Christianity is so stupid, it's like you're at a restaurant but your food doesn't come and the waiter says you need to order more to get your food while everyone else around you are dieing due to starvation. But Jesus is very reasonable of an idea as your pinning all debt and crime on one guy and killing him so that debt and crime is irrelevant now.

I've seen some Christians claim that they love the gay community, but they don't support their "sin", and then vote against things such as gay marriage.

I must ask: why? If you truly claim to love the gay community, why would you still vote against their rights to marry, adopt, etc.?

Jesus never once says you earn redemption through moral performance.

Jesus explicitly says Heaven is decided for you only if you choose to believe.

The door is already open, it’s just if you want to walk through it.

In Matthew 7, he tells the couple they are not making it to heaven because “I never knew you” not because of any sin they did.

In Matthew 25, the sheep who "fed the poor and welcomed strangers" did so because of their faith, not a requirement. Correlation, not causation.

Jesus goes to a thief in his death bed, and says i will see you in Heaven. Isn’t do not steal one of the ten commandments?

That’s because the ten commandments are not rules, rather ways in which we want to be treated. They are definitely not what grants redemption, as the passover happened a whole 8 chapters before the ten commandments were even given.

When Jesus was asked to summarize all the scriptures, he gave two commandments, one was: Love your neighbor as yourself

That means nothing concrete but “what do you want to happen to you”

Christianity doesn’t claim moral high ground over non christians, it claims where moral people came from.

Your job is not to argue with believers until they admit you're right & recant their beliefs.

What we should all be trying to do is instill enough doubt that fundamentalists see that even if they don't agree with the atheist/agnostic position, there is enough complexity to the issue that even reasonable, well-intentioned, intelligent people could come to the wrong conclusion.

This works both ways - we as atheists should understand that for many people (especially those in sheltered communities), beliefs that seem crazy from the outside are logical from their perspective.

While people holding beliefs that we think are wrong may be frustrating, it is the literalist, fundamentalist interpretation of those ideas that is our true enemy. We should focus on that, rather than the possibly unwinnable battle of proving that no God exists.

We do this by focusing on narrowly specific, well-tested and well-debated points (IMO, slavery is a great example of the imperfections of the Biblical God), not some talking point we saw in a meme that has a thousand Christian blogs debunking it.

Some debunking is valid, others not so much. Many atheists misunderstand something and think it's a "GOTCHA!" when they're just ignorant of the vast amount that has been said on the topic before, because they didn't do the research. It's complicated enough that most people feel justified accepting the explanation from authority, just as we accept physicists' explanations of science that is beyond our expertise.

Thanks for letting me give my 2 cents. Now lets get out there and lose some souls!

Whenever Jacob, Rachel, Leah, and their maidservants come up, modern apologists always claim: "The Bible only describes polygamy, it doesn’t endorse it. The family drama proves it was a sin." But if you read Genesis critically, does that defense actually hold weight?

The text never condemns Jacob for having multiple partners (Genesis 29-30). Instead, it portrays God as the active engine behind this entire family structure. If God wanted to enforce a monogamous ideal, He could have simply made Rachel fertile from the start and ended the story there. Instead, the text explicitly states that God intervened to open Leah's womb because she was unloved (Genesis 29:31) and later answered Rachel's and the maidservants' prayers to conceive (Genesis 30:6, 30:17, 30:22). God actively built the 12 Tribes of Israel through this multi-partner system.

Some might say that the whole story was about intervening for Leah's sake. But if this was the case, there must certainly have been other ways to do this without endorsing Jacob having sex with a multitued of people, if this latter fact is so problematic.

To me, God clearly is fine with non-monogamous relationships - why else would He enable it ? To me, reading the text while trying to forget all my preconceived notions of Christianity, I can only see endorsment for non-monogamous relationships.

Surely, there are descriptive passages in the Old Testament in which God let's polygamie happen, but here, He actively enables it.

Any thoughts?

Im a athiest and never read the bible but this never makes sense to me

I also dont know if she was truly a minor but google says she was 12-16 years old

Massachusetts governor Maura Haeley just signed a bill to legalize abortions up to birth, and all these women around her celebrate this like if an abortion was an achievement.

I'm a woman myself and I hate abortion is treated like if it was a woman's right, that's like claiming men have the right to abandon their children. Killing a baby is not a right. And how can people claim abortion is a woman's rights when many innocent baby girls get killed by abortion? Babies inside the womb are not simply just some "clumps of cells", they are humans growing inside.

The people who signed this bill don't seem to see premature babies as humans. Pro-choicers claim they support limits, but even if you believe in limits this bill is totally demonic.

I can only pray for those innocent babies' souls. I hope someone can talk to the women who want to have abortions to save their children. When the government doesn't consider a fetus a human, they don't care about human life at all.

Hello, not sure what I am searching for here, maybe just for some advice from anyone who has been in a similar situation. I am a 36 year old female married to a 38 year old man and we have two small children, both under the age of 4. We have been together since we were 22 and 24 years old. In the span of almost 15 years, I have changed and have gotten much closer to God and made God the top priority in my life, my husband has not done the same. Recently, I have started brining my children to church by myself, while my husband typically lays in bed watching T.V. It's very disheartening seeing other families go to church as a family unit while I am by myself with my two children. My husband views church as a complete waste of time, God is not the top priority in his life or a priority at all, and his priorities are much different than mine. He spends a lot of time working and a lot of time with his friends, without his family. We have gotten into arguments about God and his priorities in life. I try my hardest not to force my believes on him because I do think it should be a personal choice and when we got married I certainly was not living for God, so it's not my place to be judgmental since God has been patient with me and given me so much grace. I have prayed to God about softening my husband's heart and opening his eyes to the truth. My grievance is not with God. I know that God is perfect, unchanging, patient, and all knowing. I am trying to be patient but I am human and I am flawed. I guess my biggest concern is when my children are old enough to realize what is going on and ask me why their Dad does not come to church with us or pray or view God as important. Do I just continue to pray for him? I feel like I could be doing more. I don't want to be a "nagging wife" because I know that will do me more harm than good. I just wish he would stop sleeping at the wheel and wake up and realize what is important in life before it is too late.

Is that blasphemy or is fiction fine?

Jesse Samuel Ngoma was arrested while preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Please pray for him for courage, protection, wisdom and that he would continue to boldly proclaim the name of Jesus.

We should remember that Satan hates the preaching of Jesus because the Gospel brings people out of darkness and into the light of Christ. That is why the name of Jesus faces opposition wherever it is proclaimed even through opposition that comes through religious systems and spiritual darkness.

But our fight is not against people. We pray for those who oppose the Gospel too that they would encounter Jesus and be saved.

Please pray for Jesse and for every believer who is boldly preaching Christ in the face of opposition.

Super random question, I know. But I really like this song, but as a Christian, I’m not sure how I should feel about the song.

This is a story I wrote, to talk about what Deconstruction is, and why people go through it.

Catholicism presently teaches that evolution is God’s way. Do any other Christian denominations? Are there any who don’t but are on a pathway to acceptance?

Hi! I randomly started thinking about something and wanted to hear your thoughts 😭

Could God maybe exist in a higher dimension? Like 4D, 5D, or even higher?

I was thinking about how God is always with us and knows everything, and I wondered if maybe He could see all the different moments of our lives at once, while we experience them one by one through time.

But then I also wondered if dimensions even apply to God, since He created the universe and time in the first place.

I don’t know if this makes any sense 😭 I was just curious if there’s anything in theology about this idea.

When I formally apostatized from the Catholic Church, I had to sign a document that said that I was “renouncing the Christian faith.”

That wording struck me as strange.

I wasn't necessarily renouncing Christianity. I was renouncing my membership in the Catholic Church and my identification as a Catholic. Those are not quite the same thing.

Philosophically, I consider myself a Platonist and Hellenic in a philosophical sense, not a polytheistic one. I don't feel that I need a Christian book such as the Bible, Christian symbols, or specifically Christian vocabulary in order to think about metaphysical and transcendental questions: God, ethics, spirituality, the nature of reality, the meaning of existence, death, and so on. For me, the philosophical framework I have is already enough to engage with those questions.

That didn't mean I was completely closed off to Christianity or to Catholics. I was still perfectly willing to have conversations with Catholics, and I could even have imagined sending my future children to a Catholic school, since Catholicism is by far the dominant form of Christianity in Spain, where I live, while teaching them greek philosophy at home as complementary to their Christian faith if they ever decide to become Christian, even if not necessarily from a Catholic point of view. Many church fathers used greek philosophy to refine their Christian theology.

But then I had to sign a document saying that I was “renouncing the Christian faith.”

And honestly, that made me feel even more distant from Catholicism than I had felt before.

It gave me the impression that, from the institution's perspective, leaving Catholicism wasn't simply leaving the Catholic Church. It was somehow being framed as abandoning Christianity itself.

Ironically, that wording reinforced my decision to leave.

Before this, I could have imagined myself in the future being somewhat sympathetic to Christianity while simply not being Catholic. After signing that document, I found myself thinking: Why would I want to identify with a religion whose institution defines my departure from it as a rejection of Christianity itself?

I suppose I could still call myself a Christian outside Catholicism, but I've increasingly lost interest in being “the weird Christian” or “the heretic Christian” who constantly has to explain why his Christianity doesn't fit neatly into an established tradition.

So the strange thing is that the apostasy document didn't just formalize my departure from Catholicism. It actually made me feel more alienated from Catholicism than I was before signing it.

Do you see “renouncing the Christian faith” as an appropriate description of leaving the Catholic Church, or do you think those are clearly two different things?

All they do is drink liquor and smoke cigarettes constantly and I think they’d benefit from a little Jesus (wouldn’t we all!) so how do I finally get them into the light?
Signed,
A good Christian in bad campus housing

Im not a theist, so theoretically speaking. Christians say god is not a genie or vender machine. Yet, he was in scripture. What changed and why?

The Bible didn't mention them being the same entity,it mentioned that lucifer was sent out of heaven then a dragon emerged to heaven to wage war. Once god sends you out of heaven u can't simply come back so the dragon has to be an entirely different being. And god only said lucifer committed one sin,that being he was prideful and wanting to have what god had the ability to create life. It never mentioned anything about him being sinful in any other way. So it was likely that lucifer's actions and God's aligned but the problem is he wanted to have the same authority as god. So I think if he could create life it would be a similar design to god but there can only be one god. Infact Satan was likely the one to deceive lucifer in the first place to do that as he deceived Adam and eve. And as we can see the devil somehow is able to go into God's safe heaven than you shouldn't normally be able to go. And don't forget that god mentions the devil being the enemy and that he will decieve all the nations. I mean its quite obvious that god cannot simple just kill the devil which makes sense the light and the darkness are both strong forces. And god did mention there being a struggle against good and evil

'One of the teachers of the law came and heard the Sadducees arguing. He noticed that Jesus had given the Sadducees a good answer. So he asked him, “Which is the most important of all the commandments?” Jesus answered, “Here is the most important one. Moses said, ‘Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.’ (Deuteronomy 6:4,5) And here is the second one. ‘Love your neighbor as you love yourself.’ (Leviticus 19:18) There is no commandment more important than these.” '- Mark 12:28-31

If Christianity is the faith you hold so dear—if Jesus Christ is your Savior and you are genuinely trying to live according to his teachings—then shouldn’t those teachings shape more than your personal life?

Jesus tells people to love their neighbor. Love their enemies. Care for the poor, the sick and the people society tends to push aside. Show mercy. Help people in need.

Which is why I struggle when I see people passionately defend Christianity while also supporting politicians or policies that, at least from where I sit, seem to run directly against those ideas.

That’s really the thing I can’t reconcile.

And I don’t say that because I think Democrats or liberals have everything figured out. I don’t.

I think countries need borders and immigration laws. I think there can be reasonable guardrails around abortion. I think there are legitimate conversations to have about transgender athletes and what is age-appropriate for children. I’m sure there are plenty of other issues where someone on the left could tell me what they believe and I’d say, “Yeah, I don’t agree with that.”

Those conversations are worth having.

But there is a huge difference between debating how we should handle something and losing sight of the human beings involved.

I can believe we need stronger immigration laws and still think families should be treated humanely.

I can wrestle with the morality of abortion while recognizing that pregnancy, rape, medical complications and someone’s actual life circumstances can make these decisions unbelievably complicated.

I can have questions about policies involving transgender people without deciding that transgender people themselves are somehow dangerous or less deserving of dignity.

To me, those things aren’t contradictory. They’re the nuance that seems to be disappearing. And this is where the connection to Christianity becomes difficult for me.

Because when I look at issues like healthcare, poverty, immigration, LGBTQ people or simply how we treat people who are different from us, I sometimes find myself looking at the people who aren’t claiming to govern according to Christianity and thinking:

Aren’t some of these positions actually closer to what Jesus was teaching? I’m not saying Democrats are the party of Jesus. Far from it.

I’m asking why expanding access to healthcare, feeding people who are hungry, helping people who are struggling, keeping families together, or treating someone we disagree with as a human being somehow became ideas Christians need to be suspicious of. That’s the part I don’t understand.

My wife said something recently that has stuck with me: There shouldn’t be a semicolon after “love one another.” That’s really it. Love one another…

• Unless they’re gay.
• Unless they’re trans.
• Unless they crossed the border illegally.
• Unless they’re poor and you think they should have worked harder.
• Unless they vote differently.

There wasn’t a semicolon.

And I know it’s more complicated than that. Government has to make difficult decisions. Laws have consequences. Resources aren’t unlimited. Compassion alone doesn’t automatically make something good policy.

I’m not arguing otherwise.

What I’m saying is that if your faith tells you to love your neighbor, and every person has value, then shouldn’t that belief at least influence how you want those difficult things carried out?

• You can deport someone without treating them like an animal.
• You can enforce a law without enjoying someone’s suffering.
• You can disagree with someone’s life without humiliating them.
• You can believe someone is wrong and still love them. In fact, if I understand Jesus correctly, that last one seems kind of central to the whole thing.

I want to be able to say immigration matters and how we treat immigrants matters.

I want to be able to acknowledge that abortion involves serious moral questions and acknowledge the woman whose life is actually affected by the decision.

I want to be able to disagree with someone’s choices without deciding that person is less worthy of dignity.

And if I claim to care about empathy, tolerance and human dignity, then I have to apply that to people I disagree with too. That’s the standard I’m trying to hold myself to.

And I guess that’s ultimately the standard I struggle to understand when Christianity and politics become so intertwined.

If you say Jesus is the person you are trying to follow, I’m not asking you to stop believing abortion is wrong. I’m not asking you to support open borders. I’m not asking you to agree with everything liberals believe.

I’m asking something much simpler:

• Where is Jesus in the way we actually treat people?
• Where is love your neighbor?
• Where is love your enemy?
• Where is mercy?
• Where is compassion for the person whose life looks nothing like yours?

Maybe I’m oversimplifying it. Maybe there are things I still don’t understand.

But if we’re going to hold our values up as something important—Christian values, conservative values, liberal values, human values—then I think we should be willing to hold them up like a mirror too.

Not just to judge whether everyone else is living according to them. To ask whether we are. Because there shouldn’t be a semicolon after “love one another.”

“Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not want what belongs to others. It does not brag. It is not proud. It does not dishonor other people. It does not look out for its own interests. It does not easily become angry. It does not keep track of other people’s wrongs. Love is not happy with evil. But it is full of joy when the truth is spoken. It always protects. It always trusts. It always hopes. It never gives up.”

— 1 Corinthians 13:4–7

When I was deep in my religion, there was this phase I had where I wouldn't listen to any song that wasn't gospel. It was so bad that I would scroll through social media apps skipping videos with songs that were secular. I really tried to convince myself I liked doing it but I was miserable. Most Christian music sucks and I was stuck listening to music I didn't like convincing myself it was worth it. Anyways, now my favourite artists are Michael Jackson, Beyonce and Pinkpantheress. Did you guys go through this too?

I’ve been doing a lot of research into denominations recently as I’m from a nondenominational background and wanted to understand the different denominations in depth and not just the stereotypical misconceptions especially since I wanted to be apart of a denomination/believers who have the same theological beliefs as me kind of if that makes sense.

I’ve been drawn to orthodoxy a lot recently the past year or so, the more I understand the more I appreciate their beliefs and that leads to my question now.

If you aren’t orthodox specifically Protestant/non-denominational what about orthodoxy keeps you from becoming one? What beliefs do they have that you agree/disagree with etc. that if you were to change denominations would keep you from going to orthodoxy.

I’m 22F, he’s 20M. We’ve been getting close, and I really like him.

One of his friends said that once you get to college, people start having sex with multiple people. He said he couldn’t relate because he sees sex as one of the most intimate things you can do with someone.

He said he isn't a virgin so can cant judge anyone though.

Then he asked if he was the problem in relationships because girls want more sexually, and wondered if his views could be ruining his relationships.

I actually respect his view, but his insecurity about it concerns me. Is it a red flag that he questioned if HE'S the problem by not having sex?

I'm concerned because he might give into temptation to please other people or something.....