basically neither man or women are better than the other, both are from God and that's all that matters.
Titus 2:9-10 - You could literally replace "slave" with employee and "master" with boss or CEO, and then no one would say boo. As I mentioned earlier, the term slave is not the dehumanizing one we often use. Its modern counterpart is very close to "employee".
Colossians 3:22-24, Leviticus 25:44-46, Peter 2:18 - same argument, because the term slave in these verses are not what you are attributing to it.
Edit: clarified about indebted servitude being about paying off a debt
This is probably the worst abuse of the "but context!" argument I have ever seen. Consideration of context is one thing, but you are just making up a more palatable meaning because that's what you want to see. There is no actual context that changes what these verses mean, and your charitable interpretation of the word 'slave" is actually removing the true historical context.
Context is king.
Absolutely not. The meaning of a single verse is meaningless without the broader context. Something that says "you must obey Jesus" means nothing until you understand *who" Jesus is.
I think you're mis-applying a different historical context.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_views_on_slavery
"Broadly, the Biblical and Talmudic laws tended to consider slavery a form of contract between persons, theoretically reducible to voluntary slavery, unlike chattel slavery, where the enslaved person is legally rendered the personal property (chattel) of the slave owner."
Book of Revelations, read it, and get back to me.
I have read it. No hell. Can you cite specifics?
.....yeah the whore of Babylon made out perfectly fine.
So no specifics then.
I just gave you one! Literally just fucking now. Why are you so determined to die on this hill? You are ignoring Scripture, you are ignoring what all the top minds of Christianity said, you are ignoring 20 centuries of culture, you are muddling definitions and demanding that because Jews from one century didn't believe in hell that 800 years later Christians must not have. I bet there were a thousand priests and ministers and reverends and bishops out there this week alone who talked about hell. Why do you think so many parents in history were obsessed with Baptism? Why was Unitarianism banned over and over again if not for its doctrine of hell denial? Why so many paintings and stained glass and novels (Dante inferno, paradise lost etc) depicting a place that you are argue isn't Christianity?
All of these Christians were wrong and you alone out of billions know what True Scotsmen Christianity stood for.
I was expecting something along the lines of a scripture with some supporting argument.
Since you mention the prostitute representing Babylon, I'm going to guess you mean Revelations 17:16
"these will hate the prostitute and will make her devastated and naked, and they will eat up her flesh and completely burn her with fire."
The prostitute mentioned in Revelations represents false religion, not an actual person. And fire in the Bible is often a metaphor for complete destruction, as in destroyed so thoroughly that something can never be repaired or restored.
So the prostitute (false religion) will be destroyed so completely that it will never exist ever again.
Uh huh. What controlled studies did you conduct to determine that it was just a metaphor?
Tell me you’ve never actually read the Bible without telling me you never read the Bible
Tell me you've never really studied the Bible without telling me.
I have read the Bible, in detail, for decades. Go look at my other comments in this thread for an idea of what I'm talking about.
On the other hand the christians that are ashamed of this are not doing enough to show their disapproval