Is religion good?

[Arval Va]

And why should that punishment be infanticide?

No where in my reply did I said the punishment should’ve infanticide though. Be honest, did you actually read the whole thing? The Babylonians were the ones committing acts of infancide, and the Jews had a burning hatred for them, and wanted Justice.

It's a blatant expression of Biblical sadism. Would you try to defend a book that portrays infanticide in such a light? As justice? Something a normal person should wish for if they are wronged?
Either way, you probably should have read my entire response. That's just not something a reasonable person would wish for on a grudge.

[Portzania]

No where in my reply did I said the punishment should’ve infanticide though. Be honest, did you actually read the whole thing? The Babylonians were the ones committing acts of infancide, and the Jews had a burning hatred for them, and wanted Justice.

It's a blatant expression of Biblical sadism. Would you try to defend a book that portrays infanticide in such a light? As justice? Something a normal person should wish for if they are wronged?

Yes, I think I would defend a book that paints infanticide as a bad thing, I'm genuinely asking, out of good faith, if you actually read the interpretation and background of the verse before responding.

Either way, you probably should have read my entire response. That's just not something a reasonable person would wish for on a grudge.

I did, that's why I compared it to a "modern day" example. Some people want revenge on their killers, looter, and occupiers, like colonization.

[Arval Va]

It's a blatant expression of Biblical sadism. Would you try to defend a book that portrays infanticide in such a light? As justice? Something a normal person should wish for if they are wronged?

Yes, I think I would defend a book that paints infanticide as a bad thing, I'm genuinely asking, out of good faith, if you actually read the interpretation and background of the verse before responding.

The Bible is pretty explicit in writing these people to be the protagonists. If the only way you can defend this book is to say it doesn't actually say what it says, that should be a wake-up call.

Either way, you probably should have read my entire response. That's just not something a reasonable person would wish for on a grudge.

I did, that's why I compared it to a "modern day" example. Some people want revenge on their killers, looter, and occupiers, like colonization.

That doesn't mean it's reasonable for the revenge to be infanticide.

[Portzania]

That doesn't mean it's reasonable for the revenge to be infanticide.

The revenge wasn't supposed to be infanticide... They just wanted justice to be served to their brutalizers. I think you misread it, the jews aren't the one burning down cities, it's the babylons.

The Bible is pretty explicit in writing these people to be the protagonists.

I don't know which people you're referring to. I'm quite sure the bible isn't painting the babylons out of all people, as the good guy.

[Arval Va]

That doesn't mean it's reasonable for the revenge to be infanticide.

The revenge wasn't supposed to be infanticide... They just wanted justice to be served to their brutalizers. I think you misread it, the jews aren't the one burning down cities, it's the babylons.

The Babylonians attacked the Jews, yes, and these verses are what the Jews sing in exile. Unless you're claiming infanticide is just "poetic license" for a more PG form of justice, it's really very explicit.

The Bible is pretty explicit in writing these people to be the protagonists.

I don't know which people you're referring to. I'm quite sure the bible isn't painting the babylons out of all people, as the good guy.

The ones singing about killing the children of the Babylonians for a crime that those children had no involvement in.

[Bombadil]

Such as?

There are mountains on the bottom of the ocean floor (Jonah 2:5-6).
Oceans contain springs (Job 38:16).
The universe is expanding (Job 9:8; Isaiah 42:5; Jeremiah 51:15; Zechariah 12:1).
Creation is made of particles, indiscernible to our eyes (Hebrews 11:3).
Blood is the source of life and health (Leviticus 17:11; 14).

And more but I can explain these if you would like.

None of these say what you say they say, take the first:

To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.

Earth rises out of the sea, so the roots will be below it.. not that there are mountains on the bottom of the ocean floor.
Universe is expanding, no, he says God stretched out heaven and earth, is earth expanding.. he created them, not that the universe continues to expand..

By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.

From that you get the universe is made of particles.. God is invisible, or God's command is invisible.

What a fucking stretch..

[Concejos Unidos]

There are mountains on the bottom of the ocean floor (Jonah 2:5-6).
Oceans contain springs (Job 38:16).
The universe is expanding (Job 9:8; Isaiah 42:5; Jeremiah 51:15; Zechariah 12:1).
Creation is made of particles, indiscernible to our eyes (Hebrews 11:3).
Blood is the source of life and health (Leviticus 17:11; 14).

And more but I can explain these if you would like.

Setting aside the others for now, the idea that blood is a source of life is trivial. Only takes one dude to bleed out to figure that one out, not exactly impressive, like crediting the Bible for correctly identifying that indeed, the Sun exists.

[Concejos Unidos]

An organised society with established laws. In a functioning state, force is only used as a consequence to the actions of others, and rehabilitation is the final goal.

Doubt and criticism of systems of gov't are essential, and must exist to allow it to improve. In a democratic state, this is allowed.
In religion, it is always suppressed.

A rather narrow view of religion and the state. At one end of religion, you have extremely theologically traditions like liberal Quakerism or the Unitarian Universalists that do not enforce any sort of orthodoxy and in fact center the individual experience of religion and divine as the ultimate guide of belief. Religion can be a tool for oppression, but it can also be a force for liberation, epistemological, economic or political.

At one end of states, you have totalitarianism. Yet that is only the most naked manifestation of the impulse to violence and power that permeates all states. There is no such thing a state that does not use and crave violence and power, no state that does not impose itself as master of its subjects. Because the only way the state is capable of exerting power is through violence, the only way it can relate to people is through violence or legal decrees pregnant with implicit threats of violence as punishment for defiance. If the state prevents any violence at all, it is only obvious violence, the shocking violence of small-scale violent crime. In its place the state creates the apparatus of routinized violence, on one end the hardly concealed legitimized slaughter of war through to the quotidian bureaucracy of the violence of the carceral system to the most insidious form of killing through geographies of state neglect and expropriation. To legitimize all this, the state dictates a morality that would not be unfamiliar to religion and brutally enforced. Even if representative democracy were not a sham, there is no force that can legitimize systems of violence and control. In the state, we see all the worst impulses of religion consummated. The state arrogates itself to a religion. If we substitute worship of a cruel god for the worship of the state, we have done nothing but reject absolute monarchy for an uncrowned absolute dictatorship, a difference with distinction.

[Portzania]

The revenge wasn't supposed to be infanticide... They just wanted justice to be served to their brutalizers. I think you misread it, the jews aren't the one burning down cities, it's the babylons.

The Babylonians attacked the Jews, yes, and these verses are what the Jews sing in exile. Unless you're claiming infanticide is just "poetic license" for a more PG form of justice, it's really very explicit.

If you think that's an explicit poetic license, then you should read the Old Testament, but no, the Jews weren't suggesting we should kill the Babylonian children.

[Arval Va]

An organised society with established laws. In a functioning state, force is only used as a consequence to the actions of others, and rehabilitation is the final goal.

Doubt and criticism of systems of gov't are essential, and must exist to allow it to improve. In a democratic state, this is allowed.
In religion, it is always suppressed.

A rather narrow view of religion and the state. At one end of religion, you have extremely theologically traditions like liberal Quakerism or the Unitarian Universalists that do not enforce any sort of orthodoxy and in fact center the individual experience of religion and divine as the ultimate guide of belief. Religion can be a tool for oppression, but it can also be a force for liberation, epistemological, economic or political.

All beliefs based on faith and spiritual claims are fundamentally suppressive of doubt. To preserve itself, a faith-based belief must ensure that the nonexistent basis of the belief is never allowed to be recognised as such. If a religion ever allowed its members to question all of its most basic ideas, it would completely dissolve.

At one end of states, you have totalitarianism. Yet that is only the most naked manifestation of the impulse to violence and power that permeates all states. There is no such thing a state that does not use and crave violence and power, no state that does not impose itself as master of its subjects. Because the only way the state is capable of exerting power is through violence, the only way it can relate to people is through violence or legal decrees pregnant with implicit threats of violence as punishment for defiance. If the state prevents any violence at all, it is only obvious violence, the shocking violence of small-scale violent crime. In its place the state creates the apparatus of routinized violence, on one end the hardly concealed legitimized slaughter of war through to the quotidian bureaucracy of the violence of the carceral system to the most insidious form of killing through geographies of state neglect and expropriation. To legitimize all this, the state dictates a morality that would not be unfamiliar to religion and brutally enforced. Even if representative democracy were not a sham, there is no force that can legitimize systems of violence and control. In the state, we see all the worst impulses of religion consummated. The state arrogates itself to a religion. If we substitute worship of a cruel god for the worship of the state, we have done nothing but reject absolute monarchy for an uncrowned absolute dictatorship, a difference with distinction.

The abuses of the criminal justice system and military are about as abhorrent as it gets, but these are things that can be managed. Representative democracy is always inferior to a direct democracy, something which most nations, unfortunately, simply don't have the infrastructure to manage. However, the state simply isn't comparable to a religion - the functioning democratic state moves forward by the wheels of doubt and criticism, while religion will always decieve. The most basic concept of the state is very corruptible, but not inherently corrupt. The most basic concept of religion is both corruptible and corrupt. The modern state is awful, but I believe that it can be improved - the world today is honestly a shithole, but it's a little bit less of a shithole than it was under feudalism or colonialism, and hopefully progress can bring us a little farther from such things.

Ultimately, it is through my subjective analysis of the effects of anarchy that I would prefer the state to the alternative. Your objections are absolutely important and valid, but I personally would probably take the option that allows me running water or protection from crime.

[Arval Va]

The Babylonians attacked the Jews, yes, and these verses are what the Jews sing in exile. Unless you're claiming infanticide is just "poetic license" for a more PG form of justice, it's really very explicit.

If you think that's an explicit poetic license, then you should read the Old Testament, but no, the Jews weren't suggesting we should kill the Babylonian children.

I think you misread it...
As in:

It's really very explicit, [that the authors of the Bible approve of infanticide as a form of retribution] unless you're claiming infanticide is just "poetic license" for a more PG form of justice.

Once again, no reasonable person would go to the extreme of "I'M GOING TO BREAK OPEN YOUR CHILDREN'S HEAD ON A ROCK" as metaphor for revenge.

[Portzania]

If you think that's an explicit poetic license, then you should read the Old Testament, but no, the Jews weren't suggesting we should kill the Babylonian children.

I think you misread it...
As in:

It's really very explicit, [that the authors of the Bible approve of infanticide as a form of retribution] unless you're claiming infanticide is just "poetic license" for a more PG form of justice.

They aren't... This is why context is important.
It is a normal human desire to see justice done and for enemies to be defeated. However, as Romans 12:17–19 says, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil." You can't just read one sentence out of a book and then ignore everything else said in such book.

[Arval Va]

I think you misread it...
As in:

They aren't... This is why context is important.
It is a normal human desire to see justice done and for enemies to be defeated. However, as Romans 12:17–19 says, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil." You can't just read one sentence out of a book and then ignore everything else said in such book.

The constant inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible just indicate its lack of reliability further.

[Incelastan]

They aren't... This is why context is important.
It is a normal human desire to see justice done and for enemies to be defeated. However, as Romans 12:17–19 says, “Do not repay anyone evil for evil." You can't just read one sentence out of a book and then ignore everything else said in such book.

The constant inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible just indicate its lack of reliability further.

Yeah, clearly parts of the Bible advocate cruelty just as surely as other parts advocate mercy. Some urge war so far from the just war concept as to favor genocide and ethnic cleansing. Other parts are pacifistic in the extreme. You can't get a clear picture of scripture by trying to harmonize it, either. Even parts of the Old Testament contradict other parts of the Old Testament, such as on the issue of divorce, and parts of the New Testament are so violent as to contradict the insane pacifism of other parts of it.

I mean, hell, John Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is God himself, while it also claims that he was tempted by Satan. Yet James in his epistle claims that God can't be tempted nor can he tempt anyone. Awfully blatant contradiction there.

[Arval Va]

The constant inconsistencies and contradictions in the Bible just indicate its lack of reliability further.

Yeah, clearly parts of the Bible advocate cruelty just as surely as other parts advocate mercy. Some urge war so far from the just war concept as to favor genocide and ethnic cleansing. Other parts are pacifistic in the extreme. You can't get a clear picture of scripture by trying to harmonize it, either. Even parts of the Old Testament contradict other parts of the Old Testament, such as on the issue of divorce, and parts of the New Testament are so violent as to contradict the insane pacifism of other parts of it.

I mean, hell, John Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is God himself, while it also claims that he was tempted by Satan. Yet James in his epistle claims that God can't be tempted nor can he tempt anyone. Awfully blatant contradiction there.

And wasn't Yahweh torturing Job because of temptation from Satan?

In the Old Testament, Yahweh's in full persecutor mode - the divine king of the Israelites, doing what kings did those days. After murdering and cursing countless people for no reason, it goes on to play up its victimhood in the New Testament.

[Incelastan]

Yeah, clearly parts of the Bible advocate cruelty just as surely as other parts advocate mercy. Some urge war so far from the just war concept as to favor genocide and ethnic cleansing. Other parts are pacifistic in the extreme. You can't get a clear picture of scripture by trying to harmonize it, either. Even parts of the Old Testament contradict other parts of the Old Testament, such as on the issue of divorce, and parts of the New Testament are so violent as to contradict the insane pacifism of other parts of it.

I mean, hell, John Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is God himself, while it also claims that he was tempted by Satan. Yet James in his epistle claims that God can't be tempted nor can he tempt anyone. Awfully blatant contradiction there.

And wasn't Yahweh torturing Job because of temptation from Satan?

In the Old Testament, Yahweh's in full persecutor mode - the divine king of the Israelites, doing what kings did those days. After murdering and cursing countless people for no reason, it goes on to play up its victimhood in the New Testament.

Had to get the persecution complex started, of course. The Church was gonna need it. Hence the largely mythical pagan persecutions of the Church.

[Floofybit]

I mean, hell, John Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is God himself, while it also claims that he was tempted by Satan. Yet James in his epistle claims that God can't be tempted nor can he tempt anyone. Awfully blatant contradiction there.

Jesus Christ and God are not the same being.

[Arval Va]

I mean, hell, John Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is God himself, while it also claims that he was tempted by Satan. Yet James in his epistle claims that God can't be tempted nor can he tempt anyone. Awfully blatant contradiction there.

Jesus Christ and God are not the same being.

Y'know, it might have helped Christians get along a little better if Jesus had bothered to clear that matter up before dying and leaving everybody to argue about it. Maybe an omniscient god could've predicted that problem and made sure everybody got it right...

[Eahland]

I mean, hell, John Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is God himself, while it also claims that he was tempted by Satan. Yet James in his epistle claims that God can't be tempted nor can he tempt anyone. Awfully blatant contradiction there.

Jesus Christ and God are not the same being.

You peeps really need to decide whether you're monotheists or not.

[Neutraligon]

Nope, the book is the claim.

These claims be fire though

What a nonsensical follow up.

[Neutraligon]

Yeah, clearly parts of the Bible advocate cruelty just as surely as other parts advocate mercy. Some urge war so far from the just war concept as to favor genocide and ethnic cleansing. Other parts are pacifistic in the extreme. You can't get a clear picture of scripture by trying to harmonize it, either. Even parts of the Old Testament contradict other parts of the Old Testament, such as on the issue of divorce, and parts of the New Testament are so violent as to contradict the insane pacifism of other parts of it.

I mean, hell, John Chapter 1 argues that Jesus is God himself, while it also claims that he was tempted by Satan. Yet James in his epistle claims that God can't be tempted nor can he tempt anyone. Awfully blatant contradiction there.

And wasn't Yahweh torturing Job because of temptation from Satan?

In the Old Testament, Yahweh's in full persecutor mode - the divine king of the Israelites, doing what kings did those days. After murdering and cursing countless people for no reason, it goes on to play up its victimhood in the New Testament.

I mean, at least there was no such thing as the current Christiaan version of hell. THe god of the old testament is pretty bad, but nothing compares to the idea of eternity of suffering. Nothing compares to the ideas of revelations. The new testament god is not much better.

As to historical inaccuracies, what time did Abraham, Isaac and Jacob live in?

[Trideria]

there is only one truly good religion and that is clearly jediism

- lightsabers
- cool robes
- telekenetic powers
- force ghosts
- lightsabers

everything else is kinda mid

[Suriyanakhon]

there is only one truly good religion and that is clearly jediism

- lightsabers
- cool robes
- telekenetic powers
- force ghosts
- lightsabers

everything else is kinda mid

It looks way less cool irl tbh.

[Neanderthaland]

there is only one truly good religion and that is clearly jediism

Only a Sith deals in absolutes

[Trideria]

It looks way less cool irl tbh.

pay no heed to the larpers, i am referring to the faith displayed in the ancient interstellar documentaries curated by George Lucas.

it was long ago, so we have lost the way