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There's a question here of scripture vs religion. I think very clearly people who follow Trump do not understand the Christian scripture/Bible.
But scripture isn't what religion is. Religion is the faith system that develops around that scripture, even if it's contradictory at times. In that sense, evangelicals understand their religion perfectly well.
Yeah. Folks don't understand theology and exegesis in religion. The critics of religion are guilty of the same problem the evangelical right: biblical literalism. Literalism is a modern method of interpretation where texts historically read as "mythos" arr now read as "logos".
Yeah it always annoys me how some outspoken atheists often treat the Bible and other religious texts in the exact same manner the stupidest religious people do (maybe harsh way to say that). When I was still a Christian I was basically immune to atheist critiques of the Bible simply because I didn't recognize the Bible in the literal way they attacked it, and the Christian arguments against Biblical literalism I found to be way stronger than atheist ones that dismissed so much information to function.
I went to a Lutheran University. Entered with some C.S Lewis style views, exited agnostic AF. But it was my religion and philosophy professors with Masters of Divinity that really pushed me in that direction. Despite exiting less religious than I entered, I exited with more respect for religious thought than when I entered.
Very similar especially with friends who were taking MDiv, and I actually lead the Christian fellowship at my school for 3 years before becoming atheist agnostic. I had a driving job 30 hours a week and would listen to philosophy and all kinds of lectures and popularized academic courses after I went through a bunch of literary classics. My ancestors also founded the Mennonite Brethren church and there's a lot of radical beliefs like pacifism I was exposed to through that environment, I'm the first generation to fully assimilate.
I can pick and choose verses as well.
I'm not picking verses though, I'm talking about the overall theme of the gospels.
The narrative consistently has Jesus praising the poor and shunned while condemning the religious and rich. He tells people to lay off a prostitute, interacts face to face with lepers, and talks about how a friendly foreigner is better than indifferent countrymen. And he constantly calls out the hypocritical religious people.
I'm not Christian, but I think Jesus' actions and teachings are worth following in these regards. Helping the poor, telling religious zealots to fuck off, and providing food for everyone. A political party that actually embodies what Jesus does would effectively be a communist + socialist group.
I highly recommend reading through the gospels as literature, if only to throw it back at evangelicals in their face. Remind them how Jesus promised damnation to those who don't help the poor, when they start going on about entitlement programs and policies that hurt the poor.
You are picking and choosing verses. I can do it as well. In Matthew we are told that he is for the lost sheep of Israel, only. Sure charity is great but for your tribe. In John we are told that he (and this the church) is more important than charity. In Mark sure he cures the leper but only after yelling at him*.
You mention that he tells religious leaders to fuck off but you fail to mention that he told the leper to go to a Rabbi right after curing him so he could go through the repentance ritual. In Matthew again he tells his followers that not one particular of the law will be removed.
Of course you probably think the stoning of the adulteress story was in the original text, but whatever. Go read the Sermon on the Mount again and tell me that is the same guy who was sex positive.
Everyone reinvents Jesus in their own image. You want him to be a hippie communist so you pick verses that make him one. The evangelicals want him to only be concerned with his own tribe and to hell with the rest (quite literally says as much in Mark 4:11-12) so they got their verses. Like warfare? Jesus tells his followers to cast his dead enemies bodies in front of him. Like fascism? He tells his followers to follow the government. The man is a Rorschach test.
Go ahead and read the Gospels as literature. I encourage it. Mark invented the empty tomb and we find other Roman writers using empty tombs as a motif to signify that some mortal ascended to godhead. Last supper? We got a novel (predating Paul) of a Greek guy hosting a dinner party and telling everyone there how he is going to die tomorrow.
*They viewed that disease how we view STDs but even more so. It was considered a direct punishment from God for bad actions.
Good points. We agree, they're good literature, and like any literature, there are themes and messages you can take home from it. I suppose you're right though that you can interpret the gospels to fit whatever your existing ideology is. I have interpret most of the passages you present differently -- but, I agree your viewpoint is valid and has merit.
I very much prefer discussing this academically vs religiously. It's rather fascinating how it's written to be acceptable to almost all viewpoints.
Well the thing is these stories didn't happen. They were the picked by the authors from various other literature works. The total lack of a unified voice means that you can slap archetypes on rapidly. Part of the reason you will see that people who believe in the historical Jesus will insist that they alone have culled through the layers to find the actual man.
It is like the Joker. Over his near century run the Joker has become every possible villain. From a gutter junkie, to an urban terrorist, to a Mafia kingpin, to a harmless trickster, to a gimmick serial killer, to a literal evil godlike being, to an immortal force, to a very mortal criminal, to a fourth wall breaking super genius, to a rent a terrorist, to a gang leader, to a victim pushed too far, to a chemist and failed comedian, to a former special ops rogue, to emo BDSM, to gay for Batman wearing makeup dandy.......
Since Jesus never existed he could be whatever people needed him to be and since the Roman-Greek/Jewish world was highly prolific at store writing it was possible for writers to dip into the rich traditions and pull out stories that everyone had some familiarity with. The NT is derivative and the older the chapter the more obvious the derivative.
Yeah, and then you've got things like the virgin birth which features in a lot of religions. Plus as it grew more popular, it took over some pagan traditions as well.
I'm not sure what the latest scholarly consensus is on if he even existed or not, but if he did, he wasn't born around Christmas. The date was chosen to match a pagan holiday.
Scholary consensus is that he did exist however scholary consensus is that the resurrection was a true event and a man named Mark wrote the first gospel. So yeah turns out the majority of people who make a living studying the Bible believe in accuracy of the Bible, big surprise.
I prefer to look at evidence and see where it goes.
I guess it would come down to what historians in general think. Although part of that also requires us to know the historians religions.
Whoosh!
I prefer the Marxian view of religion that people's religious beliefs are not the source of their actions but instead that the religion is determined by conditions and motivations external to it and that religion is used to morally justify these conditions, as well as provide a means to address the suffering caused by conditions. We see religion evolve as people's relationships with production evolve as well as power struggles and compromises between state powers. People often view Christianity as wiping out paganism rather than adopting aspects of it that would solidify state power for example. And people often treat religion as it's own domain separate from culture, but I think that doesn't explain things like civil religion or how religion actually functions. The way Calvinism during the 1600s develop alongside capitalism and these new economic relations it's hard not to see religion in this way, and in the US you saw things like the Adventists and Mormons come out of Christian tradition which is basically a historical record of this process.
I think an error is the idea that atheists aren't necessarily religious in an ideological sense, because a lot of them follow notions of civil religion and morality that are very much attached to theistic religions, or at least rely on the existence of concepts found in theistic religion. The idea that atheists and Christians are separate ideologically I think is false, in many cases they merely take the same moral framework and apply it for different political ends within the same broad economic consensus. And this makes a lot of sense as the recent Atheist movement in the 00s was very politically attached to the post 9/11 stuff that was happening. That movement split in the 10s along culture war lines as well, I personally saw many atheists turn into "race realists" and anti-feminists and the skeptics group I was attending basically ceased to exist because of this.