• BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world
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    20 hours ago

    One of the many things that christians seem to misunderstand is that almost none of the Bible is about them. It’s about the descendants of Israel who are the descendants of Noah who are the descendants of Adam and Eve, who were uniquely created by their god in its image and given a piece of its divine breath… none of which is about all humanity, but especially gentiles who are literally the same as wild animals as far as scripture is concerned.

    Remember the story of the woman who begged Jesus and his disciples for help for days because her daughter was “possessed?” Not only did Jesus go out of his way to ignore and avoid her for days, he then compared her to a dog for not being Israelite. Only when she leaned into the insult did Jesus relent.

    Israel was that specific fig tree and Israel was supposed to be special and had unique expectations placed on them since they were literally their god’s children, and other people were not.

    I’m not disagreeing really. I’m building on your point.

    • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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      11 hours ago

      Their god was a local god, which like all the people’s gods everywhere had a creation myth for their people. Of course the other people weren’t included. If they wanted a creation or a god, they could just come up with their own. Lazy cunts.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        If they wanted a creation or a god, they could just come up with their own.

        I mean, they did. And then Joshua showed up with his horn and his seven day parade march.

    • ICCrawler@lemmy.world
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      17 hours ago

      Dude, you completely left out Abraham. Which is wild given that Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are all referred to as Abrahamic faiths. While Abraham was descended from Adam and Eve, it is far more accurate to say Israelites trace their heritage back to Abraham. This is because it is Abraham that makes the first covenant pact with God.

      Abraham gives birth to two sons. At first, Abraham’s wife is barren, so to have a kid they all agree Abraham knock up his servant. This gives birth to Ishmael. Fourteen years later, Abraham’s wiife finally manages to miraculously conceive, and Isaac is born. And there’s this whole deal where god puts Abraham to the test and tells Abraham he has to sacrifice Isaac to him. And both of them go along with it only for God to go, “Nevermind, guys, it was a test. But since you’ve pleased me by being so faithful, I’ll grant you a powerful line through Isaac (Israel),” and God then sends them a ram to sacrifice instead.

      Isaac gives birth to two sons, Esau and Jacob, twins, but Esau was born first. Technically, God’s blessing is his by birthright. Isaac favors Esau, Isaac’s wife favors Jacob. Jacob gains the birthright twice over. Once because Esau returns to camp, hungry as hell one day and just casually trades his birthright to Jacob in return for some lentil stew. Second, when Isaac is pretty much on his death bed, and blind, Isaac’s wife and Jacob trick Isaac into blessing Jacob instead of Esau. Initially, Esau is pissed and Jacob flees. But he eventually comes back and reconciles with his brother and wrestles God (I’m not kidding.) Then his name gets changed from Jacob to Israel. Dude marries two wives, one of which is his sister, and gives birth to twelve sons, which become the twelve tribes of Israel. There’s also a daughter, but this is a patriarchal religion so women don’t matter. This is basically where the Jew as Jews start.

      Now, rewinding back a bit, remember that Ishmael guy, born of the servant Abraham knocked up? Yeah, so he and the servant got sent away. But God also promises this servant and Ishmael that Ishmael too, will give birth to a great nation, and that he will have 12 sons himself that will become princes. And it is Islam, specifically, the prophet Muhammed, who traces their roots back to Ishmael. That’s how fucking old the whole Jew/Muslim conflict is.

      And then there’s Christianity, which is when some Jew named Jesus was born the son of Virgin Mary and went on to preach love and kindness and got himself sacrificed in a story which really illustrates, once you remove the falsehoods of heaven, hell, and God, that humanity is so crooked they’ll basically kill a man for being too good while praising and pardoning a criminal (Barabbas. He and Christ both get the chance to be pardoned by the people, but they can only choose one. Barabbas is chosen, and Christ gets crucified.) But also yes, as you said, Jesus totally favored the Jews, and did the whole thing with comparing the woman to a dog versus the childeren he was meant to lead (Israelites.)

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        humanity is so crooked they’ll basically kill a man for being too good while praising and pardoning a criminal

        That’s also something of an allegory, in so far as Jesus’s great offense involved claiming to be “King of Kings” in defiance of the secular laws (which the Pharisees and Romans had co-mingled with the regional religious faith). This was all taking place during a historic armed and militant uprising of Jews against Roman occupation - one that failed shortly after the crucifixion.

        So then you have Peter and Paul effectively reconciling with the Roman government and creating a kind-of religious third-way for the Jewish state. One in which you could be both a good Jew and a loyal Roman citizen, because you just tell yourself things look like shit now but when you die everything gets reversed.

        Eventually, the cult of Christianity becomes so pervasive that even Romans start believing in the post-death reversal of fortune. And this climaxes in the Roman Civil War in which a general paints all his shields with the crucifix to prove how he’s God’s Favorite Underdog and wins. And then Constantine says “Why wait until you’re dead? What if Christianity gets its heyday on Earth starting now?” Kicks off the conversion of the Roman Empire to Christianity. And effectively forms the bedrock of modern Catholicism as a globe-spanning 1700 year old organized church.

    • AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world
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      19 hours ago

      Makes sense, especially when you consider that John the Baptist was an Apocalyptic Jew who played a foundational role in The Christ’s contemporary education.