HOME | DD
Nekromanda β 'Well, that was the OLD Testament.'
Published: 2013-03-19 05:05:38 +0000 UTC; Views: 2448; Favourites: 24; Downloads: 8
Redirect to original
Description
Just something that popped into my head after a conversation with someone. They suggested I couldn't name a few things that made God bad. I listed several things that I find particularly "bad" (You know, killing firstborns of all of Egypt, dashing babies apart, ripping open pregnant women, having 42 kids ripped to shreds by two bears for calling a guy bald, killing 70,000 people to punish the city's leader, etc...).The response?
"That's all from the Old Testament.
That's Angry God. After Jesus died for our sins, that all stopped happening."
It got me thinking, what if we applied that thought to other things? Out of that came this drawing, so... yup.
Related content
Comments: 110
Yay. Sorry I just get a little offended by these people who think ALL Christians are crazy psychopaths
Β Even though i'm not one of them.
π: 0 β©: 0
So... If I said I was a Christian, this just makes me a bad person, right? >:[
π: 0 β©: 2
Not at all. 
π: 0 β©: 1
Oh, thank you.Β
I'm sorry, I just seen all of these pictures depicting that ALL Christians are crazy psychopaths and I got a little offended since I don't shove religion down your throat or anything like that.
π: 0 β©: 1
Most likely. You might be a person who does good things, but you worship a guy who condones rape, slavery, and murder (without any fucking evidence that he exists, mind you.)
What I'm about to say IS NOT intended to start an argument. Please answer my questions with professionalism and seriousness.
1: How can you not see that religion was created (by fellow humans) as a method of controlling people (other fellow humans)?
2: What justification do you give in believing the Bible? "It says it's true, therefore it's true" is not applicable. If I write "This is the napkin religion, and it's true because it says so on this napkin", does that mean you would immediately renounce your God and pray to my napkin? No. You wouldn't.
π: 0 β©: 1
Wait... Uh, listen I need to clear something up first...
I was just saying that not ALL Christians are crazy psychopaths that follow EXACTLY from the Bible. I don't want to argue of anything involving religion because I think that is Β personal matter between yourself and your beliefs. I was just saying that not all Christians are bad (I can say there are some) Sorry for the misunderstanding
π: 0 β©: 1
Answer my questions, please.
π: 0 β©: 1
Alright, just to inform you that I don't want to start an argument or anything. (I really don't want it to end up like the last argument I had with a troll) So let's promise that after I answer these, we can separate and go on with our lives.
1.) First of all, because I grew up with it. Now, that might seem a clichΓ© answer for "Why do you believe God exists?" Well, let me explain.
Let's just say this; Faith is like hope. Hope that after death if you have that faith and asked for forgiveness of your sins (Yes, a lot of Christians do sin. I sin, I lie sometimes and I don't read my Bible or go to Church as I'm supposed to. It seems like (and no offense) that you think all we care about is the Bible and Church. The Church is just a building where we talk about our achievements and our goals to be closer to God and the Bible is a book where it talks about... Well... To me it's a book of teachings and life lessons. You might pay attention to the bad parts like approving rape and murder, homophobic comments, and racism. But to be honest, my whole life of listening to the preacher has not said a single word about that. It mostly talks about the life lessons in the Bible it gives us. So... I think you might be talking about another form of Christianity because I've never been taught any of that. Anyways (I haven't been straightly on topic here) I also believe because why not? What's the problem with believing? I'd rather take that chance in believing and nothing was there then not believing and something WAS there and go to Hell in which I'm painfully frightened of death inΒ the first place, so this calms my fears.
2.) Like I said before, we use the Bible as a guide not a pathway to God. And from the bad things it have mentioned on it, is the opposite of what I was taught. We weren't homophobic (I didn't even know what that term was until I discovered the internet) We never insultedΒ LGBT or threw stones at them or anything. We respected their opinions on their sexuality. And whenever there was a murder or rape incident we prayed for the victim/victim's family and we hope that the murderer/rapist has realized what they have done and try to ask God for the forgiveness of their sins. And... To be honest... I've never gotten how Christianity could be racist. The Bible might be, but the whole religion isn't because people of most races and heritages believe in Christianity. And there's another thing I don't understand, how come people make offensive things on ALL Christians and say that God isn't real, yet not insult the Jews and Muslims? It seems hypocritical to me. Because the Jews believe in God and the Muslims believe in God (they have a different name for him but I can't remember what...) Just in different ways. Like Catholics, Methodists, and Baptists of Christianity. They all have different ways of believing so they should be more specific on who they're talking about.\
So, the point is that the Bible isn't a pathway but more of a guide to God, written by Monks or Catholic priests (I learned this in 6th grade and now I'm in 8th grade, give me a break! XD).
That is all, good sir. Please note, I am not trying to convert you I am just making my answers to your questions in my point of view.
π: 0 β©: 1
In regards to your first answer, no. Church is not a place to gloat about achievements. It is a place where you give the Church money (because it's a control system) and a place in which you wallow in your own self-made despair, claiming that you're a sinner and are less than a spec of dust, just to keep you humble enough to never reach intellectual potential, and thus realizing that the concept of religion is false. You say that the Bible is a book of life lessons, yet you ignore the fact that the Bible condones slavery, murder, rape, and one time, God allowed bears to maul children to death because they made fun of a bald man. Those are the kind of life lessons you praise and follow? Disgusting. The problem with believing is, you're likely going to pass your religion onto your children, and therefore prolonging ignorance and thus holding back humanity in terms of scientific and technological advancement. Also, why would your morally perfect God even CREATE Hell, when He "loves you"? What is the purpose of an infinite punishment for a finite transgression?
In regards to your second answer, WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG WRONG. You WERE homophobic, you DID throw stones (or burn/torture/murder) at people you didn't agree with (such as homosexuals or otherwise), and you DID NOT respect their opinions, letalone their humanity. I'm not saying that ALL religious people do this today, it's certainly improved. However, this IS how religious people acted (and how some still act today)
Sorry, sir. I truly didn't want to turn this into an argument, but it appears as though I have. You may walk away if you wish, or counter my arguments. It's up to you.
π: 0 β©: 1
I'm not a sir, first off all and I'm not going to counter this argument considering we both don't want to. But I am going to say this thing: You're extremely judgmental over religion. Even for the people who don't act for like it now, you still judge of them. Since I KNOW I have caused these things I'm going to say I'M SORRY, what do you expect me to do? Go back in time and rewrite the Bible?
Because there's nothing I can do. Other than convert my beliefs but that'd be hypocritical since I'M not trying to convert YOUR beliefs. To be honest, I didn't want to answer those questions because I didn't want to cause tension or anything. But for your sake, I did. So, I didn't mean to offend you in anyway, sir. Also, the money part was really the Catholics to be honest. And I know that it says those things, I know that and I actually have no excuse for that, sorry about that again, I'm not a religious scholar but I just don't think it's right to judge someone over their sexualities, beliefs, race, etc.
So please, let's just walk away and forget we ever had this conversation.
π: 0 β©: 1
What you can do is realize that you don't need a sky wizard to dictate who you are. You can be a good person without following orders. You can have morals without being told to follow rules. Also, I assumed you were male due to your username. Mer-man. Apologies for the misconception. Have a nice day, friend. May I call you that?
π: 0 β©: 1
No, it's a name that follows my OTP on this show called Gravity Falls
And yes, you may call me that
I just think in terms of religion... at all really shouldn't be spoken on the internet because if the psycho Christians didn't go on and on and on to make the Atheists hate Christianity, it would've caused less tension between the two. 
Hope you have a good day as well, friend
π: 0 β©: 0
I like to imagine that when Jesus died, he went to Heaven, killed God, and took over as a benevolent ruler. Β It's the only thing that makes the difference between the old and new testament make sense.
π: 0 β©: 1
Satan was the first to rebel against God; and later, he persuaded humans to do the same. Jesus had a human form and lived among the human race. Both Satan and Jesus wished to overthrow God. In order to have a chance of success, Satan needed someone with inside access(because he lost his after his original rebellion failed), and Jesus(who was new to the divine arena) needed someone with experience. So when Satan visited Jesus in the desert, the two of them were actually planning their coup, and the whole temptation thing was just a cover story!
π: 0 β©: 0
But this is literally how parole works....... So should criminals just never be released? ever?
π: 0 β©: 1
I would assume it would be a different story for a mass murderer,, which is what the god of the old testament amounts to in this comparison.
π: 0 β©: 1
Fair enough, but some sentences number in the thousands of years (dozens of life sentences) so a being like god could concievably live for long enough to serve out a genocide sentence.
π: 0 β©: 0
Is Revelations OT or NT?
Also, if they can blow off the OT then we can blow off creationism right?
π: 0 β©: 1
Revelations is at the end of the NT if I'm not mistaken.
π: 0 β©: 1
Oh.
I don't have any of those story books in my house so I wouldn't know where it is.
But isn't that gawd doin' bad stuffs to people?
You know, with the destruction of the planet and shit.....
π: 0 β©: 1
When you're in a doomsday cult that yearns for the end times, the destruction of the world and billions of innocent lives is considered a good thing.
:/
π: 0 β©: 1
God's actions in the bible are often similar to a drunken dead-beat father's actions in real life. I'm thinking there may be a connection there. >_>
When I gave up my faith in god, I realized two things simultaneously. One: that there is no one there. Two: even if there were, it's the kind of god that isn't worthy of being followed anyway.
I think my favorite Christian response is the stockholme syndrome one, in which god causes pain and evil upon his people because he loves them. So, god is so basic that he uses the same tough-love treatment that people use against people for having drug addictions... yet the drug in this case is god himself. Circular bullcrap.
π: 0 β©: 0
If you take a closer look at the Bible, hell just look at ancient history in general, you'd realize that the ancient world was very brutal and didn't have very many moral laws governing it. Orgies, human sacrifice, tribal mentality, all commonplace, and all were especially bad in places that weren't inhabited by the Israelites. God had to go through extreme measures to get the people's attention. What you fail to realize is the mere fact that even the Old Testament law was progressive for its day (check out this link, and click on the religion/mythology tab [link] ). Since God allows free will, it would make sense for Him to allow Humanity to progress morally. In fact, it even mentions in the Old Testament how God, through Moses, attempted to give something similar to the New Testament law to the Israelites. This failed, due to incidents like the Golden Calf fiasco, so the Law of Moses was implemented.
Now, on the subject of the necessity for free will, I cannot speak for other Christians. I can, however, speak for my own faith:
[link]
[link]
π: 0 β©: 1
What about Ancient Rome? Ancient Egypt? Greece? China? Were they all brutal, orgy-loving savages with a shared tribal mentality?
I'm not trying to be rude (Perhaps the Bible was truly revolutionary during the time. I've heard someone make the same argument for the Quran.), but you shouldn't brush off all of the ancient world to prove the importance of one religion. The Bible didn't present anything more important than what, let's say, Buddhism did.
On another note, in terms of being progressive, how much have we changed? Should what was considered "progressive" 2,000+ years ago be equivalent to the current definition of the word?
π: 0 β©: 1
Here is proof that the gospel is revolutionary:Β The New Testament law fulfilling the Old Testament law.Β Yes, even though God is unchanging, he will expect different things from different peoples.
And yes, there were pretty nasty things going on in the civilizations you listed.Β Compare the Old Testament laws to them, and the Old Testament becomes tame.
π: 0 β©: 1
Being someone who used to be Christian, I've read the Old Testament and I've watched enough documentaries about ancient civilizations. While the Bible doesn't portray the most brutal among them, it's certainly not the most peaceful, nor is it the one I'd like to live in if I lived back then. However, that's just my opinion. Every society has its own perks.
Enough about the ancients though. You never acknowledged my last two questions. The Bible could have been the most humane, reasonable thing to follow a couple millenia ago. (And I won't argue with you if you think so.) While the little comic above doesn't note the time period the Bible was written in and what the morals were then, the art seems to be focused on what should be acceptable *now*.
π: 0 β©: 1
I do believe that secular humanists certainly don't know what should be acceptable now either.Β Christians, save for fundamentalist nutcases, seem to be pretty damn reasonable about it, however.Β No slavery, wives are to be equal partners, live and let live when it comes to nonchristians, etc.Β So far, the criticisms aimed at Chistianity are smokescreens for what's really going on:Β A lot of people hate Christianity, not because it's bigoted, but because they hate us for what we stand for.Β We believe that humans are only great because we were made in the image of God, that we have a sinful nature that's incurable save for through the blood of the lamb, we believe in abstaining from certain lifestyles, etc.
π: 0 β©: 1
Fair enough. From my own experience though, it's not necessarily based on how fundamentalist you are, but rather the amount of bigotry varies from person to person. I've met Christians who are laid back and will cherry pick, for lack of a better term, through the Bible and ignore the more outdated ideas it presents. I've also met the Christians that will go into death glare mode the moment you say you're not Christian.Β Apparently down south in the infamous Bible Belt (I live in the USA), there are more of the latter.
While some people might not get why Christians believe what they do, I've yet to meet anyone who outright hates them for it. I don't know about anyone else, but each of the times in my life that I've held some resentment for Christianity was because of its members trying to force their views on me. In all fairness, when you've got a shitload of people in your country who legitimately believe that it should be mandatory to teach the Bible in schools and repeatedly use their religion for leverage in politics, the whole concept of "bigotry" is a difficult issue to ignore.
π: 0 β©: 1
I think calling out fundies is one of the only valid arguments against christianity I've heard, ones that weren't intellectually dishonest or ignorant.
π: 0 β©: 1
So, bigotry and self-righteousness displayed by certain Christians doesn't count as an argument? Or, if they are bigoted to any extent, they're automatically fundamentalists?
I've seen other valid arguments. The problem is, the rules in the Bible that are followed vary from person to person. For example, you can note that the Bible says in multiple parts that wives must let their husbands lead them, a concept I've heard plenty of Christians preach, some even with a blatantly sexist attitude. Yet, you can bring this up to another, different Christian and they'll say, "Oh, well, THEY follow that part, but I don't." You can note the Creationist argument that the Bible supports, but there are still Christians who don't believe the argument (or only support smaller, abridged versions of it). You can note that the Old Testament exists, and yet some Christians make it a point that they'd rather ignore most of it. And etc. You get what I'm saying here?
π: 0 β©: 1
I'm LDS, to tell you the truth.Β According to some, I'm not even a real Christian.Β X3
If you read that part of the bible carefully, you can see that it also tells husbands how to behave.Β Yes, it does tell wives to obey their husbands, but then it tells husbands to respect their wives.Β Sane christians interpret this as this: husbands and wives are to be equal partners, and when they are not, it's not like a king and his servant kind of deal.Β It's more like an advisor who has a large amount of influence over the king sort of thing.
I also interpret the creationist story a bit funny.Β I'd imagine a day to God is thousands, millions, if not billions of years to us.Β I don't find this issue a battle for my soul, so I'm pretty apathetic to the evolution vs creation debate, though I side with evolutionists most of the time.
"You can note that the Old Testament exists, and yet some Christians make it a point that they'd rather ignore most of it"
Actually, I read the Old Testament.Β I know which parts are the law of Moses (the lesser law, because the Jews had a hard time following the higher law, judging by the fiesco with the golden calf) and which parts I can still learn from.Β This is one of those arguments I consider to be dishonest or ignorant, because I actually studied the Old Testament, and I can actually interpret it better than most antitheists who attempt to use it against us.Β I have yet to find an antitheist who could win in an argument with me over the old testament.
In the case of the fundies, I consider them to be Christian pharisees.Β You know how the fundies of Jesus' day didn't like Him very much?
π: 0 β©: 1
Fair enough, I don't care what you want to believe. It seems like you've done your research and are satisfied with it.
π: 0 β©: 0
Don't forget the 'new covenant' defense. Where said prisoner says "I did all those things in the past, but I promise to not do it again except that last genocide for the world I have planned where everyone except those I like are all killed."
π: 0 β©: 0
Isn't it nice that religion gets special pleading?
π: 0 β©: 0
Would this help?
[link]
π: 0 β©: 1
That is one of the classic fallback positions that Christians use in conversation.
Jesus said he supports the laws of the old testament, but then Paul said that the death of Jesus was
the start of a new covenant, and the old ways don't apply anymore.
So next time you hear:
"That's Angry God. After Jesus died for our sins, that all stopped happening."
Ask about the Black Death that killed a third of the population of Europe.
Ask about the Holocaust and the other mass killing such as Cambodia, Rwanda.
If they say the Old Testament doesn't apply, ask "So the Ten Commandments don't matter any more?"
π: 0 β©: 1
Don't blame God, blame the people.
π: 0 β©: 2
Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?
π: 0 β©: 2
Because he wants the people to handle it. Just giving it to them would defeat the purpose.
π: 0 β©: 1
What's the purpose in unavoidable, pointless suffering? What's the purpose in rectal cancer? Would you go up to a patient and tell them it's for their own good? Because if you did, I would call you wicked.
π: 0 β©: 1
How is rectal cancer necessary for experiencing life? Would you say that rectal cancer improves patients quality of life?
π: 0 β©: 1
It's an experience. Without life there would be nothing...at all...
π: 0 β©: 1
| Next =>