Forums / Discussion / Serious Debate

Ok and?

Sir, this is the Literally Media Ltd. office building.

You're looking for the Wendy's down the street.

Fellas be gay just to get isekai'd into Hazbin Hotel

Why would a deity be any less likely to be a progressive?
we've never had proof of any higher power, so it's idiotic to say that one will enforce ancient cultural values

It's ridiculous to insinuate that a deity or similar higher power would be totally incapable of learning or changing their viewpoints over time if they possess sentience

-signed, an agnostic

You know that Christ died for all man's sins and that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life right? I can understand an agnostic/atheist not agreeing with the concept of Christ's infinite love and his capacity for forgiveness but surely a Christian should be able to understand that.

Yes, we get it. You're edgy,congratulations. Can we move on now ?

I don't know why this needed a thread. Especially when the OP is phrased more as a factual statement than something intended to spur discussion or a genuine question.

I mean this is easy to dissect.

Do we want to start with the Sermon on the Mount, the cornerstone of Christian morality

Do we want to talk about how Leviticus rules are invalid as per the apostles' teachings

Do we want to get weird and go gnostic, and then touch on how Sole Scriptura is explicitly wrong and Christian discrimination is the greater sin

Ooh we can get spicy and remember the time Jesus advocated for violent communist overthrow.

> Jesus advocated for violent communist overthrow

Source?

@nigel the treasure hunter

The merchant chassed from the temple ?

Jesus was a radical apocalyptic Jew who sought to reform Judaism, not a violent communist revolutionary. The cleansing of the temple was his reaction to what he perceived as corruption of God's (the father's) abode. He's targetting animal peddlers and moneychangers – who facilitated the sacrificial temple cult and temple tax. Animal sacrifice was at the centre of the temple cult to absolve the people of their sin, although the practice was denounced in several texts of the Tanakh (e.g. Ps 51:18-21; Isa 1:11). Jesus was a supporter of this teaching and very critical of the temple and its cult, hence he said that the temple will be destroyed and rebuild by him it in three days (Mark 14:58; Luke; John 2:19).

The moneychangers relate to the temple tax, which each Jew had to pay annually. Since the temple only accepted Tyrian shekels as currency, moneychangers set up business in the temple's outer court, so that Jews could exchange other Roman coins for Tyrian shekels. Jesus wasn't a fan of the temple tax; when he was asked to pay it he did it "so that we [he and Peter] may not cause offense", but told to Peter in private that the children of God should be exempt from a religious tax (Matthew 17:24-27). As for violence, lashing out at a bunch of merchants and throwing over their tables was as far as Jesus would go, which was basically vandalism and hardly violent compared to what was the norm of his age.

Jesus definitely wasn't a worldly revolutionary. When asked if its lawful for Jews to pay taxes to the Roman Emperor (for all intents and purposes a heathen subjugator), he supported it by saying "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:15-22; Mark 12:13-17; Luke 20:20-26). Why did he support paying taxes to a heathen conqueror? Because Jesus was convinced that his (the son of man's) coming would usher in the end time, the Kingdom of God. “My kingdom is not of this world; if it were, My servants would fight to prevent My arrest by the Jews. But now My kingdom is not of this realm.” (John 18:36) shows that his understanding of the Kingdom of God wasn't a worldly one, hence paying worldly money to the worldly emperor was irrelevant for Jesus. That differentiates him from actual revolutionaries who sought to overthrow Roman rule and establish a worldly messianic kingdom by force (e.g. the zealots and sicarii during the 1st Jewish-Roman War and the Bar Kokhba Revolt).

Jesus acts were clearly motivated by Jewish religious teachings, not any materialistic ideology, as communism would imply. He was a religious revolutionary, not a worldly one.

WOKE JESUS ISN'T REAL?!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!!!!!!!111111

jk bro, literally nobody had any clue wtf you're going on about.

If a women loves a women that's gay, right?
Well, liking a women isn't gay, but liking a man is.
Therefore, women on man is gayer than women on women, which is also gay, and as such, I am gay.
Therefore, I should be allowed to get isekai'd into Hazbin Hotel upon death

Cultural zeitgeist? Atheist? Progressive-minded deities sending people to Hazbin Hotel?

That example is actually the most stretch, considering it considers ambiguous translation.

Parable of the wicked farmers. TL;DR a land owner sends his family to collect a share of the grapes, get murdered. Jesus was telling this to the pharases and was winking that they'll all get what's coming to them. The translation wonk is this: who was wicked, the wine vinter who wanted crops with no work or the sharecroppers.

> aka explain shortly

Did Jesus advocate for a violent communist overthrow? No.

Jesus taught pacifism, not violence (Matthew 5:9.38-39.43-48; 26:52).
He also didn't advocate for seizing and redistributing property, but promoted voluntary charity (Matthew 5:42; 19:21; 25:35-45; Mark 12:41–44).
Lastly, Jesus didn't advocate for opposing let alone overthrowing the worldly government, but to "render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's" (Matthew 22:21).

> Parable of the wicked farmers

The way I understand this parable (Matthew 21:33-46) is that it relates to the relation between God and the people, not between people themselves (landowners vs tenants). The landowner represents God, who prepared and gave the promised land/his kingdom (the vineyard) to his chosen people, Israel (the tenants). Thereafter he left his people/tenants to their own devices, expecting them to do their part of their contract (doing good work/keeping the laws of the covenant). The servants which are sent by the landowner represent the past prophets, which God sent to the people of Israel whenever the nation was drifting away from obeying God's covenant. Just like the servants are beaten and murdered by the tenants one after another, so too were several prophets killed by the Jewish people (e.g. Jeremiah, Zechariah ben Jehoiada). Lastly the landowner sends his own son, that is God sending his son Jesus, who too was killed by the tenants/the priesthood and pharisees. Thus the landowner drives the wicked tenants off his land and gives it to new tenants – that is the supersession of the old covenant by the new covenant. Thus its explained in the last verses of the parable: “Therefore I tell you that the kingdom of God will be taken away from you and given to a people who will produce its fruit. […] When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard Jesus’ parables, they knew he was talking about them" (Matthew 21:43-45).

Compare this also with the parable of the wedding banquet (Mt 22:1-14), which delivers the same message, and Isaiah 5, which Jesus undoubtedly references in his parable of the wicked tenants.

We have to keep in mind that we're dealing here with texts which were written around 2000 years ago and are rooted in Jewish tradition which reaches even further back. Thus I believe that interpreting them through the lens of a modern world view easily misses their original meaning. This was a time in which underpaid daylabourers and slavery were accepted norms, so much so that even Jesus used the metaphor of a master and his hirelings/slaves several times to describe the relationship between people and God (e.g. Matthew 24:45). Most translations of the New Testament avoid the word slave, using instead the rather euphemistic "servant", thus diluting the ancient world view. In the Greek original you'll find it to say δοῦλος (doulos) – slave. In a world were landless labourers and slaves are accepted realities of life, a landowner "wanting crops with no work" wouldn't be considered immoral.

WOOHOO, RELIGIOUS DEBATES!!!

If said deity is presumably omnipotent and omniscient then they would have no need of changing their viewpoints. But at the end of the day I don't think there is any deity that is going to hold humanity accountable for not being pro-choice, genderfluid, or sex positive enough.

@JacobiteCozyGlow

Or it will, and you can't handle it.