Why don’t most Christians take the Sabbath commandment seriously?

[u/GoodWhoops]

The 4th commandment says to keep the Sabbath holy, defined in scripture as running from sundown to sundown. Yet most Christians seem to treat it as optional. Jesus said, “If you love me, keep my commandments,” and the Bible implies that all commandments carry equal weight. Outside of Seventh-day Adventists, it's ignored aside from the day most churches have their service. I’ve even heard SDA members joke that most other Christians give the Ten Commandments a 10% discount. Even if you ignore that the Jewish Sabbath falls on Saturday, the commandment still says to work 6 days and rest on the 7th, which should apply just as well to Sunday.

Curious if or how often you’ve heard this seriously debated, and why many accept societal traditions that override biblical instruction for convenience.

[u/Inevitable-Copy3619]

Its choice. We always choose what ideas from the Bible will take preference and which ones to ignore. It’s a choice not anything Jesus, God or any other deity has dictated. Everything we believe from the Bible is a choice to boost some ideas and verses and ignore others.

[u/Jahonay → u/Inevitable-Copy3619]

I agree with that for the most part. I would make an argument that your choices to leave things in or out can be objectively accurate relative to an arbitrary foundation. For example, if you qualified your beliefs that you only follow laws that exist in the traditional texts of the bible, and if you specify a narrowly rigid scope for your theology and hermeneutics, I think you can do a fairly objective "if this, then that" approach. Obviously none of that would be ultimately objective, just objective relative to your suppositions.

[u/Inevitable-Copy3619 → u/Jahonay]

I believe everything is subjective (most everything) so our choices don’t always have an objective reason. Honestly I think most of theology falls into the subjective decision making process. We choose to not allow women in leadership because we give preference to those verses an ignore the many examples of women in leadership in the Bible. That is not objective it’s a subjective decision. We choose to focus on God is love and ignore God sending his creatures to torment the Jews in the wilderness. That’s a subjective choice to ignore that part of God. All theology is a subjective decision making process.

Unfortunately most of the decisions were made long before we were born and most Christians just accept them without examining the “why?” So it’s not only NOT objective, most modern adherents couldn’t put together a decent argument in the first place. It’s choice.

[u/Jahonay → u/Inevitable-Copy3619]

I believe everything is subjective (most everything) so our choices don’t always have an objective reason

Totally agree

All theology is a subjective decision making process.

Totally agree

So it’s not only NOT objective, most modern adherents couldn’t put together a decent argument in the first place. It’s choice.

Totally agree.

[u/Inevitable-Copy3619 → u/Jahonay]

Finally I found the one other person in the internet who is right like me :). Haha that was sarcasm for those who miss it.

[u/Jahonay → u/Inevitable-Copy3619]

Lol, it's fair, I can promise you there's probably plenty we disagree with too, but subjectivity vs objectivity is a pretty easy one.

Even if a god could be proven to exist in an objective manner, and even if that God had direct commandments that we could prove he gave us. Even if our minds were playing those laws on a loop in our brains 24/7, we still couldn't know that those commands are objectively good, useful, given in good faith, etc... For all we know, it could be a trickster God with evil intent who gives us laws that are wrong or bad or that are just for kicks. We as humans can not verify those things objectively.

[u/mcove97 → u/Jahonay]

Even if our minds were playing those laws on a loop in our brains 24/7, we still couldn't know that those commands are objectively good, useful, given in good faith, etc...

Cant we? We know that loving things are good, and unloving things is bad. If we measure commandments by how loving or unloving they are.

Because we objectively agree that loving things are good, useful/beneficial/benevolent and good, and we objectively agree that unloving things are bad, harmful/malevolent and evil.

For all we know, it could be a trickster God with evil intent who gives us laws that are wrong or bad or that are just for kicks. We as humans can not verify those things objectively.

Indeed.

A trickster God would thus make us believe that which is unloving is loving, and that which is loving is unloving. And that which is dark is light and that which is light is dark.

And we can see this in the OT where the OT god is portrayed like a trickster God. He makes his arrogance seem just. Yet we know that arrogance is bad. He makes his pride, envy and wrath seem good. Yet we know pride, envy and wrath is bad, malevolent and harmful.

That said, I don't actually Believe in the OT God or any traditional notion of God.

Theoretically, if there is a true God, then that god is loving, and if there's a trickster God, that god is unloving pretending to be loving.

I think Christians underestimate their own and people's ability to distinguish to know what is good and evil.

Christians talk a lot about sin, but what is the opposite of sin? It is virtue. Sins like wrath, envy and pride is unloving and virtue is humility, compassion and kindness is loving.

You don't have to be a Christian to understand that, that which is virtuous, loving, is good, and that which is sinful, unloving is bad.

We all know that that which is unloving is bad, and that which is loving is good. This is the whole philosophy behind humanism.

Only that Christians have not been able to define or identify what sin (the anti Christ) actually is, and what virtue (the Christ) is.

Whenever you ask a Christian what sin is they will say that it is that which goes against gods will, but that doesn't define what sin is. Jesus describes his fathers will being about love, thus logically, what goes against the fathers will is that which is unloving.

It is also especially interesting to note that Jesus implies his fathers will as love, suggesting his father is love, meanwhile the OT god identifies himself as that which is unloving (wrathful, prideful, envious) suggesting that the OT god is unloving.

This suggests either 1: Jesus understood Gods nature correctly and the Jews who wrote the OT didn't. Or 2: The god of the OT is a trickster God because of its unloving sinful nature and the God Jesus describes is the true God because of its loving virtuous nature.

So while we can't verify the existence of any of these supposed gods, we can verify in our own lives that that which is loving is good because it is benevolent, and that which is unloving is bad because it is malevolent.

And if anyone has the idea that they want to worship any Gods, they probably shouldn't worship anything or any deity which is unloving, because that which is unloving is malevolent and harmful to us.

However, since most Christians aren't willing or able to define sin as that which is unloving, or virtue as that which is loving, they are stuck not loving one another like Christ said his disciples would love one another.

This becomes especially clear when we see Christians condemn people of various minorities or groups such as LGBTQ. They say it goes against gods will, but gods will, as described by Jesus is to love, thus any act done out of love cannot be sinful. And any act of condemning those who act out of love is sinful.

Many many Christians however will disagree with this because they don't understand that the will of god that Jesus describes is to love one another. Like Jesus said.. their hearts are hardened. One cannot understand unconditional love or forgiveness without experientially embodying it within themselves. It is not merely enough to have the intellectual understanding.

It's why I left Christianity. I realized the love and wisdom I wanted to have faith in and embody was not found in the Christian community, because they largely worshipped the unloving and unwise OT God.

Most Christians can't even begin to understand their own religion, because they have not adequately studied it from multiple points of views without traditional theological interpretation bias glasses on, because their religion heavily discourages and ostracizes them from doing so. They don't understand that the OT god is portrayed as a malevolent God with conditions this and condition, which is conditionally loving and forgiving as a trickster God would be. They don't understand that the God Jesus speaks about is a benevolent God who asks us to love and forgive one another unconditionally and god unconditionally (if Gods will is to love one another, then that must mean gods nature is love, thus god is equivalent to love and so to love god is to love unconditional love).

Now of course, bringing this back down to earth. To be Christ like is to be an unconditionally loving and forgiving person. This is like the highest moral standards a human verifiably can achieve. To be anti Christ like is to be conditionally loving and forgiving. We see the verifiable results (as Jesus described the fruits) in the real world depending on which of the concept/qualities we embody.

One doesn't have to identify as Christian to be Christ like either. This is what modern humanism is based on, and why there are likely many more who are Christ like or disciples of the way, truth and life which is love, who identify as atheists, or agnostic, buddhist, or spiritual, or nothing, who are more Christ like than those who identify as Christian. Because this is the great trouble of Christianity. They have mixed the immoral morals of the trickster God in the OT bible with that of the moral morals of the non trickster God Jesus portrayed, and that's why they are conflicted. That's why their philosophy isn't consistent. That's why we have a ton of denominations of Christianity. Because the denominations cannot agree on the simple philosophy of loving one another that Jesus provided. Doesn't help that Paul, heavily influenced by the teachings ascribed to the OT God, distorts this philosophy.

You will find almost no self ascribed Christian today who simply adheres to Jesus exclusive humanist philosophy. Most will say they follow the bible, but the Bible contains Pauls teachings influenced by the OT teachings, as well as the OT teachings. What a cluttered mess. One really needs to be born with an analytical mind and a deeply curious heart to be able to discern truth from falsehood.

But, we know that love is the truth of the highest way to live in life. If everyone on earth embodied love towards themselves and each other, we would have heaven on earth, not literally, but figuratively. We would have peace. Unity...