When I was on my recent trip to Japan, we visited a few shrines and I found it kind of funny how a lot of them had gift shops selling a bunch of religious themed merch. Then I thought about Christianity and all the Jesus merch.
Jesus returns, looks around at crosses everywhere.
“Fuck me. I’m glad I didn’t die accidentally drowning in manure!”
Everytime I see someone’s house with so many religious imagery, I think of Carrie White’s mother.
Religious BS from Reddit
Can’t sell as much merchandise without a face to go along with the name.
WWJD? SELL SELL SELL!!!
Religion is given far too much respect in the world when it needs to be treated as a mental disorder.
Why is it a mental disorder? Can I have a source?
Shared Psychotic Disorder is where a group of people share a delusion. This delusion can almost “spread,” especially in the case of people who are close to each other. Its very similar to other shared delusions, like supernatural beliefs.
I’m actually okay with some Gaia religion right now that makes it fundamental to protect the planet and “remove” anyone trying to mess with that, like building data centers.
Please don’t… if it is a religion, it involve irrational beliefs that will be armful at some point. To protect the planet we need to know what is good for it, and be abble to find out that some of our knowledges/beliefs are wrong. To find out we were wrong, we need to be rational ; and that require to reject faith.
So, what about personal philosophy? Do you count “Humanism”, or “Earthseed” from Parable of the Sower as religions? No magical thinking, but heavily based in ideas of morality which have no objective truth. There is no definition of “Good” that can ever be objective. You need a philosophical basis, like utilitarianism, for example, to work off of.
There are plenty of people (including many adherents, I think) who’d identify those as religions, but I struggle to comprehend how your claim would apply to them.
And that’s how the Church of Infinite Greed keeps winning no matter how rational you are. Their irrationality knows no counter.
I don’t think I understand. Do you mean we need a religion to counter capitalism?
Religions are always serving the ones in power, some times they may set new rulers, but then they serve the new rulers…
And no rulers will be good if it is with a protection that pass all to them and protect them.
So I think rationality and education are more likely to be the solution than any religion (even in those not existing yet).
You don’t need a religion to be an environmentalist.
Oftentimes religious beliefs can change someone’s worldviews, including but not limited to, environmental awareness. And I bring my own anecdotal example: since I became a syncretic Luciferian then a sudden Lilithian, I became quite eco-centric, as I got to understand Homo sapiens as just one among countless species instead of some “god’s exclusive toy” on this Pale Blue Dot. I also started to personally understand LGBTQIA+ values because, thanks to Lilith, I began discovering a part of me I wasn’t aware of, my queer me I’ve since became quite fond of (e.g. polishing my nails and letting them grow as a cisman-presenting person).
Those things would be unlikely to happen if I stayed on christianity (yes, I was christian in the far past and I deeply hate having been one) due to christian brainwashing that makes christians to “fear disobeying god” (now I want “god” to go pound sand).
There are religions and religions, faiths and faiths. You won’t get a coven of Wiccans knocking at your door at Monday (Moon day) 3AM “do you have 5 minutes to hear about our Mother Hekate?”, you won’t hear Luciferians screaming “Agios Lucifer, He’s coming back to reign” inside a bus/subway while you’re commuting, you won’t see a Thelemite lawmaker trying to shove Liber AL Vel Legis inside kindergarten and schools, you won’t see Goetians bringing a Solomon’s Magick Circle inside a hospital room to call upon Stolas to cure the patients with his herbal knowledge… Yet atheists tend to put all religious beliefs into the same box as abrahamic religions which have persecuted both you atheists and us pagans, instead of trying to make some rational distinction between different faiths…
@MrNobody This! Yes! Religious “beliefs” fill the mind with confused, illogical thoughts not tethered to the world as it is. This fuzzy thinking is not benign.
What is “the world as it is”? Can you give me an example of a “confused, illogical thought”?
‘The world was created in 7 days.’
‘The world is 6,000 years old. Any evidence to the contrary is manufactured by Satan to lead us astray.’
‘All of humanity was started from two people.’
I could go on but those three are fun to start with.
Mo was Asian
he is made to Kinda look like thor tp appeal to germanic saxon cultures, just like christmas and easter and everything are adaptations of eradicated germanic rites
Jokes aside, he seems to look like whatever people in the area look like. I suppose it’s much easier to worship someone who looks like your own ethnicity.
“CHRIST SMASH! RARRGH!”
Islam, Christianity, and Judaism are all tax free! They get tax benefits that no “non-profit” can match.
These are all unfathomably wealthy organizations. Their fundamentalists all despise us (us being not them). Get a job
The iconoclasts were on the same page
Atheism:
You know how we tell the story about brutally murdering the Son of God? We want to put that on display, all the time, in His House, so He never ever forgets.
God is love!
Christians with crucifixes are like reporters asking the Irwin siblings about their father’s death in every interview. Why do you want to dwell on the worst thing ever?
I thought it was like the heads-on-pikes thing? Christians are like Klingons right?
Our gods are dead.
We killed them.
They were more trouble than they were worth.metal as fuck
Christianity is the most badass religion.
Do I have that wrong?
No wonder Jesus hasn’t come back. We never miss a chance to remind him of what happened last time
This reminds me of a joke:
" Aliens make first contact with humans. They are peaceful and start a dialogue with us. The subject of religion comes up, and Christianity is described to the aliens and they respond by saying ’ oh yeah we know Jesus. He came comes to visit you too?’
‘Well yes, once, over 2000 years ago.’
To which the aliens reply: ‘That’s weird he visits us every year, stays for about a week for the high feast we throw in his honor. It’s a recreation of what we did for him the first time he appeared. What happened when he came here? Maybe if you recreated whatever that was…’
‘Oh, um, we crucified him.’
‘Oof. Ok. Makes sense now.’
Basically, he has marked us as the bad neighborhood on his map.
But don’t forget, Jesus is also God. Fully, but also distinct. So we’re reminding Him about how He had himself killed so that He could forgive us because some lady who didn’t know anything didn’t follow His directions
Let’s not forget that he’s the one that invented the rules that allegedly required such a stupid and convoluted plan.
And is also omnipotent and allknowing.
and bland and flavorless and crumbly
That’s what the wine is for
doesn’t change the bland jeez-its. if you’re going to magic something into godflesh, why not breakfast tacos? with egg and cheese and a little bacon (or potato if that’s your thing. or both)? at least give us sourdough or tiger bread
Back in the day, at my little corner bagel shop we’d created
the god bagelBacon Ham Egg Scrapple and cheese on an everything bagel, wrapped tightly in aluminum foil to allow it to squeeze into a jaw-able bite.
I’d worship at this alter.
When you put it that way, it sounds ridicluous.
In Christianity, the crucifixion is the moment of victory. Christ’s sinless death is what allows mankind to be redeemed, and that was the plan all along. So they see the crucifixion as holy, though it is also mourned. It is used as a reminder of the love God has for his people and as a sort of “try to be better” thing.
Pretty weak deity which can’t even forgive the sins they created themselves without all the pageantry. This is why I only worship my TI-83 calculator from middle school. It is capable of completely passive forgiveness, and largely unwilling to resort to damnation under any circumstances.
The explanation I’ve been given is actually kinda cool in a, like, fantasy worldbuilding sort of way. By nature God is perfection, and since Adam and Eve fell short of perfection, mankind is tainted by imperfection. That falling short is sin. (There is some debate about whether God “decides” what is sin, or whether it is some sort of objective nature of God, which I also think is sort of fascinating.) Man needed ways to be absolved from sin to be in communion with God. This largely involved sacrificing animals to cover over sin with blood, and this symbolism is all over the old testament.
Christianity posits that Jesus was both God and Man, combining the two natures. He lived a sinless life, but still faced death (which shouldn’t happen to someone without sin). This causes a sort of divide-by-zero error that cancels out the sin of all who are linked to Jesus through the sacraments (especially baptism and communion). This allows humans to be “in communion with God” without continued animal sacrifice. And now that living a perfect life, which is impossible, is not necessary, Christians should do good things in the world to reflect the grace they’ve been given.
Unfortunately, most Christians know fuck all about their own religion and don’t understand it at a fundamental level, and think it’s their job to go around judging people and telling them to repent.
Yes, victory over our enemies!
Christ’s sinless death is what allows mankind to be redeemed, and that was the plan all along.
A good 'ol death cult.
It’s also a crock of shit that we use to control people. If you’re luck enough to get out of your small town and away from you family like I was, you can deprogram.
Literally the second commandment:
2 “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.
My dad used to beat this fact down my throat when I was a kid. No visual depictions of God/Jesus allowed. I wasn’t allowed to watch The Passion or even Veggietales. But Prince of Egypt was okay.
Veggietales? I didn’t grow up watching it but I thought I read somewhere that the creators actively didn’t want to depict God/Jesus in that? Maybe it’s just because Veggietales is part of the “love each other” version of Christianity and that’s bad and woke.
For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,
Wow what a good entity that is totally deserving of my worship.
Nothing says divinity better than petty human emotions like jealousy, and open threats to my unborn children and grandchildren.
That’s actually pretty much in-line with how a lot of gods were portrayed back then. Have you read any Greek mythology? The gods were assholes there, too.
The God of the Bible is literally a Monster.
Also jealousy is illegal according to the the Christian Constitution.
The word isn’t jealous though it is qana’ (קנא) which is more recently translated as “impassioned” and “zealous”
Basically, it means don’t be yandere.
“You shall not make for yourself…”
That means it’s ok to just buy it, or you can make them and sell them. So long as you don’t make one and keep it for yourself.
also you can build them out of clay. ain’t nothing about fired images
Baby I think we got ourselves a business model! Take that, creator of the universe!
You shall not bow down or serve them****
True, but also the commandments aren’t actually numbered. IIRC, there are 13 “Shalls” and “Shall nots”. So Catholics lump that section in with the first (no other gods, etc.) while the Protestants make room by joining “don’t covet wife/property”. There’s arguments to support both sides when looking at the historical context but on that specific issue I’d lean toward the Catholic interpretation making more sense considering god is telling people to make statues shortly after (Exodus 25:18). Either way it’s silly to be arguing over rules that bronze age people invented.
No symbols allowed or no idols allowed?
I mean any likeness of anything anywhere by the looks of it. So I guess that would include both?
any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them.
So making fish statues are ok, but don’t worship a fish statue as an idol. I don’t see an issue with making a likeness to something as long as you’re not worshipping it
Apologies, I misunderstood your question. I do wonder if you’ve seen how Catholics treat such depictions. I’d say they worship it or at least use it as an idol.
“The only moral idol is my idol.”
No, it clearly says: “You shall not make…”, and then adds the reason at the end. It seems God doesn’t even want you making it for any reason, because you might use it to worship. Banning images eliminates the temptation.
We’re dealing with at least two intervening languages and generations of oral history here. Nitpicking semantics isn’t terribly useful.
I’m not sure that’s the interpretation that Catholics go with, and I don’t think they idolize the statues they make. Either way the qualifier, as I’m reading it, is that they make the thing to worship the thing.
One way you can think of idolatry is by analogy to the concept of map and territory. The map is not the territory, and that can be far more of a rabbit hole than it sounds at first glance. For instance, you do not experience reality directly, full stop. Your entire experience of life is actually a living map of life generated by reality’s interactions with your senses which are then filtered and interpreted by the rest of your bodily and cognitive systems.
And so it is for those who believe in and cultivate a relationship with their deities - a direct experience that will always be impossible to fully achieve, and is nevertheless expected they spend their lives chasing.
So no Cat pictures? This is not a world I want to live in.
Catholicism lore and practices are actually pretty metal if you think about it.
Carry a figure of the dying tortured son of god in a little chain on your neck. Nailed to a cross, speared through the chest, and with a fucking spine crown.
Spikes and a skull tattoos have NOTHING on Catholic paraphernalia.
Then literally eat his flesh and blood in a ritual to commemorate his death.
literally
Literally tho?
Ah! Right! I completely forgot about that.
I was always of the “In remembrance of Me” interpretation. Catholicism gets pretty metal sometimes. Lol
According to Catholics, yes.
OH YEAAAAH…I’ll admit I completely forgot about that.
I was always of the “In remembrance of Me” interpretation.
This is Known. Goth fashion is basically a very involved parody of what Catholic aristocrats used to wear (this is why you get all the “sexy nun” stuff too)
