Church Worship is....Sacrilegious?

[Michael Schubert]

I was reading Matthew the other day, and I came across something quite controversial in chapter 6, verse 5-6:

And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. When you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you.

So in other words, it's sacrilegious to pray in public? Well, churches do that all the time. Are they all destined for hell?

[Beta Ray Bill]

It's just another case of Christians picking what they want from the Bible and ignoring what they don't.

They'll tell you you're taking it out of context, or maybe even say that Paul changed that idea because of some stupid revelation, but the fact stands: Christianity doesn't play by its own rules.

[Something completely different]

You will face willfully ignorant people who will rely on shuting down their hearing, when you confront any believer of whatever abrahamic sect with this.

[Godscreated]

Three very deluded people, looks like Satan still hard at work.

GC

[Minimalist]

I don't know....they seem to have a bullshitter like you pegged pretty clearly!

[max-greece]

Its just a couple of mistranslations. From the ancient Hebrew the real translation of "hypocrites" is exhibitionists and it is not "pray" but masturbate:

"And when you masturbate, you must not be like the exhibitionists, for they love to stand and masturbate in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. When you masturbate, go into your room and shut the door (missing from the text - take tissues) and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your father who sees in secret will reward you."

[Cato]

Three very deluded people, looks like Satan still hard at work.

GC

Three people doing Satan's work? I guess you don't have DirecTV.

I have twelve channels of Jesus. Well, at least twelve channels of assholes asking for 'love gifts' in Jesus' name. Send me money, Jesus will fucking die if you don't send me money. It's not a donation, the lord doesn't accept charity, it's a 'love gift'. If you send a thousand dollars (not thouseand island) the lord will bless you 100 fold. Just send the damn check. Your soul's at stake. Don't believe me? Ask this poor asshole that I'm getting ready to put on TV.

Seriously, what the fuck does God or Jesus need with money?

[max-greece]

They want me to send them a love-gift?

Never done that in an envelope.

[Beta Ray Bill]

Three very deluded people, looks like Satan still hard at work.

GC

Number of people killed by God in the Bible: 2,800,000
Number of people killed by Satan in the Bible: 10

Satan, you keep doing your work! It's cheaper!

[Esquilax]

Three very deluded people, looks like Satan still hard at work.

GC

And there it is! The way to get around any hypocrisy, any contradiction, any immorality or misguided or flat out wrong thing in the bible: not giving a shit!

I love it, it's so fucking impossible to talk about this stuff with christians because they don't even care about their own religion, just the holier-than-thou feeling it gives them. Look at GC here: instead of actually responding at all, he just ad homs, makes the same tired old references to satan (as one could also potentially do with context, or not having the correct interpretation, or any of the usual platitudes) and then he skates off into the sunset as though he's actually presented something of any value.

That's why church worship isn't sacrilegious, why god can do no wrong, why the bible can mean anything you want it to... the people actually worshiping the god don't care about a single word he says beyond what they can twist to fit whatever agenda they currently have.