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this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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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.
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.
🤣 What do you think hell is exactly?
Weird how the author of City of God and one of the most famous Christian thinkers of all time completely disagreed. You got to love a flexible moral system, it allows anyone to claim to be the True Scotsmen authentic deal and condemn as heretics everyone else.
Augustine was wrong about Christianity, St. Paul was wrong abojt Christianity, Jesus was wrong about Christianity, every single Christian thinker was wrong about Christianity except one random on Lemmy.
I can look it up tonight if you really want but basically Augustine argued that you are allowed to go after heretics as long as you do it for love of their souls. If they couldn't be convinced of their "errors" by talking you were allowed to use violence since burning in hell is so much worse.
As I said it is pretty amazing how every single person can just declare themselves the true Christian whenever they want.
Well, the reality is that most people who call themselves Christian are wrong about many things, but not everything.
Augustine subscribed to the Just War theory, which flies in the face of loving your neighbour as well as your enemy, and "Nor will they learn war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4)
That being said Augustine wasn't wrong about everything. The Bible is a thick book, and people back then didn't have the resources that exist today. I can look up any word or topic within the Bible directly or from additional resources in mere seconds, whereas anyone from even 50 years ago had to scan through pages manually.
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.
This is all opinion and if you read writers who natively spoke these languages and were much closer to the dates when it was written they disagree with you. There are descriptions of hell in the Talmud, I trust Rabbis to know more about Judaic beliefs of the time they are living in vs someone 20 centuries later who is not even Jewish.
People know what they believe and just because you can take a word and find it's entomology doesn't mean you know how the word was used or the ideas it represented. When I say Dartmouth to you do you think "mouth of the Dart river" or do you think of the famous school there? Does your answer change if someone of a different religion from you 20 centuries later argues that "really what they meant to say is"?
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?
“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.
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.
Haha, are you high?! The Bible is full of torture! Look at the story of Job, or the commandment to rape young girls after slaughtering their families (Kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man intimately. But all the girls who have not known man intimately, spare for yourselves.” Numbers 31: 17-18)
If that isn’t enough for you, what about all of the various times god commands his people to stone each other for everything from cheating (Deuteronomy 17:2-7) to talking back to your parents (Proverbs 13:24; Proverbs 19:18; Proverbs 22:15)?
Or how about allowing torture with slaves? Check out Exodus 21:20-21 to learn more.
And before you go all “the Old Testament doesn’t count” on me like Christian’s are wont to do (as though picking and choosing various bits out is ok while ignoring all the fucked up bullshit instead of owning it and saying that yeah, women are worthless and deserve to be raped for no reason at all (Lot’s daughters, in case that wasn’t clear to you)) Jesus was tortured during his crusifiction, because I guess god wanted it that way?
So yeah, the god of your bible absolutely promotes torture. And if you’ve actually read it like you claim you have, you’d know that.
https://lemmy.world/comment/4605883
So as I said in my original comment: the Bible doesn't teach torture, not "torture is nevet mentioned in the Bible".
This wasn't torture, it was literally punishment or execution. And I know you'll come up with some excuse like "why didn't a soldier just do it?" or "why did those things merit execution?" You would be missing the point. We're not talking about the differences in modern culture to theirs or societal laws. We're talking about torture.
The article was about a disadvantaged pregnant woman who was tortured. Someone mentioned something about Christianity, and all I said "the Bible doesn't teach torture".