• rglullis@communick.news
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    1 day ago

    Ah, so it’s the “no, actually I am a Christian, despite not following any of the rules. I just make up my own”.

    Notice I did not say “I am a Christian”, but “accepting of Christian values”. If you can not understand this difference, I am not sure how much I can help.

    All your rant after that is built out of a strawman, so there is no point in arguing further.

    • Dasus@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      Please do elaborate on what you mean.

      How else would I know? What you’re saying seems to have literally nothing to do with Christianity.

      You can’t state what said values are, nor do you say whether your “acceptance” of them means you try to follow them or if you believe in them?

      The fact you can’t really find those answers should be a hint to the amount of indoctrination around organised religion, for the reasons I’ve explained. I had it when I was around 18, one night at the night club, we were outside for a smoke, and this ~10 years older guy just enquires — in somewhat good faith — why I wear the cross around my neck. It was a golden cross and I got it as a confirmation gift at 15.

      But the question stuck with me, and I ended up taking it off. I don’t remember whether on the spot or months later.

      But the facts are that if people genuinely just go with whatever we think is moral at the time, then why on Earth would anyone claim to found their moral ideology on a book they have to literally mostly ignore?

      It doesn’t make sense.

      Now if you’d just asked “do you think you can be accepting of people who act according to the golden rule”, then ofc the answer is “well yes, there’s zero reason why you wouldn’t”.

      Pretty much the only reason you’re asking this is because you know that “Christian values” can refer to conservative transphobic values as well. I’m sure the ones you’re asking for aren’t, but you’re aware it’s a possible meaning of the word.

      So please, elaborate. I can’t read your thoughts, so I can’t actually know what you mean unless you explain what you mean by “Christian values”

      • rglullis@communick.news
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        1 day ago

        A very short description would be to look at the Bible not as prescriptive rulebook which we should be using to measure ourselves against, but as a descriptive collection of stories that can help us make sense of human nature and understand that all these “contradictions” are not meant to be solved, but manifestations of our fallibility.

        E.g, I see the story of Babel and I don’t think “that’s why we have different languages in the world” or “if you try to reach God by other means than salvation, He will punish you” but simply “technological progress and science alone are not enough to bring us closer to some utopia (closer to God)”. I think of Kosher diets not as “if you eat pork you are a bad person and deserve eternal damnation”, but “at that time and historical contexts, pork meat was full of deadly pathogens, so it would be wise to avoid it”.

        This is just scratching the surface and it would take a bit more time than I have now, but I will try my best to answer you later.

        • Dasus@lemmy.world
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          1 day ago

          More ignoring and crying how “you’re not supposed to take it seriously, but actually we tell everyone that taking it seriously is the 1. tenet of Christianity and that we do take it seriously, but NONE OF US EVEN ACTUALLY READ IT LOL

          Read the fucking thing and if you’re not a coward, you’ll stop calling yourself a Christian.

          No pls don’t attempt to defend it before you actually fucking read the Bible.

          • rglullis@communick.news
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            1 day ago

            Which part of I don’t care about whether I fit or not into your definition of “being a Christian” you didn’t get?

            actually we tell everyone that taking it seriously is the 1. tenet of Christianity

            “Taking it seriously” does not imply “being forced to accept that everything must be taken literally even when stretched to its extreme logical conclusions”.

            • Dasus@lemmy.world
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              1 day ago

              Who cares.

              I’m pointing out that any definition includes believing in the Bible, as it’s a core tenet in Christianity.

              I’m not here to tell you what to believe. I’m just saying my personal belief is that anyone claiming to be Christian (other monotheist) while not even having read the scripture is a hypocrite who’s only doing it out of social pressure.

              • rglullis@communick.news
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                1 day ago

                believing in the Bible

                “Believing in the Bible” does not imply “being forced to accept that everything must be taken literally even when stretched to its extreme logical conclusions”.

                To be accepted into the Church, you need to accept Jesus and renounce your sins. No one was asked to read the whole Bible and accept it as some Terms and Conditions.

                claiming to be Christian while not even having read the scripture is a hypocrite

                And I’m saying that arguing over the validity of “claims to be Christian” is irrelevant to anyone but fundamentalists.

                who’s only doing it out of social pressure.

                Social pressure from which side? Taking this thread as a sample, it seems that the only ones that care about “claims of being Christian” are the extremists.

                • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  And I’m saying that arguing over the validity of “claims to be Christian” is irrelevant to anyone but fundamentalists.

                  This is what I meant with the part about how you could change your religion in the conversation to be literally whatever and the conversation would still be exactly the same. So clearly you don’t even know the tenets or sacraments or anything about Christianity, so why would you identify as one?

                  Social pressure from which side? Taking this thread as a sample, it seems that the only ones that care about “claims of being Christian” are the extremists.

                  We don’t know each other in any social context. Me using logic here is not “social pressure”. Your grandma being pissed at you if you had to point to her what a whackadoodle you need to be to profess belief in the Bible is social pressure.

                  Did I mock my grandma for her religion or criticise Christianity to her? Of course fucking not, I loved her. But this is a literal thread asking about religion, and I’m pointing out the hypocrisy, which I think isn’t wrong for this thread.

                  I’m asking pretty simple questions and not saying what people should do or believe in.

                  • rglullis@communick.news
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                    1 day ago

                    This is what I meant with the part about how you could change your religion in the conversation to be literally whatever and the conversation would still be exactly the same.

                    Really? As an exercise, imagine you are a gay man and you went to talk about it with a priest. Now imagine the same gay man going to talk about it with an Imam. How do you think these conversations would go?

                    Take your best shot, give both of them the most charitable/noble representation of their respective values. Do you really think that we would get the same outcomes?

                • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  that everything must be taken literally

                  And if you say you have a belief system, but then that belief system doesn’t have any tenets, any scripture, and the scripture it has means nothing or that you actually haven’t even read the scripture that you claim to believe in “non-literally”, you don’t actually have a belief system.

                  To be accepted into the Church, you need to accept Jesus and renounce your sins. No one was asked to read the whole Bible and accept it as some Terms and Conditions.

                  Jesus, you really don’t know jack shit of the religion you claim to believe in. Yes, there very much is a "read thr while Bible and confirm your Faith.

                  It’s literally called a confirmation.

                  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation

                  Now the practice in the modern world isn’t as common, because it’s easier to just default to “you accepted the T&C with your Baptism”, but it is still a literal SACRAMENT in the religion. (I don’t believe you could list other sacraments, or even the meaning of the word.)

                  I have had a confirmation. You literally spend a week reading the Bible, after which you get confirmed. No, you can’t fail, it’s not a test, but it does show you how ridiculous the Bible is and it’s just a fun thing for teenagers to do and you get loads of money as presents from family members.

                  You don’t seem to know anything about Christianity, you don’t seem to have any rules set by it, you don’t seem to be able to say you believe in any specific bit in it, yet you claim that you definitely are.

                  And I’m just asking WHY?

                  You could just as well claim you’re some other religion, like Buddhism, and then just pretend your beliefs come from that. As of now in this conversation, changing your religion wouldn’t change the conversation a single bit. That’s how little Christianity matters to you, but you since there’s social pressure, you won’t accept any of this.

                  • rglullis@communick.news
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                    1 day ago

                    you don’t actually have a belief system.

                    Okay. I’ll grant you that. I don’t particularly care about the “belief system”. I don’t particularly care about doctrine. I don’t believe that the Earth is 6000 years old and I don’t live my life thinking of where I will end up once I’m gone. If this is your only idea of “being Christian”, then I’m certainly not it.

                    And I’m just asking WHY?

                    Because of the community that comes with it. Because of the culture that is developed around it. Because it is the foundation of the Western World. Because most of the people/cultures that I’ve seen trying to reject those values have lost themselves to something worse. Because other religions seems to treat this world as a mere passage way, and Judeo-Christian cultures are also concerned about working to leave this place better than what was found.

              • Maeve@kbin.earth
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                1 day ago

                Things evolve, necessarily. Anyone trying to insist things not evolve is gonna have a hard life.

                • Dasus@lemmy.world
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                  1 day ago

                  So you’re arguing that Christianity has evolved out of it’s core tenets?

                  I’m sorry, but monotheism is dogmatic. Another word that’s sure to ring a bell, but you seem to have missed the meaning of it.

                  Christianity is a dogmatic religion. Google the sentence if it doesn’t make sense otherwise. Or more specifically, it contain dogma.

                  Excellent movie btw, for Christians or non-Christians, all alike. Full movie on YouTube completely for free and good quality https://youtu.be/XlIORIds1xc

                  • Maeve@kbin.earth
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                    1 day ago

                    No I’m saying the council messed it up and we can do better. It was a great movie.