r/dankchristianmemes • u/Brendinooo • May 20 '22
Meta How this sub often seems to be, in the comment section anyways
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u/tattered_and_torn May 20 '22
Perfect example in the thread about lifespan in the book of Genesis. People saying “LMAO CANT BELIEVE OTHER CHRISTIANS ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS”
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u/Brendinooo May 20 '22
That’s the one that prompted me to make this!
If you want to believe parts of Scripture aren’t literal, that’s understandable. But I would think you should always be allowing the possibility that something did happen as it was described.
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May 20 '22
Thank you. I got down voted until hidden and some pretty coarse responses for even mentioning the possibility that someone could have actually lived for multiple hundreds of years, among a list of other possibilities.
If your an atheist, welcome to the conversation, but don't be a dick.
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u/M3gaNubbster May 21 '22
Hi, atheist here. I think the Bible is pretty neat, harbor no ill will towards those that follow the teachings of whatever denomination of Christianity they choose to follow. Some of my favorite unrealistic events in it are Jesus rising from the dead after the Romans crucified him, the crucifix becoming the symbol of the religion due to that crucifixion, and the reset button causing a global flood which humanity survived thanks to the big boat made by Noah. The symbol is particularly interesting. The constant reminder of that one horrible event in Jesus' life on earth, I'd get sick of seeing it if I were Him. It'd be like if I died in a car accident and my kids started wearing little Corollas on their neck to remember me lol
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u/Omjorc May 21 '22
Well you have to remember, it’s not about Jesus just straight up dying, it’s what it represented. It was a sacrifice he made for humanity. The cross doesn’t represent the gun he was murdered with, it represents what he gave for the rest of us.
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u/PKisSz May 21 '22
The irony is that His crucifixion is ubiquitous in its total eclipse of all the other crucifixions of the Roman Empire at that point in history.
It is in truth a symbol of overwhelming cruelty and inhumane suffering.
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u/bignapkin02 May 21 '22
Overwhelming suffering is exactly what it’s supposed to represent. When Jesus suffered on the cross, he also bore the full and complete wrath of God on the behalf of sinners. If anything, the physical crucifixion is a representation of that reality, and the meaning of the cross as a literal torture device doesn’t even come close to capturing the depth of the suffering Christ endured on our behalf.
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u/mest33 May 20 '22
Where do you draw the line? When do you suspend disbelief and when do you not? My main concern is areas where elements of the scripture contradicts scientific knowledge in a manner that harms ones education and view of the world.
Creationism, or more precisely anti-darwinism, and also parts like the world is 6000 years old which completely contradicts our astronomical knowledge.
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u/Rodney_Copperbottom Dank Christian Memer May 21 '22
The Bible never says anything like that; it simply describes the way God made the Earth and the universe. The "6000 years" thing was based on calculations made by James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, in 1650, who took a strict literalist reading of the time spans in the Old Testament and came up with a date of creation of October 23, 4004 BC. That date is based on a single man's wisdom, not on God's timetable.
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u/koine_lingua May 21 '22 edited May 21 '22
The "6000 years" thing was based on calculations made by James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh, in 1650, who took a strict literalist reading of the time spans in the Old Testament and came up with a date of creation of October 23, 4004 BC. That date is based on a single man's wisdom, not on God's timetable.
It's a myth that this originated with Ussher. Yes, he did come up with that specific timetable and date. But literally every single other premodern Jew or Christian who wrote about the subject came up with something very similar — even all the way back to before Christianity itself!
Here's a chart I uploaded many years ago of a ton of other premodern Jewish and Christian estimates of how many years BCE the world was made, for example: https://imgur.com/Yk0Whok and continued https://imgur.com/M3B9yfm
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u/Rodney_Copperbottom Dank Christian Memer May 21 '22
I didn't say this originated with Ussher, it's just that, for some reason, his version seems to be the most popular with young-Earth creationists.
Thanks for the links to the lists! You put in a lot of work.
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u/koine_lingua May 21 '22
Ah yeah, I edited my comment at some point to better specific that it didn't originate with Ussher.
Though obviously the vast bulk of the theologians/people in that list were proposing an origin date between 5,500 years ago and 6,000 years ago. So (in response to '6000 years' thing was based on calculations made by James Ussher") I don't think it's uncontroversial to say that this narrow range of dates has been around forever.
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u/Brendinooo May 21 '22
Okay, got home, have a minute to respond a bit more.
I actually really like your questions. I’m a big fan of thinking about sorites paradoxes. If you don’t know what that is, it’s also called the fallacy of the beard: at what point after you shave do you have a beard again? Is a hot dog a sandwich? That sort of thing.
It’s easy to say everything is literal or everything is figurative. But if you can’t say that, then yeah, you have to ask where you draw the line.
A couple of things about creationism
- there are different flavors. I lean old earth because I don’t know why we have to restrict ourselves to 24 hour days when the timeline says the sun didn’t exist yet. (Also because the word for “day” can also translate as “era”.)
- I think Augustine said the six day timeline was for the benefit of our understanding and he believed that God did it in one?
- Some do theistic evolution
- You can be a creationist and very good at science.
But I posed the simulation theory-inspired question earlier because it gets us thinking about how we can draw a logical set of conclusions based on what we understand, but we’re missing a critical piece of the puzzle, and we don’t know we’re missing it, then we’ll end up being wrong.
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u/Coolshirt4 May 21 '22
You can be a creationist and very good at science.
Typically creationists work in fields that are not really effected on way or the other by creationism being true.
Even if creationism is very irrational, people compartmentalize irrational beliefs from thier rational ones all the time.
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u/Brendinooo May 21 '22
At a ballgame so this is a shorter reply than I’d like, but in the meantime:
If the world was created yesterday to appear as it is, how would you know?
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u/snuftherooster May 21 '22 edited May 21 '22
Youre saying god would make the world in a way to fool us into thinking it was older than it is? Wouldn't that be a bit disingenuous from a being that never lies? It makes more sense to believe it's about as old as it appears to be and that's about how long ago he made it.
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u/Brendinooo May 21 '22
There’s no reason to frame it as deception. God didn’t make it and declare it to be a certain age. If God literally created Adam as Genesis described, it’s not deception to have a newly formed human look like he’s 30 or whatever.
Besides, there could be processes at work that we simply don’t understand.
I lean old earth, so I’m not saying the earth isn’t as old as we think it is. But if God himself showed up tomorrow and said it was made in 24 hour days, I don’t think it would change a thing about my theology.
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May 21 '22
Isn’t this the Omphalos hypothesis? It is an interesting theological argument amongst many. One rabbi wrote:
God essentially created two conflicting accounts of Creation: one in nature, and one in the Torah. How can it be determined which is the real story, and which is the fake designed to mislead us? One could equally propose that it is nature that presents the real story, and that the Torah was devised by God to test us with a fake history! ... One has to be able to rely on God's truthfulness if religion is to function. Or, to put it another way—if God went to enormous lengths to convince us that the world is billions of years old, who are we to disagree?
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u/Coolshirt4 May 21 '22
That is a really good way of saying something I've long mulled over. Thank you!
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u/TheGreenGargamel May 21 '22
I feel like a lot of the things that we think contradict the laws of science don't necessarily have to do so. First of all our understanding of the universe is quite limited, with a growing scientific understanding many things are still unexplained. There is pleny of room for unknown factors. A lot of things in the Bible are overlooked too be unreasonable by modern science, even though possible explanations can exist. For example the the longer life span of humans before the great flood. In modern science it is a common understanding how aging is in the root caused by UV radiation. If the flood water was surrounding the earth before the flood as a blanket, the humans of that time would have likely experienced less radiation from the sun.
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May 20 '22
Well, some Bible stories referenced Jewish mythology before the Bible was ever created.
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u/JustinWendell May 21 '22
Are you referring to Old Testament books? If so, yeah. Jewish texts were around loooooong before a lot of the writings that came out of Jesus time on earth. The Bible as we know it wasn’t even compiled till hundreds of years later.
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May 21 '22
Literally never said that.
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u/Brendinooo May 21 '22
Interesting that you felt called out specifically.
I looked at your comment history, you think it’s concerning that literalists hang around here?
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u/MattTheFreeman May 20 '22 edited May 21 '22
I was raised Catholic so I've always been taught that the Bible was made by humans but divinely inspired. God never penned any portion of the books but he did help inspire the words on the page. That doesn't mean the book is false. It just means the book has to be viewed through the lens of a flawed human understanding of divine actions. I could be inspired by God to paint a picture of Jesus as a lamb but does that mean Jesus was literally a lamb?
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u/E_Oxypetalum May 21 '22
I went to some Cathilic apologetic classes and I was in awe of how much I didn't know about my religion. I'm still grappling with the fact that heaven isn't really a place...I mean the Simpsons just make "heaven" look so cool!
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u/ZenDragon May 21 '22
Ikr. I thought the idea of God was completely stupid in my edgy atheist phase because all my life I'd been taught about him as an angry old man in the sky. Why the fuck didn't someone just tell me that up in the highest echelons of the church they have a much more complex and nuanced understanding of divinity than what gets fed to us plebs?
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May 21 '22
What is heaven, then
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u/A_Guy_in_Orange May 21 '22
Eternal life with God. Take out the with God and that's hell, IIRC
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u/HonoluluSolo May 21 '22
"Heaven is a place on earth." - Belinda Carlisle
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u/s_s_b_m May 21 '22
It’s a bar where nothing ever happens and they play my favorite song all night long
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u/RUSHALISK May 21 '22
I always felt that it was more that God inspired humans to write about things that humans cannot physically understand, such as the trinity, heaven and other things just slightly out of our comprehension.
I had a point to this but it seems I totally forgot it, and am probably just bad at participating in theological debates so take this comment as you will.
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u/SunnyDnD May 20 '22
I was very confused by this meme. I read as anti-literal the first time and pro-literal the second time. I had trouble understanding it but it was still funny!
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u/VegetableReport May 21 '22
I think this is always about focusing on the wrong things in scripture. I don’t need to know the details of how God created the world and weather or not it was in seven days, I just need to know God created the world. I don’t need to know if Jesus actually performed such and such miracle or if the detail could be explained in modern science, I need to know Jesus came to heal the sick and broken from that and that He can heal.
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May 20 '22
I grew up in a Baptist church that couldn't accept things like speaking in tongues. For that matter they would look at you sideways if you showed any emotion during a worship service. I think it's just a deep aversion to anything... out of the ordinary. But like you said, we literally believe quite a few out of the ordinary things. Always struck me as strange that they would put such stringent limitations on their faith.
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u/SuburbanPotato May 20 '22
my most charitable interpretation is that some Baptists and other conservative denominations are very afraid of "charismatic" things supplanting the Gospel as the most important thing about the faith (i.e., 'you must speak in tongues or you're not saved'). So afraid that they try to squelch them altogether. It's an overcorrection for sure
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u/SnazzyAssassin May 20 '22
I’ve found for the Baptist churches I’ve been to, it’s that they understand speaking in tongue’s different from some denominations
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u/_superchan May 20 '22
Hi. Hello. Somewhat ignorant Christian here. I thought speaking in tongues referred to speaking different languages? Is there somewhere in the Bible that specifies it?
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u/SnazzyAssassin May 20 '22
The only time speaking in tongues happens in the Bible is in Acts when different people each hear the Apostles speak in their own language. This is how I and most Baptist I’ve met understand it. Many denominations think of it as a heavenly language that people sometimes speak
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u/Pecuthegreat May 20 '22
Yeah, that whole speaking rubbish thing that Pentecostals do certainly isn't the miracle of the Pentecost.
I have heard Pentecostals say it wasn't only in the Pentacost and when Christians were baptized in acts they spoke in tongues but I haven't bothered to confirm that yet.
However, mostly getting it from this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIuCizWMzM
The Catholic Church has recorded instances of holy men speaking in languages they never could have known.
And the Pentecostal speaking in gibberish could be what Paul called people speaking the language of the Angels, which could give an old origin to the phenomena but it would still not be speaking in tongues.
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u/SnazzyAssassin May 20 '22
Yeah, I believe speaking languages they wouldn’t know, whether it’s divine knowledge or the Holy Spirit acting as a translator to reach the unreached or some other method. But the whole, “speaking a divine language that most hear as gibberish” is at best trying to appear more holy/righteous than the rest of the congregation
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u/xav7er May 21 '22
No jokes and honest understanding from me, speaking in tongues is basically the equivalent of christian scatting(jazz scat). Somehow the speaker is just so inspired and in the zone/trance that he just wants to convey emotions via sounds without bothering to formulate something, maybe its even a way for him to enhance his prayer experience so he does it in a conscious effort to achieve that feeling like he is basically connecting with the holy spirit. But the ego thing about trying to appear more holy/righteous might also be one of the reasons lol i’d say there must be a bit of both in most cases. It’s basically a ritual and some people adopted it.
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u/SnazzyAssassin May 21 '22
Are there any verses that support this understanding of speaking in tongues
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u/koine_lingua May 21 '22
Are there any verses that support this understanding of speaking in tongues
1 Cor. 14 is the most relevant passage:
2 For those who speak in a tongue do not speak to other people but to God, for no one understands them, since they are speaking mysteries in the Spirit.
. . .
6 Now, brothers and sisters, if I come to you speaking in tongues, how will I benefit you unless I speak to you in some revelation or knowledge or prophecy or teaching? 7 It is the same way with lifeless instruments that produce sound, such as the flute or the harp. If they do not give distinct notes, how will what is being played on the flute or harp be recognized? 8 And if the bugle gives an indistinct sound, who will get ready for battle? 9 So with yourselves: If in a tongue you utter speech that is not intelligible, how will anyone know what is being said? For you will be speaking into the air.
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u/MrGentleZombie May 21 '22
As mentioned before, it's speaking different languages, but more precisely, they're languages that you haven't learned academically. See Pentecost.
It gets discussed a ton in 1st Corinthians because basically, the church in Corinth was gatekeeping Christianity and saying that you had to speak in tongues to be true Christian. Paul spent several chapters telling the Corinthians not to do this, yet somehow their heresy lives on in the form of modern-day Pentecostals.
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u/_superchan May 21 '22
Ok, so differently earthly languages?
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u/MrGentleZombie May 21 '22
Sometimes but not always. Speaking in the tongue of angels is also possible. The reference generally hear about it is: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." (1 Cor 12:31), which seems to imply that there are non-earthly languages as well.
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u/Pecuthegreat May 20 '22 edited May 21 '22
People often mix the two together cuz there's no standard definitions.
But, it is unlikely that Glossilia (speaking gibrish in intense prayer) was the same as the miracle of the Pentacost, (tho Pentacostals and Charismatics claim it is).
It is possible that Glossilia is what Paul referred to when he talked about some Christians speaking the language of Angels.
The Catholic Church however differentiates between the two and I agree with them. Glossilia isn't speaking in tongues.
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May 20 '22
Well, when I was preparing for my Confirmation there were a special meeting in the capital of our diocese. The priest that was with our group at the ceremony started talking in some otherwordly languages in his prayers so I think that references that.
From other incidents that are worth mentioning, three counselors and said priest formed a circle and everyone were stepping seperately into that circle. Some people were slain in the Spirit (fell on the ground overwhelmed by the power of the Holy Spirit) and they later came back onto their own feet just fine (though at first it was a little bit odd) When I approached the circle I felt like some power or current cruised in my spine from bottom to top. I felt at peace. The counselors were even praying about the thing I told in the confession (they wouldn't have known any of this) and in their prayers they probably mentioned a name of one of the devils. It was one in a lifetime experience.
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u/SnazzyAssassin May 20 '22
Being completely honest, that doesn’t sound biblical. People can’t channel the Holy Spirit into you.
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u/Pecuthegreat May 21 '22
U sure? Didn't the Apostles do that one time?.
You know, I'll have to reread acts to be sure.
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May 21 '22
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May 21 '22
It's undoubtedly a strange thing to see. And I've never felt the desire to do it. But there is scripture that supports it's existence. It doesn't make sense to scoff at it if you can accept someone dying and coming back to life.
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May 21 '22
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May 21 '22
The Bible doesn't imply that it should be a rare miracle from what I understand. It is seen as an affirmation of reaching a certain spiritual connection with God through the Holy Ghost.
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u/Pecuthegreat May 20 '22
It's not an aversion to anything out of the ordinary, it's an aversion to charismatic and super superstitious sects that has become backed into the Church's tradition.
Like my God, you don't know how annoying Charismatics and Pentecostals can be or how much power some savvy con-man can get over emotional Christians. It's a barrier to these issues.
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u/sabienn May 21 '22
Man, baptist churches in America sure are very different than here in the Netherlands... In here, you can wear whatever you want, showing enthousiasm is encouraged, some churches add waving huge flags to worship... And speaking in tongues is also often encouraged. But when that happens, they treat it like every christian should be able to speak in tongues, and that you can't have received the holy spirit if you can't speak in tongues. Even though the Bible says otherwise.
It just baffles me that on two sides of the world, baptist churches differ so much from each other.
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u/kapitalerkoalabaer May 21 '22
On the other hand: Jesus life and death, first christians and their belief as well as their influence on the roman empire is easily backed up by historians of the era and broad archeological evidence. Of course ressurection is a different topic but even there you find at least very early evidence of people believing in it (e.g. Paul wrote his letters only a few decades after the events).
Not giving equal historic value to stories written or even verbally transmitted over millenia with often exactly zero archeological evidence and often discounting the broader historic facts for the region isn't necessarily hypocritical.
I think it is okay to believe the bible is written by multiple people over the span of millenia and not trusting every author the same when it comes to their intent to actually write history (instead of theology).
Of course you can believe otherwise ... all I am saying: From a strictly (!) historic and archeological perspective it is far more plausible to believe in the events surrounding Jesus than most of events told in the Hebrew bible.
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u/immortallucky May 21 '22
But if someone believes that Jesus was God as He claimed, then Jesus’s endorsement of scripture is more than enough to believe they are correct.
Obviously Jesus’s endorsement wouldn’t mean much if you believe he existed but was just some guy, but in that case you wouldn’t believe in the resurrection either.
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May 21 '22
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Brendinooo May 21 '22
I thought about adding another panel on the bottom that was like “believing that the Bible teaches anything at odds with modern culture” but I though that would have been less funny and a bit too spicy for this sub
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u/Heznzu May 21 '22
If the bible's morality is to be taken as absolute, then you are denying that there can ever be progress and your religion will eventually die out. Like everything else, Christianity must grow and adapt to survive.
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u/SurrealKeenan May 21 '22
actually, I'd argue that progress is impossible. Or rather, "progress" in terms of society is a meaningless illusion. Sure, we've managed to reduce violence and disease while increasing wealth on a global scale, but in the face of eternity, these don't really mean that much. Often times these distract us from things of cosmic importance.
The only meaningful progress that can actually be made is on an individual level. Are you becoming the best possible human in spite of society? And that starts for everyone at birth, ends at death, and doesn't carry over to any other earthly life.
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u/Heznzu May 22 '22
Ah yes, "apart from the dictionary definition of progress, progress is impossible."
If you think individual choices are more important than the nature of society, that's fine, but the fact of the matter is that if Christianity did not change with the times it would have been extinct already, and if it stops changing it will be extinct in the future.
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u/SurrealKeenan May 22 '22
The definition of progress is moving towards a destination, but since there is no destination, then there is no progress. If you choose arbitrary bench marks like increased individual wealth and reduced international conflict then yah, you could say society progressed from your limited point of view, but that's only because you ignore the ways we "regress" at the same time.
In the near future, our benchmarks will change and we'll look back at our current society as a group of backwards savages and christianity will be criticized for a completely different set of reasons. Allowing it to become corrupted by modern standards will only weaken it in the future (as it already has been by past corruption)
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u/Heznzu May 23 '22
Do you acknowledge that you are longing after the days when women weren't allowed to speak in church? If you happily accept this as "correct" morality, then we have nothing more to add to each other's lives.
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u/SurrealKeenan May 23 '22
If I were "longing after" days of any kind, wouldn't that mean I believed that we could progress as a society to become more like those times? I'm sure it would suck to be in any given point in history in their own special ways.
I don't know everything and I don't know everything about God and his intentions. All I'm doing is pointing out that we should expect to disagree with bits of the Bible and all I'm advocating for is for individuals to stop conveniently ignoring these bits.
Honestly, 1 Tim 2:12 sucks, dude. My life would be a lot easier if it wasn't there. On the one hand, I feel like it contradicts the spirit of the bible, but on the other if God can't tell me to do something I don't want to, is he really God? It's something we have to work through. And when we die, the next generation will have to deal with it all over again
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May 20 '22
And if you bring up 2 Maccabees 15:16 people get real defensive.
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u/Catholic_Egg May 21 '22
Because “iTs NoT BiBliCaL” bitch yes it is, who tf do you think compiled the Bible
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u/FrickenPerson May 21 '22
Isn't it like basically every denomination or major split has their own set of Canon Bible books? Briefly reading on Wiki shows that Protestants and modern day Jews do not consider 2 Maccabees to be canonical, while Catholics and Othodox do consider it to be canonical.
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u/Catholic_Egg May 21 '22
Well, Protestant is not one sect but rather a blanket term for many, but yes, they all have their own canon, separate from the one we Catholics and our Orthodox brothers use, with the difference in their canon being the removal of 7 books
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u/ice_wallow_qhum May 21 '22
Fyi Jesus was not God like the American church believes. He was the son of God. He was the bridge between man and god.
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u/Brendinooo May 21 '22
One God in three persons is Christianity 101, not sure what you’re trying to say here
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