I was abused by my christian parents.
I would like to live long enough to see humanity mature out of superstition and free the world from human greed.
How do you know the canonical catholic interpretation is correct? Because some guy said so? Even if some guy was “officially” entrusted with that task, how do we know he didn’t make mistakes?
How do we verify any of it?
How do you know islam is false? Some guy said it’s true. That’s not enough for you anymore?
What about mormonism? That guy had magic rocks. Is that any more or less ridiculous than a talking bush?
Why does omnipotent god need to test anything?
We do. And they all interpret it differently. How do you know which one is correct?
Have you even read one chapter of the bible? Genesis 1:
28 God blessed them. God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply
Psalm 127:
3 Behold, children are a heritage of Yahweh. The fruit of the womb is his reward. 4 As arrows in the hand of a mighty man, so are the children of youth. 5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them.
If God was as “evil” as you portray him to be, why would he bear unbearable torture for our sake?
You’re mixing up two things here.
Jesus was crucified. A real man was murdered. That was not god, god is not real.
The god described by the bible is 100% evil. He had all the power, chose to make us suffer, guilts us for it, and calls that “love”.
The idea that god sent himself to die to solve problems of his own making is a later addition that makes him seem weak and stupid. Nothing is necessary to an all-powerful being.
Humans farming dairy hurts cows: https://vegfaqs.com/vegans-milk-cheese/
Humans farming eggs usually hurts chickens: https://www.veganfoodandliving.com/features/are-eggs-vegan/
There’s also the simple fact that most of us do not need meat, dairy, or eggs to survive. So why risk harming other creatures to get it?
Was the bible written for god to read, or for humans to read? If it was written for humans, it could have benefited from using human units instead of undefined god units.
How do we know which parts are allegory and which parts are true? Whatever suits you at the time?
Especially considering he was already all-powerful. He knew what would happen and he did it anyway. Seemingly, he’s a cruel piece of shit who just wanted an excuse to eternally torture his weird little dolls.
Without knowledge of good and evil, how were they supposed to know that god was good and snake was evil? It was entrapment.
The book where god allows satan (whom god created) to wreck Job’s life, including killing his children?
Oh, but it’s fine, because at the end Job is rewarded with new children? Who gives a shit about the old ones. Life isn’t precious according to your god, it’s all about making more disposable slaves for him.
It’s a book about accepting physical and verbal abuse. It’s a book about doing what you are told even when it is wrong. It’s a book about hate, but you call it “love”.
you have no other sources than a few historical events
So to clarify: you asked for sources. You received sources. You dismissed those sources and asked for more, even though you can’t explain why they are not valid to you.
Rejecting evidence is intellectual cowardice.
can I have a verse in the Old Testament used to “control the poor”?
All of it. Let’s see: “Don’t seek knowledge or you will be punished.” “Be fruitful and multiply; kids are ammo in your quiver, not people.” “In fact, it’s fine to take slaves as long as the rules are followed.”
And it all hinges on: “Obey me or I’ll make you suffer and it’ll be all your fault.” It is fear and guilt used to manipulate people too uneducated to think critically about what they are reading and recognize fiction.
The fact that our lives will come to an end makes every moment we have more precious. These are unique experiences that cannot be replicated.
Easy to say, and I do believe it, but also…
Boomers like my parents chose and still choose to perpetuate abusive systems instead of opposing them. I spent too long thanking them for teaching me violence because any other reaction would be met with violence. Why am I supposed to feel grateful about being born into a backwards, burning slave world?
I am finally getting treatment for alcohol dependency. I want to stop hiding from my own life, but I don’t know how. I wasted myself on people who don’t actually care about anything but themselves. It sometimes feels like there is too much pain for anything to be worthwhile, but I am also too scared to check out early.
So… I don’t know. We have a lot of problems to solve. Things may get worse before they get better, but there is potential for things to get better. Theoretically. 🤷 I hope they get better for everyone, including you. I wish I knew.
We pay in sabertooth tigers for sabertooth tigers, and hey, your sabertooth tiger boss would like to show you a sabertooth tiger, just scroll down on your mobile sabertooth tiger, skip a few sabertooth tigers, click the tiger, and then you should see a sabertooth tiger.
And do not sleep. There are tigers.
To clarify, I don’t want to sound like a determinist, where there’s nothing we can do but sit back and watch systems play themselves out.
I am a determinist, and also I think it is morally reprehensible to do nothing while innocent people are being murdered. Our choices are not some magical product of free will, they are biological inevitabilities. But we evolved our feelings for good reason.
Just that historically, the most effective movements have built on mass organization and consciousness, rather than scattered individuals spontaneously changing their minds.
We live in the information age. We can talk to each other faster than ever. It’s why the fascists keep poisoning social media, they fear it.
I think we need to get ahead of the curve. They are ahead of us in some ways. We need to subvert their plans and their backup plans. We need to move faster than they think is possible, faster than they can keep up with.
Easier said than done, admittedly. But maybe we can use the speed of information to our advantage.
Wow! Very well put.
I still think it makes a difference, like adding a little more kindling so a campfire is easier to light.
We all need to think more about our choices and their consequences. We must break the cycle of abuse. It’s not easy. I wish I knew how.
Thank you for your responses. 🙂
Also, in context… Is “Jewishness” an institution, a system? I think it’s a descriptive category humans came up with for humans. Race is kind of arbitrary.
I disagree about the focus on individual choices, these are institutional and systemic forces at play.
True. And individuals are making selfish choices rhat sustain these systems and institutions.
But I agree the term is imprecise. And westerners don’t have a good enough track record avoiding reactionary deviations to be trusted with imprecise language.
My goals include minimizing suffering. We are each in different positions, we each have different choices available to us. It is worthwhile, maybe even necessary, for us to strive to make the best choices we can, choices that will benefit everyone the most. I admit it is not easy, which is why cooperation is so important. Religion divides us based on what we want to be true instead of what is measurably most likely true.
We are limited by our physical forms, brains included. But I have seen enough to stake my life on the idea that we can do better than we are doing, and we should; the sooner we respect reality, the more lives we can save.
I just want to be specific. Much like not all white people believe in white supremacy, not all Jewish people believe in Jewish supremacy.
Some believe they are god’s chosen people, and I think that is baseless and harmful.
Some believe god promised certain land to them, just as baseless and even more harmful.
But many do not believe in magic at all, and do not deserve to be thrown under the bus. I prefer to focus on individual decisions, generalizing is reductive.
I feel like the concept of “ethnoreligion” does more harm than good. Not every Jewish person is judaist, not every judaist is Jewish. Not every judaist is zionist.
It would be nice if we could focus on individual choices instead of broadly applying inaccurate labels.
It’d be great if we could stop indulging in baseless superstition altogether. Kind of impossible to hold anyone accountable otherwise.
“sliding rapidly in the wrong direction”. That’s the UK right now, arresting 80 year old grannies for wearing a pro-palestine t-shirt.
It sounds like you already live in an authoritarian country. I agree that you should take care of yourself so that you are better equipped to take care of others, but never forget that we are all connected.
I am a US citizen. People around me loudly and proudly vote against all our best interests. I would rather us leave nations behind and focus on a human-driven future that cares for the planet we all share.
I do not put much stock in the bible, I was abused by christians. I like the version about practically surviving an airplane disaster: “Put your own mask on before assisting others.”
I also enjoy the Mike Tyson Mysteries version: “You gotta put your own mask on first, otherwise some other motherfucker is gonna take all the masks.”
Either way, ultimately, we want everyone to be free.
Thank you for hosting life-saving technology. Check out some of the responses here: https://blog.torproject.org/how-has-tor-helped-you-we-need-your-stories/
Used Tor for researching secret political surveillance by a government. Led to three major media exposes over a ten year period.
I am a netizen from China, I use Tor to protect my privacy against government and ISP’s surveillance.
Used Tor to obtain documents from Wikileaks, which helped expose local surveillance by military units of janitorial union organizing meetings, groups pressing for the rights of migrant workers, etc.
I live in Iran and I have been using Tor for censorship circumvention. During political unrest while the government tightens grip on other censorship circumvention alternatives, Tor with obfuscation plugins remain the only solution.
Gender is a social construct, not biological. Most people are assigned a gender at birth, but it may not reflect who they actually are. Trans women are women and trans men are men, and typically they like to be treated as such. Affirming a person’s gender is good for them, can be life-saving.