Intelligence is a Curse

[Erinome]

Genuine moral end ethical behaviour doesn't require motivational promises of reward, or inhumane sadistic threats of eternal torture. Don't think for one moment that I can't take the teachings of jesus alone (ignoring the entirety of the old testament) and build a dystopia. Even taking only the golden rule and "turning the cheek" one can present the believer with a cruel mirror image of his own faith. Perhaps the masochist should engage in sadism, and we should not defend ourselves or each other from the kind of aggressors who would destroy every bit of our way of life and indeed erase us from history itself if given the chance. Jesus is a firm believer in thought crimes, but paradoxically he does not believe in punishment for transgressions against the law. Any system of law that suggests we punish those who are convicted of crimes, for example prison sentences for convictions of child molestation, are firmly against the doctrine of "let he who is without sin cast the first stone". What exactly are we to make of the "if thy own eye offends thee" passage? How does jesus himself measure up against these things? He doesn't seem to be the type to turn the other cheek, his enemies will be punished, eternally. How does he treat others? He heals the blind but not blindness itself. He doesn't seem to have cared much for amputees. He pays lip service to the unwashed but in the end we're either "with him or against him" and he spends more time telling us what will happen if we are against him than any other character in the entirety of the bible. No one is so enamored with the idea of hell as jesus. He is after all a demi-god and we are but lowly sinners, requiring his guidance. We are sheep, he is the shepherd. The capstone to this narrative? Vicarious redemption. The thought that a being may be scapegoated for the crimes of others and through brutal torture and subsequent execution somehow absolve them of the responsibility and consequences of their actions. All this without first asking if we wished for anyone to be tortured for what we may someday do. These are not the actions or thoughts of a just being. The narratives of the new testament are monstrous from start to finish and I, for one, am appalled that anyone would seek to paint them as anything other than fiction. What kind of person would wish for any of this to be true?

So you may be relieved that you are not held to the laws of the OT, I assume you feel that they are barbaric and wish to distance yourself from them as a christian. That jesus supposed authority is derived from this text seems to be a non issue for you. You reject duetoronomy and leviticus (and rightly so) but have on these very boards proclaimed your support for the xenocidal act of a global flood which thankfully never occurred. You may feel that you've squared the scriptures away with your modern notions of morality and ethics by cherry picking your way through the text, but you seem to have missed these things I mentioned above.

That was beautifully said, Rhythm. I am happy to know your very wise and insightful binary incarnation. There are at least a million reasons that the bible should be utterly shunned, and I have found that not a single one is less or more important than the other.

I'm pissed off, personally, that my children and I have to live in an era where the majority think that Jesus will come back in their lifetime for the rapture. This sort of thinking devastates the progression of this sooty footed society toward a mindset of preservation and survival for the human race. So many contributing to the destruction of the planet ecologically because, hey, Jesus gonna come back some time in the next 30 somthin' years so who gives a fuck? That's just one way the completely imagined/fabricated story of the rapture sets the human race up for annihilation. What about the nukes? What country will be the first to get their hands on one, and decide to use it on the people who don't believe in the same mythical omniscient being(s) that they do? Why should Rhythm and I have to lose the only lives we are ever going to get prematurely, because of that bullshit? Once one goes off, there will be more, and we're all just gonna blow each other up because of unfounded, unreasonable claims that some men made a few thousand years ago. All while the middle aged yellow dwarf star whose life gives us life has a good 2 or 3 billion years worth of hydrogen to burn before the radiation gets us.

And the masses are focused on this event:


Here's a reality check, from Mars.


Our planet, our existence, everything is a freak of nature. Even straight people.