What I don’t get about this sort of preaching is that it highlights a major issue with the Christian faith. If their god is truly good and loves everyone equally, why is he so selective with his miracles? Why wait until the preacher is attacked to cure the child’s blindness? Why allow the preacher to be harmed at all? Why even need preachers if you’re so powerful? You could just show everyone you exist, and fix their worst problems while you’re at it.
Maybe their god wants us to live without his direct intervention, which I can respect. However, why would we see ANY miracles then? He seems quite petty.
I’m not even an atheist. I have spiritual beliefs. But these half-assed attempts at spreading their faith just come across as desperate and manipulative.
This a great video by Dr Justin Sledge that explained the evolution of Yahweh from being a storm god, the devil (ba’al), a wise old zeus-like head of a pantheon, and all the fun ways people hated each other for it.
Because the concept of the Christian god is literally just the “divine” version of a man ruling his home as a king.
He can do whatever he wants because it’s his home. Praise him because he lets you live in his house. Do what he commands because he lets you live in his house. Ignore the blatant abusive rhetoric because he lets you live in his house. Kill anyone who disregards his claim because it’s his house.
Ancient religions, including the period before the national religion of Israel became “monotheistic,” were very transactional. You make a sacrifice of a goat, you get rain. You spit on a temple, you get struck blind. You sit there peacefully herding goats, you get raped. The gods represented the view of the world and nature, which was often capricious and cruel.
Judaism, as it developed slowly into its more modern form, continued the transactional relationship but made it more formalized and more highly regulated by the priestly class. The difference in the teachings attributed to the early Christian belief system (I’m not going to get into whether there was a historical Jesus or what the relationship there might have been) was that they advocated for a less transactional relationship and went for a more emotional one. Of course, that’s problematic for organized religion, which relies on ceremonies and regulated behaviors, and you can see it as a constant tension running through history between different sects.
But dividing points of view/stories like this between transactional and “unconditional” can help to conceptualize some of these kinds of things, in my opinion.
To add to that, most people have the misconception that people always feared their gods. There are countless recordings of times when the people got sick of the gods’ shit. As an example: Town sacrifices goat for rain. Nothing but drought. Fuckthis.jpg. The town takes the local statue of their god and sticks it head-first in the mud of the local riverbank. Downpour ensues.
Even in religion, the workers need to seize the means of production.
One surprising thing about groups that strengthen themselves with overt in-groups and out-groups is the more work (within limits) it takes to stay as part of the in-group the more strongly people attach to the group
So you really do need those rituals and ceremonies and especially sacrifices
“Luckily” the churches have all worked this out and it’s rare to see mistakes like making the religion too easy
What I don’t get about this sort of preaching is that it highlights a major issue with the Christian faith. If their god is truly good and loves everyone equally, why is he so selective with his miracles? Why wait until the preacher is attacked to cure the child’s blindness? Why allow the preacher to be harmed at all? Why even need preachers if you’re so powerful? You could just show everyone you exist, and fix their worst problems while you’re at it.
Maybe their god wants us to live without his direct intervention, which I can respect. However, why would we see ANY miracles then? He seems quite petty.
I’m not even an atheist. I have spiritual beliefs. But these half-assed attempts at spreading their faith just come across as desperate and manipulative.
Oooh look into the old testament. God is super petty. Christianity is a retcon
“why did you kill my family, drive away my flock, make my friends hate me, and riddle me with disease?”
“To win a bet. Also don’t fucking talk back to me you little shit!”
Job, right? (I wasn’t raised in a particularly religious home)
Yes that’s Job, the favorite punching bag
This a great video by Dr Justin Sledge that explained the evolution of Yahweh from being a storm god, the devil (ba’al), a wise old zeus-like head of a pantheon, and all the fun ways people hated each other for it.
Because the concept of the Christian god is literally just the “divine” version of a man ruling his home as a king.
He can do whatever he wants because it’s his home. Praise him because he lets you live in his house. Do what he commands because he lets you live in his house. Ignore the blatant abusive rhetoric because he lets you live in his house. Kill anyone who disregards his claim because it’s his house.
Why does God hate amputees?
Ancient religions, including the period before the national religion of Israel became “monotheistic,” were very transactional. You make a sacrifice of a goat, you get rain. You spit on a temple, you get struck blind. You sit there peacefully herding goats, you get raped. The gods represented the view of the world and nature, which was often capricious and cruel.
Judaism, as it developed slowly into its more modern form, continued the transactional relationship but made it more formalized and more highly regulated by the priestly class. The difference in the teachings attributed to the early Christian belief system (I’m not going to get into whether there was a historical Jesus or what the relationship there might have been) was that they advocated for a less transactional relationship and went for a more emotional one. Of course, that’s problematic for organized religion, which relies on ceremonies and regulated behaviors, and you can see it as a constant tension running through history between different sects.
But dividing points of view/stories like this between transactional and “unconditional” can help to conceptualize some of these kinds of things, in my opinion.
To add to that, most people have the misconception that people always feared their gods. There are countless recordings of times when the people got sick of the gods’ shit. As an example: Town sacrifices goat for rain. Nothing but drought. Fuckthis.jpg. The town takes the local statue of their god and sticks it head-first in the mud of the local riverbank. Downpour ensues. Even in religion, the workers need to seize the means of production.
One surprising thing about groups that strengthen themselves with overt in-groups and out-groups is the more work (within limits) it takes to stay as part of the in-group the more strongly people attach to the group
So you really do need those rituals and ceremonies and especially sacrifices
“Luckily” the churches have all worked this out and it’s rare to see mistakes like making the religion too easy
It would ve kind of funny if god was just a huge dick. I’ll let this random child speak while i watch the world championship of war.
The edge of the observable universe is about 270,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles away.
Yet god exists and cares about this insignificant blue speck of wet dust?
Also, if this god person doesn’t want us to rely on them why would people worship or pray to them.
Furthermore, why would they reveal themselves at all?
mysterious ways
That’s deep, dude.
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