Post 320084 by vegetablegremlin@bofa.lol
(DIR) More posts by vegetablegremlin@bofa.lol
(DIR) Post #320072 by thatcosmonaut@knzk.me
2018-10-01T21:50:21Z
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in all seriousness i do actually recommend people read the bible, or at least certain parts of it, if only to better understand cultural allusion and also to debunk the ideological monopoly that evangelicals are forcing on our religious-adjacent culture as americans, much of which is not biblically supported or directly contradicted. and there is a lot of genuinely insightful and interesting things in there, just like any other holy book
(DIR) Post #320084 by vegetablegremlin@bofa.lol
2018-10-01T21:51:36Z
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@thatcosmonaut plus u got stuff like "dude with metal feet shows up and coughs up a sword like a hairball and what could i do? he's the Lord so I said thank you"
(DIR) Post #320107 by grandpawg@knzk.me
2018-10-01T21:53:49Z
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@thatcosmonaut it’s mostly too boring imo to even read bits of it. however the book of revelations is🔥🔥🔥 an early example of apocalyptic horror
(DIR) Post #320117 by thatcosmonaut@knzk.me
2018-10-01T21:54:54Z
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@grandpawg i fucking love it but i have a weird religious studies nerd brain
(DIR) Post #320316 by kittybecca@masto.jews.international
2018-10-01T22:10:36Z
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@thatcosmonaut i don't think that's a good long-term plan; what we really need is to make it stop being so important in daily life. we need to build a world where people don't have to understand those cultural allusions, nor be fluent in christian religious language in order to participate in society.
(DIR) Post #320404 by kittybecca@masto.jews.international
2018-10-01T22:11:25Z
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@thatcosmonaut i'm not saying this because i hate religion; i don't. i'm just saying it because these things end up introducing social prejudices and serving as a form of social/cultural/religious othering.
(DIR) Post #320405 by kittybecca@masto.jews.international
2018-10-01T22:16:19Z
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@thatcosmonaut if your argument ultimately rests on "the bible" (which in the u.s. means the 'new testament' + the christian interpretation of the tanakh), you're still reinforcing the dominance of one particular religious viewpoint in society.
(DIR) Post #320406 by kittybecca@masto.jews.international
2018-10-01T22:17:25Z
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@thatcosmonaut ultimately a muslim immigrant shouldn't have to be able to explain why they have a right to be here in terms of the new testament.
(DIR) Post #320407 by thatcosmonaut@knzk.me
2018-10-01T22:17:58Z
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@kittybecca this is not what i am saying, at all
(DIR) Post #320444 by some_qualia@guillotines.masto.host
2018-10-01T22:21:22Z
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@thatcosmonaut Yep. 1st John Chapter 3 has a few verses that come as close to being a summation of what I believe as anything else.
(DIR) Post #320457 by zoeferal@knzk.me
2018-10-01T22:23:12Z
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@thatcosmonaut i think the average person should read translations of the torah, the bible, and the quran. at minimum; if not venturing into other spheres. it would make the average person far more understanding and hopefully tolerant.
(DIR) Post #320500 by thatcosmonaut@knzk.me
2018-10-01T22:25:21Z
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@kittybecca i get hung up on this stuff because i feel like our culture is torn between two dominant poles, on the one hand people who believe that religion is a barbaric relic of humanity's past that should be completely abandoned and that rational scientific analysis is the cure for all our ills, and on the other hand people who think that our culture should be founded specifically on a 20th century interpretation of the protestant bible. both perspectives are equally short sighted and wrong
(DIR) Post #320536 by kittybecca@masto.jews.international
2018-10-01T22:29:18Z
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@thatcosmonaut i agree with you on that. i don't believe in any sort of god, but my cultural upbringing was steeped in the Jewish religion, and it's not a bad thing.at the same time i kind of realized that in order to navigate a Christian society, i was going to have to understand Christianity. meanwhile the vast majority of Christians have never even tried to understand Judaism; they have just been told what Judaism "was" and why Christianity "made it better."
(DIR) Post #320539 by kittybecca@masto.jews.international
2018-10-01T22:29:54Z
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@thatcosmonaut i wish i could've approached christianity on my own terms, as though it were just another religion.
(DIR) Post #320634 by kittybecca@masto.jews.international
2018-10-01T22:32:36Z
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@thatcosmonaut one of the worst things is that understanding Christianity means understanding Christian attitudes toward Judaism and the Christian interpretation of Jewish philosophy, ethics, law, scriptures, etc.. it meant having to understand what Christians meant when they said this or that thing about Judaism and why. it meant being forced to take on views about Judaism that were contrary to Judaism, which is hard not to internalize.
(DIR) Post #320635 by kittybecca@masto.jews.international
2018-10-01T22:33:38Z
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@thatcosmonaut and again... there was no reciprocal attempt for Christians to understand Judaism. they were told what it was and that was that.
(DIR) Post #320636 by thatcosmonaut@knzk.me
2018-10-01T22:38:05Z
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@kittybecca yes this is unfortunately the truth of the dominant culture. but i want people to be conscious of where some of our cultural notions emerge from rather than be blind to it. i'd just as readily suggest people read Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism" to get a handle on some of the foundational notions of american ideology
(DIR) Post #320662 by thatcosmonaut@knzk.me
2018-10-01T22:41:11Z
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@kittybecca also, the irony of christian supremacists is they ignore the fact that post-christian jewish thought had a massive historical influence on christian theology, since they co-existed as religions for literally thousands of years. i personally have deep respect for jewish religious thought and have read quite a bit of it but i know that this is relatively rare for people raised in christian environments, and it shouldn't be