Guy was a walking DUI, with a BAC of 100%.

Ecce Muppo. Unknown, 2026

I honestly don’t know what colour of skin people of the levant would have at that time.

The canon version is people complaining about the Samaritans.

Maybe we are due an updated parable: The Good Transwoman

Augustine, thought war could be justified in certain circumstances, one of which was if the following peace created more good than the evil if the war wasn’t fought.

And don’t forget Aquinas, who literally sandwiched his one chapter on war between the chapters detailing mercy. If I remember the professors correctly, that was no mistake, and was very, very thematically intentional. Christians are downright fucked in the head as they try to cognitive dissonance their way into reconciling our species’ lust for war with high minded ideals of love and kindness.

if the following peace created more good than the evil if the war wasn’t fought.

That’s the neat thing. For some reason every war does.

I mean, it should be obvious to Christians today that Jesus repeatedly and consistently made a clear distinction between the “kingdom of heaven” and secular nations. Separation of church and state was absolutely one of the premises the early church worked off of as a teaching of Jesus himself. The idea of a “Christian Nation” is indeed antithetical to the very foundations of Christianity. The early history of Christianity is pretty lost on people today and people are quite unaware of just how drastic the changes in Christianity were in the early 300s, and how gigantic of a deal it was for the Roman state to adopt Christianity at the time.

Eh, I don’t think there’s much merit to whether or not Jesus was a real person. The focus should be on the obviously fantastical claims because Christian apologists tend to get all caught up in the idea of Jesus being a “historical person” rather than the wild claim of Jesus being a literal god. I don’t reject the validity of Christianity because I’m unsure if Jesus really did exist or not, but rather that the supernatural claims fall embarrassingly short of such tall claims.

I mean, the idea that a guy made a weird sect, telling people to throw away all of their money (to who?) and performing tricks to pass them as miracles isn’t so absurd. There’s been a lot of scammers throughput history, he could have simply been one that happened to have a long lasting effect.

It’s far from being the most significant person or whatever, more of a butterfly effect of some dude that wanted to have his own cult.

Isn’t that him the romans were describing it, as a cult gathering people fast? That’s probably all it was.

“Your average Christian” depends on where you live. I have “christians” in my family, in my neighborhood, at work, what one would likely describe as average around here, that have expressed at minimum a denial of the humanity of those who are different from them, seemingly instituted or encouraged by their “Christian” culture. I know this isn’t all christians, but it seems like where I live, the churches that preach inclusivity are few in number and slim in attendance, and although still not a majority, there are more that preach AGAINST inclusivity, and the predominant culture among most christians regardless seems to lean in that direction. In the lead up to the 2024 election, a number of “christians” close to me expressed extremely violent potentialities should Trump not win, pointing directly toward acceptance and secularism as their motivations and justifications.

You have expressed that things would be worse in the world if it would be some other religion. You think a world where any other religion holding a majority would be worse, is that what you’re saying? That is quite an assertion, and I’d like to see you prove that. Imagine if secular humanism were more central in people’s lives… What a world we could have.

Edit: I do live in a pretty shitty place, to be fair, haha

Christianity has been the cause for wars.
Even “moderate” Christians are deluded, and can get the idea from their priest that they need “therapy” for their LGBT child.
And can argue that morality comes from god, which is insane since god doesn’t exist.
Being deluded makes Christians irrational, and prone to aggression when they feel their convictions are not accepted.
The problem with that is that obviously all the superstitious parts and the bigotry of Christianity does not deserve acceptance and much less respect.

So when Christianity meets evidence based reason, Christians are absolutely prone to be aggressive.
We have seen this through hundreds of years, where scientists were punished by Christians for proving actual facts, or even just suggesting them. Again obviously a scientific theory does not deserve punishment whether right or wrong.

The same is true today, where the basis for the major opposition to abortion in western democracies is Christianity.
Even sometimes demanding the banning of abortion in situations where continuing the pregnancy will mean the death of both the mother and the fetus! Only religious beliefs can make people so irrational and evil for no benefit to themselves.
AND these people even believe they are doing the right thing, because they are deluded. Being deluded is inherently dangerous, not only to the person who is deluded, but also to people around them, and society as a whole.

manipulating scripture

Which is easy both because the people believing it are delusional and easily fooled, and because scripture is so full of self contradictions, that you can pick a side.
But lets just remember that scripture not only allow slavery, it actually condones it.
And the recommended action if a women is suspected to have been unfaithful to her husband, is to poison her to prove her guilt or innocence, if she dies it is considered proof that she was unfaithful.

The bible is not medieval, because that would be way more modern, it is not barbarian, because it would be way more civilized.
The bible is a bronze age superstitious attempt to explain reality, and with zero understanding the only explanation they could come up with was of course superstitious, and in this case based on an “almighty” god. And in the exact same manner they tried to make rules and define morality, but with very little understanding of anything, except of course the understanding common in the bronze age.

This is the guide Christians choose to follow, and don’t try to gas light me into thinking that doesn’t have negative consequences.

I’m legitimately glad that your personal experience of Christianity has been a net positive for you.

I was raised in a very standard First Assembly of God church until I was 12 and then my parents pivoted back to Catholicism. The experiences I had growing up in an evangelical paradigm were horrifying, especially in hindsight. I’m still unpacking the religious trauma in therapy today, nearly three decades after walking away.

So, based on my personal experience, the day to day Christians are precisely the greedy and violent ones that fucked me up, abused me relentlessly, and destroyed my sense of self-worth, not the blowhards on the news. Many of us are walking wounded from the divisive, hate-based, soul-crushing doctrines we were raised in under the guise of Christian love.

Yeah. I still think we owe the intolerant subsistence, but because of the Paradox of Tolerance, I think intolerance could be grounds for denial of political power–any of the 4 boxes (soap, ballot, jury, ammo)–at least for the duration of the intolerance. (But also, there should be some method to “rehabilitate” a person’s access to political power after they are no longer intolerant.)

I also think it might be difficult to adjudicate “intolerance” in some cases, but in the most necessary of cases it is quite clear.

I believe if you are following the words of Jesus, then yes, it does require kindness and generosity, with their standard meanings. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” – Jesus

I agree that it doesn’t require sacrificing your safety.

“I don’t hate you, I just hate what you are”

Christians truly don’t hear themselves when they talk