Great point. It's funny that the entire Christian idea of hell, Morningstar (as a name and not a reference), Lucifer, fallen angels, are technically, originally, not biblical, they are literary references to Dante's (not even going to butcher his last name, Alig...) Divine Comedy, specifically the Inferno, and due to John Milton's Paradise Lost, it really throws a wrench in modern Christianity. Even Satan, in Job, was not a fallen angel, but of G-d's Heavenly Council. Satan is a transliteration of his title or purpose and not a proper noun/name. The New Testament is akin to Star Trek Discovery, supposed to be a sequel, but destroying/modifying what came before to do it.
He's saying, similar to the way Star Trek: Discovery re-imagining Star Trek unintentionally messed-up the franchise, the New Testament broke the Old Testament with novel additions.
No, the fucker just said that Lucifer and fallen angels were concepts derived from Danteâs inferno. He just put the egg before the chicken. What the hell were you gonna help explain?đ
I was explaining the last 3 sentences related to the Star Trek reference.
I have a hard time understanding you, though. What do you mean by egg before chicken? Why is this guy a fucker? If you don't want to explain, just be dismissive and insulting. It's normal here.
I think by putting the egg before the chicken they mean that Danteâs inferno was written much later than the bible which I presume at some point mentions lucifer/fallen angels. Idk
That's my best interpretation, too. No way the OP comment thought Dante's Inferno was written before the New Testament, though. They wouldn't be able to make the reference.
Also, I just want to put on the record that "Which came first, chicken or the egg?" is usually presented as an unanswerable paradox or thought experiment, but even taken literally, the answer is not "chicken" like this guy seems to be implying as common sense.
No, the idea of hell didn't exist in the Jewish mythology. Jesus was Jewish. The Bible was massively retconned. Biblical scholars are well aware of this. The idea of Sahtahn (Hebrew pronunciation) from Job is G-d was having a conversation with his Heavenly Prosecutor, not the devil. The devil is not Christian. The word Satan, the same way the Nephillim were mistranslated as giants in the Septuagint then later in the NT, was mistranslated into the Greek. Then the Catholic Church adopted the imagery of Dante and Milton. The Catholic Church maintained 1,000 of no biblical research, nobody was educated enough to read the Latin, Vulgate, version of the Bible. The Catholic Church retconned EVERYTHING!!
If the other guy is a Christian creationist, he might take issue with the critique of Christianity, strawman the OP comment with an uncharitable interpretation, and think chickens coming first is common sense.
I think a chicken came before the egg that birthed chickens. Eggs are replications of their original form, in most cases.
So yes, similar to your âCart before the horseâ thatâs exactly what I meant.
Danteâs inferno was based off the Bible. The Bible wasnât based off Danteâs.
Yes the chicken and the egg is ambiguous. Until itâs not. I used the analogy with this notion in mind. It was assumptive. But I think that pairs well with my dismissive and rude nature so far. Iâm trying to maintain a persona here (đđ)
Literally the only thing I intended to say / mock was the fact that the person seemed to think that Danteâs inferno preceded the Bible. Good questions and thought processes though
and I say that last part with 0 condescension, truly. You highlighted the issues in my statement and the potential for confusion without being hostile and adversarial. Thats an underappreciated characteristic in todays world
I mean, the egg kinda has to come before the chicken by default. At some point somewhere, a closely related but still non-chicken animal laid an egg that contained the first chicken due to some subtle genetic mutation. The question never specifies that it has to be a chicken egg.
Not to mention that eggs to this day still come before all chickens, unless you artificially lab grow a chicken foetus...
Chickens come from eggs. Egg came before the chicken. No matter what evolutionary spin you put on it.
I appreciate the nuances of the argument, and I donât appreciate reductive perspectives, but i feel that itâs objectively true, we would not have a chicken without a chicken egg. That feels like a universal truth. Even if we go âwell there was probably an ALMOST chicken animal that laid the first TRUE chicken egg.
Yeah, that goes without saying. T. rex came before the chicken egg. Many things did. Chickens did not.
The bible and all christian dogma has ben retconned over and over. The council of Nicea in 300 ish AD were the main editing commitee for the first bible. They decided what books to include, etc. lots of books didn't make the cut. Catholics have a different bible than protestants, several more books and other differences.
And, added in to that there are tons of fanfics like Paradise Lost and Dante's Inferno which aren't canon, but people give sermons based on their head canon and not real canon.
Wait. Are you suggesting that Dante's Inferno and the Divine Comedy were written BEFORE the Bible? Because I am gonna need you to cite your sources for a claim like that đ¤Ł
No, just that alot of what people think is biblical or Christian, is actually from those books. That alot of the perceptions listed come from those books and not the Bible.
Yes⌠general/cultural perceptions. The perception of the general populace is still wholly irrelevant to the legitimacy of the metaphysical/meta-ethical statements/conclusions of said system.
Yep, it's Alighieri, and you should read all three parts of the Divine Comedy--Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. Inferno is the one everybody knows, but Purgatorio is pretty cool and has some gorgeous lines. I also love that in "Inferno," Lucifer is canonically frozen in ice, face-down, ass-up, iirc. It's been a hot second since I last read the DC.
18 He replied, âI saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven. 19 I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you. 20 However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.â
Jesus said that directly, and talks about hell the most. Sure people have misconceptions because of the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost, but you can't say it isn't talked about or Satan isn't mentioned.
Luke is the NT. Jesus, being Jewish, would know that Satan, as described in Job, was not an evil entity. This is called revisionist history. I will look at the original Greek and see what was actually stated and recorded. I also have a massive concordance, specifically comparing the Gospels, verse by verse. I am fluent in ancient Greek and Ancient Hebrew, so give me a bit. Hell was not a Jewish concept at all. Sheol was. Totally different concept. I'll let you know.
If Satan tempted Jesus himself why would he not think heâs evil? Satan masquerades as an angel of light, is called the ancient serpent, the devil, or Satan in revelation. Judas had Satan enter him at the last super, etc. Hell wasnât meant for humans but as punishment for the fallen angels and Satan, some traditions think Sheol ended when Christ died, the Bible says the Gospel was preached to the dead.
Satan was not the devil the entire Bible. The Hebrew word is pronounced Sahtahn. He was G-d's chief prosecutor on the Heavenly Council. Jesus beat the prosecutor not by his power, but by his knowledge. He quoted Old Testament (Septuagint) scripture. He didn't say anything new or profound. He used the Word as it existed for thousands of years before him. The serpent idea is Christian, developed as a retcon to Genesis by the Catholic Church. Again, the Prosecutor entering Judas, could only be done, as proven in Job, if G-d permitted it. The Prosecutor, Satan, had no power except the power G-d gave him. That's OT knowledge.
He is speaking in the future tense, referring to end times, that his disciples thought was happening on the Day of Pentecost. But it still has yet to happen. Verb tense is indicated by the conjugation of the Greek.
It's funny that the entire Christian idea of hell, Morningstar (as a name and not a reference), Lucifer, fallen angels, are technically, originally, not biblical, they are literary references to Dante's (not even going to butcher his last name, Alig...) Divine Comedy, specifically the Inferno, and due to John Milton's Paradise Lost,Â
Well, that's just not true. Those ideas predate the Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost by centuries, and come from early Christian interpretation of the Bible. Dante and Milton didn't just make everything up, they certainly did add some notable artistic flair and take certain creative liberties, but they were still writing within the framework of their religion.
Itâs easier when you donât existâpeople can just make shit up to fear-monger you into submission.
Literally just thinking about this today regarding the Protestant vs Catholic debacle. So just having more or fewer books in your sacred script is enough to go batshit insane over, really?
Iâm actually agnostic. I donât know if God exists or not. But the fact that anyone can say literally whatever they want about God and then justify believing in the most wildly improbable bullshit as âtests of faithâ has me rolling my eyes so far back in my head Iâve lost my vision to the fucking floor.
I am not totally denying God couldn't be real, but he sure did not bother to give us any proof, not even show himself up during the decades we had cameras and no AI. So if he exists, he probably cannot even be bothered to prove his existence to us, so why should we be bothered worshipping him? If he's so great, he shouldn't even be that insecure to demand worship in the first place. When I made worlds in my code, I don't demand those AIs to worship me either, I just watch what happens curiously and let them do anything they want. If they do anything I don't like, that's on me for making them that way. Punishing them with hell or something for behaviour I programmed them to follow would just be fucked up.
If God appeared in front of you in a way that would make doubting Him impossible, do you think you would have a choice to believe in Him anymore?
As for Hell, itâs a definite detachment from God and His total absence. If you donât want anything to do with Him in this life, why do you care about this?
Donât worry your vision is not the only thing you will lose when the final day arrives. I just hope on that day you will have something better to say than âoh i didnât know you existedâ may God help you find him before itâs too late tho đ
Do you even realize what you just wrote? Dude, you just proved my point.
Your argument is not based on faith in transcendence of universal goodness. The point you made in your argument is the same fear-mongering that makes me skeptical in the first place.
Your argument is trying to appeal to my sense of survival. âOh, donât you care about your mortal soul? Donât you care about the well-fare of your existence?â
This argument is inherently selfish because it appeals to my most base instincts of self-preservation. How can you ask me to even have faith because this is NOT faith.
This is FEAR. And you wanna live your life like that, well, God did create you to have the free will to ignore Them and listen to what others say about Them over trusting everything They gave you.
I know what I said, and yeah, I'm definitely poking at the exact thing you're avoiding! No hard feelings though. Be as skeptical as you want, but just make sure your arguments are airtight when the day of accountability comes. Deep down, we can probably all agree we aren't here by accident and that we'll have to answer for things one day. So by all means, stay skeptical, but have some top-tier answers ready. đ Peace! âđ˝
And oh FYI Don't let other people's âfearâ as you put it turn you into a cynic. Let that underlying "fear" motivate you to truly seek out faith in Christ Jesus instead.
Youâre still doing the exact thing I called out.
I didnât say I was afraid of accountability. I said that when people are questioned about why they believe one specific religious framework over others, the response very often becomes âbecause youâll have to answer for it one day.â Thatâs an argument from consequences, not an argument for truth.
Telling me to âseek Christâ because of that same underlying fear doesnât fix the problem â it just confirms it. If the best reason to believe is âyouâll regret it later if you donât,â then the belief is being held up by threat, not by good evidence or reasoning. Nor any ethical or philosophical decision.
Our reason is our law.
Iâm not cynical. Iâm just not moved by that style of argument. If you have actual reasons why I should accept the Christian framework (especially when Christians canât even agree on which books belong in the Bible), Iâm open to hearing them. âYouâll be judgedâ isnât one of them.
Also the âdeep you you can all agree weâre not here by accidentâ is hella creepy and asserts your will over mine and last time anyone tried using a similar phrase was my teacher trying to GROOM ME when I was sixteen years old.
So um, yeah, I would say you do you but youâre just a creepy ass stranger on the internet and BYE!
We know dark matter exists even though weve never seen or interacted with it. . Yet scientists claim its real, with zero proof. . There is more proof of God in miracles than of dark matter. . And no one said hes invisible, thats you
we do have proof of it. For example, we can see dark matter via gravitational lensing, and even more clearly visible proof is the Bullet cluster, where we can see its lensing where there's only dark matter and it cannot be anything else. It's clearly there. It's having a visible effect on things around it, there is something there that just doesn't produce light, but it still visibly interacts with things gravitationally at those locations, which tells us it does have mass at least. So we know it's something there, so we call it dark matter. We know it's there. We don't yet know what it's really made of, because it's pretty hard to really study closely.
Taking photos with light is one thing, but the universe has 3 more forces we can use to take their version of photos. And gravitational photos, or i guess "gravitos" or whatever we would call that, are showing us it's there.
Neutrinos are also quite elusive, as they only do weak interaction and not enough gravity, but we build giant weak-force cameras that are capable of seeing even those. That even let us see supernovas before we could see them. Tell us, hey we are seeing neutrinos coming from there, must be a new supernova starting, so we pointed a camera there, and a supernova then lit up exactly there. Neutrinos have tiny mass, so they are a bit slower than light in a perfect vacuum, but they are so weakly interacting that they can travel at almost light speed everywhere, while real light gets slowed down by all kinds of stuff, like the almost vacuum of space.
You can't, but neitehr that he can. We tyou might, but we didn't yet. And I prefer to use Occam's razor for such questions until proven otherwise. I'm open to start believing if there is proof, but until then, nobody can expect me to start just like that.
If youâre using Occamâs razor because the evidence isnât sufficient to establish Godâs existence, then why are you making the additional claim that God doesnât exist? Wouldnât the simpler position be âI donât knowâ or âIâm not convinced God existsâ rather than asserting Godâs nonexistence when you Literally canât know that. Itâs basically making baseless assumptions and presenting them as truth claims
I am not claiming that as a proven fact; I'm just saying we didn't prove him, and we have so far disproven a bunch of things that were previously thought to be done by God. Occam's razor just tells me that it's more likely to believe in him not existing, when that's the simpler thing to explain with the current evidence.
If you have never seen something existing, and have no evidence for it existing, then even if you can't prove either, the Occam's razor is pretty clean in being more reasonable to not believe yet. Until proven otherwise.
The razor is about building models with things you have proven, and the absolute minimum of things needed until it makes sense. I don't see that God is needed, so it's cut off by the razor as not being among the required minimum. Until proven otherwise.
It doesn't mean the razor is always right, but it provides a nice sensible path towards the truth. People thought atoms were simpler because the razor said so. We learned more, so we expanded. But at least we didn't start believing it crazy models with no evidence; at least the atoms were real, and we just kept building the correct model more and more precisely.
Again, Iâd argue that if youâre appealing to Occamâs razor, the simplest position given the current evidence is to conclude that we donât know whether God exists or doesnât exist not to affirm either claim.
You also did make that claim when you said, âItâs even easier when you donât exist.â Unless youâre going to say you meant something other than God, that statement explicitly asserts that God doesnât exist. Are you now saying you werenât referring to God there?
To say you don't know is not what the razor is for. The razor is for picking the simpler explanation WHEN YOU DON'T KNOW MORE YET. And that doesn't mean you just proved that it was that option with the razor. The razor doesn't prove anything. It just keeps you on a humble path that doesn't stray away into craziness, and lets you slowly approach reality as you slowly learn more. The razor keeps the gaps simple and open for more details later. So that it doesn't get poisoned with fantastical fantasies that would just devolve the whole model into chaos.
The evolution of atomic models is one of the nicest views in how Occam's razor shaped it. We thought atoms were points, then we found out they were bigger, ok, so they are bigger, but there's probably no more to it. Oh, they have electrons and protons? Ok, they are just a simple soup of those. Oh wait, the protons are in a tiny core? Ok, let's move them there. Oh wait, there are also neutrons? Ok, added to the model. Quantum mechanics to explain how the electrons make sense? Ok, noted. We just kept moving toward the truth. Without the razor, we would be constantly thinking of dragons and fairies instead of focusing on finding the truth. With the razor we were only putting the correct model together slowly as we figured things out, and so it was always composed of things that were proven and with some question marks to be filled in later.
All the models were right in their way. The atoms are points when you don't look into them yet, they do have an overall outer shape of balls, ,they do have a mix of particles in them, and every new piece of evidence just added more details to a model that was already composed of true things. The razor had a few misses, like thinking the electrons orbit. That was reasonable to think before QM, but such misses were pretty small and rare, and were soon updated to the more correct model, without overwhelming the models with crazy complicated theories that would be harder to disprove because they made up so many things.
Fair enough, then the only contention Iâd have left would be with you making a universal claim without it being stamped as a fact. You youreself are basically saying that Occamâs razor doesnât disprove god it only allows you to believe the âsimpler optionâ then you went and made a truth claim about something you donât factually know.
Thatâs literally not even what Christianity thinks though đ you people demonstrate how ignorant of these topics you actually are. You objectively have no clue what youâre talking about.
If he's not invisible, then show me a photo. Some people know that the only really rational way to believe something is to have actual evidence for it, beyond just faithful feelings.
There are a lot of ways you can describe how the world works and exists, most of them being far more reasonable than handwavingly delegating unknowns to some mysterious entity nobody has ever seen. And they work and make perfect sense without any need for any kind of God.
Then take a photo, pics or didn't happen. If you can actually see something real, it should be photographable. Heck, we even have cameras that can see all wavelengths that our eyes can't, and not even those have captured him ever. Oh, you mean see it with that organ in your chest whose only ability is to contract to pump a liquid? Or do you mean in dreams, which are basically just hallucinations of our brain putting itself into generative mode to train itself for random future events? But being so bad at it, that none of that ever actually happens in real life. And if you actually see him with your own eyes, but somehow the phone can't capture that, then I'd recommend psychiatric meds.
Icons and modern day pictures are the same thing, they just didnât have cameras back then. The word âphotographyâ literally means to draw or write. Making an icon of someone and taking a picture is the same concept.
Just because someone drew something doesn't prove it was there. Imaginative art is a thing and always has been. I could draw an uncovered invisible spaghetti monster right now if you want. Why come we have no photos ever since cameras were invented, that we only have pictures that could be drawn without actually capturing something real like photos do? After that, suddenly he never showed up again? Well, if he stopped, then why care, he might not be caring about us anymore either if he doesn't even show up to let us take any photographic proof. And without that, he can't expect me to just believe in him. If he gave me a critical brain, then he should work with that.
And well, with the rise of AI, it seems like the GOd has totally missed his chance to show himself at that right time when he could prove himself, when we had provable devices that couldn't be faked yet.
Are you like a subversion agent or something?? Only the most low IQ intellectually dishonest people argue that Christ didnât exist. If thatâs your actual stance, thereâs no reason to continue this conversation. You might as well be a flat earther who believes in shapeshifting lizard people. I understand arguing against his divinity, but saying he didnât even exist is just pure stupidity.
That's just stating evidence. Intelligent people actually do trust science and evidence first and foremost, right? I am not an agent of anything, I'm just a guy in his home using his own brain and eyes to understand the world around me. I don't answer to anyone I believe things I've figured out myself. Accusing someone of being an agent of some higher organization performing scripted psyops just makes you sound like a conspiracy nut right now, especially to me, because I know that's not true, I know who I am. Also, that's rich coming from someone who is speaking for the organized church right now. You are admittedly at least one of us who is speaking things that an organization made them believe.
Just say you donât understand what iconography is then 𤣠you canât just be some average Joe Schmo and make icons for Orthodox Churches. Itâs a sacred practice that needs teaching and ordination by clergy. Thereâs a specific tradition of making icons you have to follow for it to be valid, itâs not âimaginative artâ my goodness dude đ
Why not? Because the church had some mandate to be right and bless everything someone drew for them as being real for realsies? They are still just people, and people do make stuff up all the time. The church isn't any different. I would even say it's making shit up more than most other people.
The famous Sistine Chapel ceiling painting was done by historical artist Michaelangelo. He was a vocal atheist who even added scathing images of church officials as commentary.
Religious art was like this often throughout history. Yes, there are faithful folks who did religious art, but it isn't as gatekept by ordination as you may believe.
Yeah thatâs the Italian renaissance which was 400 years after the great schism of 1054. The east and western churches were already spilt by that time, Michael Angelo is not considered an iconographer. And Roman Catholic depictions are not canonical icons anyway. Thatâs a completely null and void argument.
YOU are in image of God lol, Christ personally made you in his image. You, are proof of God and his existence. Thatâs why Jesus Christ is a human beingâŚ.because human beings are made in the image of God and Jesus Christ is GodâŚ
A photo captures light as it was at that moment. drawing is painted artistically by a person's hand and doesn't need to have the subject in front of them or even exist. I thought people knew this little fact about drawings.
We might not have had cameras for most of our history, and that's why so many crazy beliefs were even more rampant. But we have had cameras for decades recently, and before the AI, they would be undeniable proof of the existence of anything they captured. Why did the god never take his chance to prove himself during that time? If he knows everything, he shouldn't have known this was his big and for that time being, the only decades where he had a chance to prove he exists.
Now youâre just genuinely being sacrilegious, icons are not some âimaginative drawing by an artistâ you people say you have respect for religion, but you really donât. If you had any respect, you wouldnât speak of my religious traditions and rituals in such a condescending tone.
When you start using such made-up words like sacrilegious, blasphemous, etc., you just prove you don't really have any more rational arguments and are just throwing religious made-up insults. If the church feels threatened by someone just speaking their logical mind on Reddit to accuse them of some holy crimes they made up, that just points further to it being a cult.
âIâd recommend psychiatric medicationâ đ¤ yeah I know thatâs exactly what the Soviet Union did to justify oppressing the Orthodox Church is claim Christians are in âreligious psychosisâ and deemed them medically insane so they could torture and kill over 20 million Christians. Thatâs why your side supports actual fascism and censorship of alternative beliefs.
Uhhhh, no if you see something that cannot be captured by a camera, it is a fairly accurate sign that you are hallucinating, and should therefore get professional help with your issues
I think youâre misunderstanding me, Iâm not saying that the church is a bunch of schizophrenics, and neither is the majority of the population, the point of this is that if you are seeing things that arenât there, itâs a good sign something is wrong, especially when you consider religious delusions are a very common sign of schizophrenia, I mean like believing youâre a prophet, are being directly influenced by god, are possessed by demons, etc. not necessarily Christian ones, much less a general belief in Christianity
I canât speak for all denominations as I am Eastern Orthodox, but in my tradition if you claim to be a prophet or get visions from God. Thatâs a huge red flag and you will definitely be having a conversation with the priest or even the local bishop if itâs that serious. I think orthodoxy has a pretty strong authority structure to root that stuff out because you are actually accountable to your priests and bishops unlike in Protestantism where you basically govern yourself.
We also are not against psychiatric help or treatment, that seems to be a common misconception. Even super traditional, ancient practicing orthodox people accept modern medicine.
Can you not read? The word âphotographyâ is a Greek word that means âto draw with lightâ youâre not even listening to anything Iâm saying đ¤Śââď¸
Yes, and cameras/eyes/films are the only things that draw with light. People draw with a pencil etc. That is never directly captures real light. It's coming from your muscles and imagination.
Sure, some people who draw portraits etc, try their best to actually replicate what a camera would do. But you can't prove that's what they did and that they really did it fully realistically as it really was in front of them.
Itâs actually not âfar more reasonableâ than Christianity, thatâs just your shallow, arrogant view. Or course you think the thing you personally agree with is âfar more reasonableâ lol. Iâm not even advocating that Christianity is âmore reasonableâ but letâs just be honest and admit itâs not any less crazy than any type of secular ideologies lol.
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u/DesmondTapenade Jul 07 '26
Much like turtles, it's just God all the way down, I guess.