Imagine

If you consider my intelligent response as uncivil or impolite discourse I wonder who licks your boots.

Hi, I’m gonna jump in here. All the versions read pretty much the same, starting with stating that the Jews had heard that adultery was wrong, but adding that looking at women lustfully was also wrong. He then says the little lines about cutting off hands. None of the versions cut out the adultery part or something. But because the metaphor is not specific, most theologians have decided it applies to all sins

@this_isntme You are acting snarky. If you can’t understand why people don’t want to engage in debate with you, then maybe you aren’t giving an “intelligent response” as you say. Reform your behavior, then come back and rebut without the sarcasm and superiority. If you wish to teach in this world, you will have to let go of that unnecessary pride you wear.

Have to jump in here- the word translated to “lust” is in the Greek- covet. There also isn’t a word for woman separate from wife- thusly there’s ambiguity there as well. But in essence if we use the actual source text meaning, 5:28 reiterates: “hey guys, remember how you aren’t supposed to commit adultery? Remember you aren’t supposed to covet? Well- those 10 commandments aren’t ranked. If you Covet another woman that’s just as bad as adultery.”

In Christianity lust is not an inherent sin but can lead to sin. In the modern lexicon lust is synonymous with inappropriateness- but in historic context lust is a strong desire- hence why “covet” is specifically used in commandments. Lust is only a sin of it leads one to sin to achieve those desires or to covet. Thus list for two married partners for the other would not be a sin unless that lust led them to sin through list or to sin by neglect of other obligations due to lust. Lust is later made sin through changes in language and by saints or clergy- but is not an explicit sin in the Bible- no commandments, no specific speech of authority calls lust out as a sin, but it is noted as a gateway to sin if one isn’t mindful.

@guest_ your commentary is interesting as always
Here's what James 1 has to say on the matter "14 But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. 15 Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death"

It's also cool with slavery, but hybrid fabrics and eating lobster are abominations.

You sir just mixed the Leviticus Laws with the New Testament and have triggered me to Crusade. Deus Veult!

Bible Hipsters.

"It shows their Biblical illiteracy" is a poor choice of words as the only thing that they got wrong was gendering the quote (although that could be because they were making a point? It's hard to say with Twitter). It's almost like you're trying to discredit them. Also: "It's poor form when people twist a Bible passage to make their own point" — yes, yes it is, but the only thing that was wrong in the original paraphrasing was the gender. At present you are the one who is showing poor form.

The point is, if taken literally, 99% of us would have missing body parts, and most of the maiming would happen when we were teenagers.

But why take some things literal and ithers not? Why not just agree that things can be gray not just. Lack or white. MAAAAYBE we can get along better that way. Shocking.

Being alive is 100% the original source of every sin I've ever committed.

And that is why followers of these religions believe we are born into sin, as you will inevitably sin throughout that life. It is the activities that lead to sins that should be avoided, not life itself. Life itself is a gift, not a sin. Your life is not a sin. You are not a sin. What you cannot control about you is not a sin. What you consciously do that is detrimental to your life, and the actions taken against oneself are sins. That is how I understand it, anyway. I’m not religious.

The important note of virtually every major religion is that they all contain some method of salvation and/or atonement. Christianity holds Jesus as the bearer of sin and path to salvation in this case. Catholicism has confession and the like, Islam has Tawba- and most faith contain similar concepts where repentance, and often a form of restitution are available to absolve sin.

In abrahamic faiths there either are no “sinless” people, or there is a singular paragon without sin, who’s existence is an anomaly- who derive their authority and special place from being “perfect.” These individuals exist as unique, otherwise they wouldn’t be inherently special. They all essentially hold that you can’t be as “perfect” as these individuals, but that perfection isn’t the actual goal, it’s the attempt to reach a standard of perfection that is unattainable which is important. Even more spiritual faiths which do hold a human can reach a state of perfect “oneness” with the world or creation hold it as a process of attainment- that a monk for instance is not born perfect or enlightened but can achieve that level through hard work and dedication.

Thusly the take away is essentially the same in most faiths- you WILL do wrong in your life, intentionally or not. Learning to spot wrong where harm is done to yourself or society or against whatever essence of creation or being, and learning to abstain and resist it as well as feeling remorse and avoiding repeating the same mistakes- while doing your best to “make good” on transgressions is the clear message in most faiths. It is the distinction between a man pulling a knife and you killing him in self defense, or you agitating and escalating a man so that he pulls a knife and you will likely have to kill him. It’s not a legal burden of proof but a spiritual one- where on honest unbiased self audit of we truly knew or should have reasoned with a clear mind that our actions would likely lead to a situation where we’d be forced to do something as opposed to where we organically and innocently found ourself faced with a choice.

@1_puma Original SIn has always bothered me. What was the baby's sin? coughing? If you take two seconds and think it through, it makes zero sense. There is a VERY easy way to eliminate sin.... if that were ever the actual goal (it isn't)... it would just take a "God" twice as mad as Thanos. Would twice as mad be 3/4th's of all life? I regress. Zero life to begin with. If we all are painted in "God's" image, who's the ultimate sinner? God himself.
So... basically, if Original Sin is a thing, God is one big ass man-child baby that can't fix his own fucking mistake and then blames us for being created by him. Feel free to switch the pronouns between he/she/it's... doesn't matter.
As @guest_ has pointed out about the differences between abrahamic and eastern/native american religions (I hesitate on even really going with calling them "religions"), it's more about just being a good person rather than... oh... no matter what you do, it'll never be good enough... even if you're a baby who

took one breath, coughed, then died. Tainted baby soul!... to even be considered you have to devote your entire being! No... you really don't. You just have to be a rational human being.

@funkmasterrex I hope you are making a general statement about it, and not directing it at me. I don’t even believe in original sin. I said “that is how I understand it”, as in what I understand from other people’s views. I really didn’t appreciate the sarcasm and superiority, especially considering if this was directed at me, it was completely off-base.

Side topic: There is a huge misconception about psychopaths/sociopaths. A sociopath, and by extension, a psychopath, tends to actually understand how empathy works more than the average person, they just can't feel it; it's forever obtuse. This makes them irrational, they may understand what they are doing is causing harm, but they can't actually feel or relate to the feelings their actions cause.
There is a very good reason why the most successful people in the world tend to be sociopaths; they understand empathy so well that they know how to manipulate it in their favor.

TLDR: God is, most likely, a massive psychopath, if you assume God exists.

I have also thought this (not that it carries any measurable validity). I think it’s actually a common idea in those exploring outside the restrictions/limitations of religious scriptures and laws.

Or... here's a question... When you roll over in your sleep, even though you know that perishing would suck, do you feel any remorse for the few million microbes you just shed and are now dead due to you rolling over? What about when you scratch your neck or your arm? What about when you take a shower? You understand death, but... do you seriously give a fuck about those microbes that died? No. Put yourself in the perspective of the microbe, could you even understand HOW they feel death? No... not really; you can't. According to the microbes you're a psychopath.
What's the opposite of TLDR?

@Funkmasterrex You seem heated...and it doesn’t appear that you are directly responding to my messages, even though your messages are following mine. Are you alright? I don’t see anything to be upset about here.

If we step away from religion for a second, from dogma and the baggage of histories Rolf religion and the interpretations of individuals and use a modern scientific perspective. A “god” or “spirit” would be what? A form of non human “higher intelligence?” An “extra dimensional being?” So common arguments like “god is a dick” or “mentally deranged” etc. do not add up. We lack the perspective to understand the thought process of a supposedly omnipotent being. Humans are inherently bad with time- most can’t put in perspective a short booth of suffering for a long term pay off let alone conceptualize and truly grasp “forever.” That’s why prison doesn’t tend to deter offenders- people don’t REALLY get how bad it is until a 25 year sentence happens and passed. We know that sucks- but we don’t REALLY know. You know a heart attack sucks or broken bone- but not REALLY unless you’ve experienced it.

So not only can we approach it from that perspective- but we cannot apply human constructs to it let alone human psychological diagnosis. I mean- is a worker ant just an extreme case of codependency? Can we accurately view the society of ants by saying the queen is just a cuckholder and a tease who has whipped an entire colony on the prospect they might please her enough to get some booty?

As humans we only have a human lens. We only experience things from a human perspective and can only reference things to what we know and can experience. So we tend to apply our human behaviors and values and thought processes to other animals and even objects or forces of nature. We tend not to consider the unique psychology or being of other entities with “lesser” intelligence- so if there were some sort of alien entity which possessed omnipotence or near so, impartiality or near so, power over time and matter and even fundamental forces of physics so advanced as to seem Devine even to modern man- how could we hope to understand that mind let alone apply our human concepts and constructs to its being?

We can go deeper still. Even if we DO try to apply human logic, if it were conscious- would the stock figure you drew pine and ponder over why it’s cruel maker didn’t give it hands that worked or even arms? Would it assume you were a sadist who made it to suffer? Why do humans make things? Sometimes for art, sometimes for a purpose, for entertainment, because we can? Many theorize our universe is a simulation. If that’s true- why do humans make simulations? Often to answer questions yes? To enact complex theoretical scenarios and gather data?

So if this is all a simulation made by some advanced and unseen being- then perhaps those things we see as proof of malevolence or apathy are in fact just essential parts of the simulation. Perhaps they exist either to help answer questions or... the other large use for a simulation is training. Perhaps the rhetoric of the “soul” and “heaven” refer to a state of advancement. Where “death” in this simulator ends your current session and where those who faced the simulation and “passed” are elevated to a higher existence- perhaps “god” is an Alien IT expert vetting AI to screen those who would be an asset or danger to the people of “gods” world?

In that same vein- maybe we are all aliens and we are in prison, and this is how they rehabilitate prisoners on their world. Or any number of possibilities. Going back to AI- maybe this is an alien experiment to create AI. maybe AI can’t be manufactured, but each AI must be nurtured and “taught” before it is ready to function safely and effectively- and maybe this is all a program to try and determine the factors which influence that?

We could go a bazillion ways with all the what if’s and unknowns of the scientific universe combined with the ambiguities of the spiritual universe. It’s interesting that of untold possible interpretations- many who challenge religion as well as many who claim to subscribe to it- often choose the most cynical, pessimistic, or negative interpretation. That’s the funny thing here. Holy texts leave so much room for interpretation that we could pretty easily say that they mean almost anything we want- the thousands of off shoot faiths of major religions are proof of that. So what says more than the religion we do or do not associate with is how we as individuals look at these ambiguous letters on page and reconcile how we came to a particular meaning for them.

A key factor is that we must separate dogma, text, and reality. So much of religion is dogma passed through clergy and congregation or pop culture and NOT what is actually said in any texts. Many canonical Christian ideas on things like hell were brought to consciousness through works like Dante’s Inferno and not any holy text. The idea of Satan as a Wiley deal maker is Faust, not Mathew or Luke.

Well worth the read! I think you really nailed this one, as far as delving into the human perspective of gods. Thank you for also being level-headed, as always.

The concept of “hell” was originally cold not hot. Read through and find the descriptions of lakes of fire or brimstone in the Bible’s of antiquity. You won’t. So that’s a very important point there. Pop culture and perceptions of the masses has shaped religion outside of scripture. Many people quote parables and the like from the Bible that aren’t even in the Bible. “God helps those who helps themselves” isn’t even in the Bible- most of the Bible tells you to give your problems to god, to rely on god, even that certain expressions of self reliance are blasphemy against god because of the hubris of them.

Then we must separate text from reality. A biography written a year ago could be full of mistakes. Sometimes a writer embellishes. Sometimes a source embellishes. Sometimes people forget or recount things incorrectly. Sometimes an error is made when taking notes. Sometimes an editor adds or removed or changes things. Sometimes things are changed due to politics or perceptions blah blah. It’s unarguable- it’s part of the history of most holy texts that they were written or transcribed by mortal men who could and often did make mistakes. They existed through centuries and in those times often found themselves being destroyed, being reduced to verbal stories, or being manipulated by politics etc.

A book like the Bible has been written and re written and transcribed by countless folks in countless ages and we KNOW comparing version that there isn’t a singular translation. We can find multiple versions of transcriptions dating back thousands of years. Add the fact that translating a work through a single language to another can cause not only mistranslations but also require localizations. See.. that’s a kicker.

There are concepts which are understood in one culture but not by another. It’s hard to explain until you experience it. But not all jokes or concepts translate across languages. You have a choice at that point- you can save the original phrasing- or you an try to relate it to a phrase your audience can understand. The first is “purer” but can cause misunderstanding easily. The latter has a greater chance of losing the meaning or nuance of the original but is more easily understood- but also relies on the translators judgment of the best analog to capture the meaning of the original.

The Russians have some sayings like:
“To cut something down with an axe on your nose” which to an English speaker makes little or no sense. It can basically be translated to mean “to learn from something.” However some of the feeling is lost in English. If you translate that literally- an English reader might take it to mean you are supposed to use whatever means necessary to accomplish a goal or some similar interpretation of violence or absurdity. One could see how in a biblical context this might be less than ideal.

So we have to understand something about holy texts- they are sometimes intended to be literal, and sometimes not. They are sometimes intended to be studied and interpreted, and sometimes not. They are sometimes intended to provide a specific example to a general set of expectations, and sometimes they are referring to only a very specific set of circumstances or group of people and not a universal proclamation on how one should behave.

If we assume that there is any truth in a holy text like the Bible- which we do know that at least some details it provides line up with our understanding of history, meaning that some percent of it no matter how small must be true- we come to a place where we must reconcile. Where some is true does not mean all is true. Where some is false does not mean all is false.

It is possible for 99.9% of the Bible or any holy text to be wrong or false, but still have the deity or faith of the text be true. It is academically for the sake of this topic possible that if a faith were 99.9% false, it’s holy text could still be 99.9% true. We must separate the individual components of a faith if we wish to analyze that faith.

The reason for this is self evident- while we can view inconsistencies or failings of a systems logic within that systems as fault in the system or even concept itself- we cannot weigh the human factor against the system because the human factor is independent of the system and not constrained by the system. In other words- we can’t hold the people involved in a religion against a religion- we must only analyze the religion itself because the people exist outside the system even if they contribute to the system.

Using FunSubstance as an example- one cannot say that because a particular user posts content we do not like, that FunSubstance or the concept of user shared content is flawed. If one user harassed you we can’t blame FunSubstance. We could argue a moderator failed to protect you- but we then get into a debate of individual freedom vs security- and it is up to the administrator of a system in a non democracy to decide the balance they prefer between the two.

Discussing systems- it’s a matter of philosophy. I worked with a man who designed efficient and extremely successful systems of management and integrated software systems. He could take basically a few monkeys and make them industry leaders. We argued a lot. His systems required that everyone do exactly what the system required always. That each action and input be perfect. If these conditions were met, the system functioned like no other. But a single mistake or misstep would have the system fail horribly. He spent most of his time training people, drilling into people the way the system worked. He leaned on you hard and rode your ass. He forced you to undergo the tedious and exhausting fixes if you made a mistake- or really drove in the magnitude of your failure if the mistake was one that couldn’t be corrected and the consequences were inevitable.

In my youth I’d argue the system should be made so that you couldn’t break it. So that if you did break it there was redundancy and built in ways to easily fix things. I argued that while the system itself was amazing- the “perfect” system relied on “perfect” people which didn’t exist and so by its nature it’s default was failure. He didn’t subscribe to that. He believed people would make mistakes- but if people became better to adapt to the system they would make fewer, and those few wouldn’t offset the gains such a system was capable of over a lesser system.

He argued against making “fool proof” systems because fool proof systems tended to breed fools whereas his system took fools and either forced them to confront that was all they were capable of, or to become better and shed their foolishness. In a functional business sense the short term profit motivation would be to the fool proof system. It created a way that people could easily be replaced. Most retailers use systems like this that allow almost anyone who can breath to not do the job well- but well enough that there’s no real impact to profitability. Where mediocrity is the prescription- these systems have a clear advantage.

He didn’t want mediocrity. He wanted to be the best- and consistently was. He took idiots and burn outs and made them the best, or for those who lacked the potential he at least brought them from a level of complete incompetence to one where they could easily compete in a sea of lesser competence than their own. He elevated the business and the employees and many of his employees went on from low wage menial “jobs” to successful careers and to this day often 30, 40 years later thank him for what he did for them even if they often wanted to punch him at the time.

So the philosophy of designing systems is one which even humans making systems for humans and agree on or find a universally “perfect” model- so how then if an extra dimensional or alien being anywhere near the level of a deity or advanced enough to be perceived as a deity, exists- would we as humans be able to critique their system? Especially when we have absolutely no idea what the goal of that system or its purpose truly is? We can say there are aspects we do not favor certainly- but we can’t condemn what we don’t understand. I mean- I don’t like how hard it is to exercise, but there are other aspects of being active and the results of it which I do like. Most systems are like that man made or otherwise. Parts we like and parts we don’t. So I think it’s not apt to apply human concepts to a deity figure in general.

I'm not heated lol, I just like discussing this stuff. It makes you ponder. I mean look at that, @guest_ just wrote an essay XD

Ok, I’m only making sure! Gotta look out for the members of the community.

Lol. Good looking out puma. And yeah. More a thesis than an essay almost. It’s an interesting and complex topic for sure.