this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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Teenage me went into reading the Bible expecting to learn more about my religion and become one of those well-versed scholars.
And then I kept reading, and the terrible truth eventually dawned on me. It really is just a bunch of silly stories from farmers thousands of years ago. It's nearly impossible to actually read it and remain neutral about this; yet another one of life's "emperors new clothes" situations.
The more I read the Bible (having read multiple versions) as a teen the more I realized that people who claim to walk as Christ did, in fact do not walk as Christ did. There are exceptions, such as the pastor who I met volunteering at a soup kitchen, but a vast majority only prove my point.
Christ walked among sinners, the down and destitute, tax collectors, sex workers and the "unclean". The same people these self proclaimed men and women of Christ will rebuke and spit on.
I always think back to that scene from Castlevania between the Bishop and the Demon: "my life's work is in his name!" "Your life's work. Makes him puke."
Yeah but some of the worst Christians are the ones who do walk with the wretches. They come in with their ideas of sin and salvation and don't bother to notice when they've found pockets of paradise among the damned because they're too busy trying to convert people away from the things they like
Can you imagine how twisted the guy who wrote Revelations was? Why did he just make all that shit up? Why did he try to pass off his own shit as Yahweh's shit? Since he knew that Revelations was his own made up bullshit, he must have known that the entire bible was made up bullshit too. Why did he think it was okay to be a gigantic liar and for him to contribute to the mountain of bullshit started by others?
A friend who grew up an atheist recently read the Bible as part of her reading a bunch of religious texts. Her take on revelations is that she's had fever dreams like that.
If you're actually curious about this, Elaine Pagels has a really great book about this. The book of Revelation was just a thinly-veiled series of jabs at specific people and the politics of the time.
Her interpretation is that it would have been blatantly obvious to John's contemporaries, but it's opaque to us now because we're so far removed from that time period.
huh. Interesting.
so something similar to Dante's Inferno, which is basically a long shitpost about contemporary politics that over time diffused into religious culture?
Yup. It's a big fat rant propaganda against nero. And it worked - our perception of nero has been viewed through that lens for centuries
He went in for the 2000 year old schizopost.
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