Positive aspects/takeaway/lessons from Christianity?

I don't consider myself a Christian, nor any other kind of religious, as I can't personally "believe" in the supernatural. That is to say that as far as I can tell any phenomenon perceived as supernatural would necessarily be an as-of-yet unexplained natural phenomenon. In this light, I see no reason to ascribe to religious beliefs without even getting into the obvious fake/psuedohistorical/manipulative aspects of any organized religion.

That said, I still see beauty and traditional moral wisdom in many aspects of the Bible. Am I mistaken in feeling this way? How does one integrate what one perceives as positive aspects of Christian morality without falling prey to dogma?

Other urls found in this thread:

youtube.com/user/AominOrg/videos
youtube.com/watch?v=7XtEZvLo-Sc
youtube.com/user/CSLewisDoodle
twitter.com/AnonBabble

Also, what do you see as being the most helpful/poignant/beautiful aspects of Christianity for a nonreligious 21st century person?

>That is to say that as far as I can tell any phenomenon perceived as supernatural would necessarily be an as-of-yet unexplained natural phenomenon
it's interesting that you recognize your retardation, that's the first step toward fixing it

Are you saying that you think everything in the Bible actually happened? If not, where do you draw the line?

Also worth mentioning that I have no problem "believing" in aspects of the Christian God insofar as Abrahamic dogma is metaphor for morality/categorical imperative

the Bible is full of all sorts of different books, different genres, different authors
some passages are meant to be taken literally, some figuratively, some of it is allegory, some of it is poetry, some pastoral epistles, some of it is historic testimony.
you determine where the line is drawn is by examining the passages themselves, check them against context, historical and scriptural, try to figure out what the writer is trying to communicate.

the most important actual event that happened in the Bible is the death burial and resurrection of Christ, I believe it actually happened, and that good a case can be made for this if you're not dogmatically naturalist in examining the evidence.

>it actually happened and that a good case can be made for this

Make the case? I'm not an ignorant person, from what I've seen there is not a good case for this and I don't consider defaulting to that which can be shown/proven with evidence "dogmatic naturalism"

1: Christ is a historical figure. he died via Roman crucifixion. This is a historical fact. (see 1 in pic related)
no one walks away from roman crucifixion, it's a 3 step process.
if you survive the scourging and crucifixion, the third step is the deathblow.
they need to pry someone off a cross, so they would smash their head in or stab them through the heart with a sword or spear, or set them on fire, or let wild animals rip them apart.

2: We have firsthand and secondhand eyewitness testimony claiming he visited them in person after his death.
it's written in Paul's epistle to the corinthians.
please note, it's written in this epistle, but it originated much earlier than the epistle did, secular scholarship corroborates this (see 2 in pic related)
>3 For I passed on to you as of first importance what I also received—that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures,
>4 and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures,
>5 and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.
>6 Then he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.
>7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles.
>8 Last of all, as though to one born at the wrong time, he appeared to me also. (1 Corinthians 15:3-8)
notice that He's appearing to groups, that rules out the 'hallucination hypothesis,' because hallucinations are subjective to the individual.
this creed is also dated to around the month of Christ's crucifixion by secular scholarship as well, so that rules out the 'legend hypothesis.' because not enough time would've passed for the legend to evolve.

3: These people suffered severe persecution, torture, and death for holding this view.
which is not something someone who is unsure or knows that what they are professing is a lie is going to do.

so,
options ruled out as irrational:
A) the eyewitnesses were all lying
B) the eyewitnesses were all hallucinating the same thing at each occurence
C) the myth of this event evolved over time (legend hypothesis)
D) Christ survived the crucifixion

options left:
E) the event actually occured
F) as of yet unexplained totally natural phenomenon

>The Bible as historical documentation


I'm sorry but as far as I'm concerned conclusions A, B, C, and D are not ruled out by any of what you listed above

Has anything happened in the last ~2000 years beyond a point in history wherein it is not 100% believable that those individuals perpetuating the story/belief/myth had no idea what they were talking about?

Why would God expect people in the 21st century to place belief in as hazy and (you will admit) convolluted series of explanations/justifications amid the literal sea of similar claims by other religions that are easily to be taken as rationally false?

>The Bible as historical documentation
did you read what i wrote on the line after "please note?"
did you read the citations?
do you know the religious affiliation of those historians i cited?

In modern times being a virtuous person necessitates not falling for delusional bullshit. Why would God expect his people to believe a story which by all appearances is superstitious fabrication (without studying and prevaricating to the extent that you have above, of which 99% of the human population is not capable in the first place)?

The lessons of Christ work great as long as those you are working with are white people with empathy and a conscience.

For example: sometimes white people make bad decisions. They get caught up in a negative pattern, and keep making bad decisions, whilst still feeling some level of regret about them.

Jesus said: Let he who is without sin throw the first rock. About a woman who was literally going to be stoned to death. He didn't just pardoned her, he got people to reflect on their own natures, their own mistakes and sins, and thereby see lawbreakers in a more empathic light, as someone like them, or someone who could be them.

And he said to the woman: Go, and sin no more. Hence, forgiveness, a second chance. A new start.

All this fails when dealing with niggers. Christianity works great only for white people dealing with whites.

>virtue
there is no such thing as virtue in a godless world, that's delusion.
no good, no evil, no design, no purpose.
only pleasure and pain.
saying something is "right" or "wrong" would only be subjective opinions describing mental states, approval or disapproval.

>Why would God expect his people to believe
most normal people do when exposed to it

Well my personal conception of virtue is living a life which minimizes pain for oneself, one's family, and for humanity. As far as I see it the Bible and the word of the Christian God is pre-rational metaphor (and mandate) for a method of achieving such a life

>That is to say that as far as I can tell any phenomenon perceived as supernatural would necessarily be an as-of-yet unexplained natural phenomenon.

That's retarded as hell. Metaphysics is a thing.

Also I have no problem conceiving of "moral truths" as being absolutely subjective, it would just be the duty of the most morally and intellectually competent to engender moral beliefs in the less competent i.e. Jesuslike people.

>As far as I see it the Bible and the word of the Christian God is pre-rational metaphor (and mandate) for a method of achieving such a life
have you read it?

Metaphysics doesn't describe supernatural phenomena, just phenomena that would be explained by physics outside of our current understanding of physics. Or outside the physics of our known/knowable universe

And this is why people have an issue with atheists. You find the stark truth of atheism, that all goodness and value is inherently relative, too uncomfortable to truly consider. So instead you cobble together a patchwork creed based around not causing pain, with bits and pierces of value systems from here or there, and ignore the fact that for true atheism causing pain is no or less virtuous then diminishing it, because virtue does not exist.

The question instead, is why can't I except true nihilism, and have to invent phantoms to cover it up. Perhaps because the need exists not to cope for a lack of a source, but because the source exits and we are meant to find it.

>I have no problem conceiving of "moral truths" as being absolutely subjective
>it would just be the duty of the most morally [...] competent
how does that work?

I've read the Bible. The pain alleviated by belief in a creator allbeing and an afterlife is the most unbearable kind of pain there is, the pain that we experience when we realize that life is finite

look to the root of christianity: zoroastrianism

The most competent moral agents (as decided by an economy of attention/respect/etc) are agreed upon by collective human endeavor as icons of moral experience. That's essentially the world we live in today

>The pain alleviated by belief in a creator
it was the other way around for me
atheism was a comforting delusion:
>nothing ultimately matters and everything is going to disappear one day, so fuck it just have fun
whereas Christianity:
>there are objective moral values and duties, i have obligations, Christ died for me, and i am constantly letting Him down, every action i take is being observed by an omniscient deity, the choices i make are going to last for an eternity

>nothing ultimately matters and everything is going to disappear one day, so fuck it just have fun
From my perspective, Atheists who think this way are not competent moral agents and should not be percieved as such, nor do they appear to have thought through their actions to such an extent as to be considered competent moral agents by other questioning humans such as yourself. This is why you recoil in disgust at such a person because they are acting from an obviously hasty/ignorant/misguided set of imperatives.

Living life in the "fuck it, do what I want because nothing matters" mode will necessarily, inevitably lead to the pain of other humans beings, be that pain small or large, through committing acts which are not informed by a moral center. As I see it a moral center does not need to be derived from the mandate of God because I see no reason that any of those mandates could not have been created by a rational, moral human thousands of years ago.

>Am I mistaken in feeling this way?
Yes. Name one good thing Yeshua taught.

>And this is why people have an issue with atheists. You find the stark truth of atheism, that all goodness and value is inherently relative, too uncomfortable to truly consider.

More like: the only way people know someone is an atheist is if they tell everyone, and those telling everyone they are an atheist tend to be insufferable assholes.

What does "goodness is inherently relative" even mean? What is that an argument for or against?

G) Christ had a twin brother

>nothing ultimately matters
That's what Christianity teaches. This world doesn't matter, the things you do don't matter, your family and your people don't matter, just pray to Jesus and you'll be all good.
>and i am constantly letting Him down
Because simply being a living human is sinful.

I'm atheist and I believe that morality is subjective but that hard moral mandates/imperatives can be derived from the general subjective views of groups of people. I don't talk to people about religion/atheism in my personal life because 99/100 people have not thought about it much and out of that 1/100 people, the subjectivity of the topic is likely to lead to either an unpleasant disagreement or a fruitless impasse.

>That's what Christianity teaches
nah

>Living life in the "fuck it, do what I want because nothing matters" mode will necessarily, inevitably lead to the pain of other humans beings
so what? why should that matter to someone in a godless world?
we don't exist as a society, we exist as individuals
what's good for the gander isn't always good for the goose

You can't always get what you want and life will simply always be shitty for some people. Christian dogma seems to attempt to redeem those shitty lives lived by giving them the chance to break through the other side and go to heaven. I'm not *comfortable* living in a world where there is no redemption for those people, but in my view life is not comfortable and shouldn't be.

If you acknowledge that people subjectively form what they see as objective morality, what answer do you expect other than "my morality is objective"?

what does that have anything to do with the post you're replying to?

Go on youtube and type in "End times deception"

This is how I as an ex-atheist came to understand the bible is actually true. Hard pill to swallow but the more you dig it just gets truer and truer. It was a fuckin crazy experience. I use to CRUSH christians in debate, and now I'm one of them.

look at how compulsively the jews try to dismantle the ideology of christ and how much they hate him.

By your logic why accept the validity of any historical account older than 70-80 years?

People are inclined not to want to cause pain to others. As a rational person there is no objective mandate that says I shouldn't hurt other people but through empathy toward other humans I decide not to (within reason), I consider that the primary moral trait of humanity. People who extend logical understanding of causal reality (and disbelief in God) outward to a willingness to maximize their own enjoyment at whatever cost to other humans are not competent moral agents and aren't seen as such by anyone.

>I've read the bible

Favorite 8 books?

That's what Calvinism teaches maybe. Why weigh in on theology without understanding?

>empathy is the natural mood of man

You've never done sports clearly

Monogamy. Heterosexuality. Sobriety.

Do I have to name 8? I enjoy Genesis in a Tolkein-esque fantastical sort of way, Revelation is interesting, I think Matthew contains some of the better moral discourse present in the whole Bible, but most of the parts that "speak" to me are just disparate segments and truisms that hold water outside of the context of the Bible as a whole and having read the Bible literally decades ago I couldn't tell you where exactly they appear.

>first and last books only

Alright that's enough for me. Why come on here and tell lies?

...

My answer sounds like that because the Bible is literally this:

>copy/paste Silmarillion
>hundreds of objectively bad stories about Jews being shitty and God telling them not to be shitty
>Jesus happens
>This is how you will experience fire and brimstone if you don't believe everything herein word-for-word

The Bible is incredibly samey to the extent that I haven't gone back and read it all the way through since I was a teenager

>even more misdirection/extraplanation
>I haven't read it recently enough to have an opinion on it

Why are you engaging in discussions you have no context for and don't understand, isn't that absolutely humiliating?

Do you know any podcasts that are christianity based, not necessarily on scripture only but historical aspectsl ike what you have been describing?

One does not need to be able to quote Bible verses on the fly in order to discount the veracity of the Bible, dude. Even if I hadn't ever read the Bible that wouldn't change the fact that the various pieces constituting the modern Christian Bible were invariably written and compiled hundreds to thousands of years after the events they claim to depict. Learn how to use logic before appealing to humiliation.

this guy's is pretty good:
youtube.com/user/AominOrg/videos

>inb4 anti-calvinists or catholics bully me

So one of two things are happening here

>you're treating the bible in the context of what little of it you remember
>you're taking someone else's words about the bible and repeating them

Very scientific, can I read your dissertation?

This one is a bit over 2 hours long, but it will give you some very valuable examples of what you are looking for.
youtube.com/watch?v=7XtEZvLo-Sc

I have spent hours of my life reading the Bible. Reading the specific stories of the Bible does not add credibility to the Bible as a whole. I admitted in OP that I find some worth in the stories present in the Bible so for you to claim that my inability or unwillingness to drone at length about my favorite Bible stories as evidence of my inability to judge the Bible as a whole or the context of the work is simply a logical fallacy. You are committing a logical fallacy. Use logic, dude, otherwise you are not making a fruitful appeal to my intellect.

It's not a logical fallacy, you keep sidestepping the notion that no one actually believes you've read the bible (why claim to if you're also so hostile to the idea of reading it again) and you've shown ITT that even if you have you clearly have very little to show for it.

Again, you're misdirecting and misrepresenting what I'm asking you. Elementary empiricism would dictate that the bible is the precise place you'd start when writing a dissent on Christianity. Why do you feel differently? You'd write a dissent on a document you readily admit being unfamiliar with?

Your logic is as follows:

>You can't quote Bible verses verbatim, so
>Your familiarity with the Bible is not sufficient to call into question the *idea* or *context* of the Bible, so
>You must be lying about having ever read the Bible at all

There are huge logical leaps between those three steps. You want me to have devoted enough of my time to reading the Bible that I might be considered a Christian to have earned even the premise upon which I might question the veracity of what is told in the BIble. That's literal silliness and you're prevaricating hard, dude.

Yes, I do, and you should be familiar with the bible damn near cover to cover if you want to make any meaningful observations about it.

You can hardly discuss a 20 minute TV show with someone who hasn't seen it, and this is why no one respects your input or listens to you even when you aren't shitposting as a defense mechanism.

>whatever dude like I care

It's your thread, who are you trying to fool?

Also keep in mind that there is literally no answer that I may have given to your "8 books" question that would have been sufficient to convince you that I "know" the Bible well enough to call any aspect of it into question given that you are a Christian and that judging by your line of questioning you consider familiarity with the minutiae of the Bible to be the deciding factor in competence to criticize it.

An answer would indicate you at least looked at a list of the books of the bible

Your answer indicates you couldn't even handle that.

Also that the point of the thread was to ask for meaningful insight FROM THE DAMNED BIBLE, which would have been your perfect chance to proselytize in my general direction if what you were doing in this thread was not LITERALLY shitposting as a defense mechanism.

Must be getting to you if you keep engaging me and co-opting my rhetoric. Want me to sign your cock?

I'm kind of frustrated that this thread devolved into "lel u didn't read the Bible" instead of the celebration of the merits of the Bible that I initially had in mind, which I only sought out as a result of having a crappy day in the first place. You've widened the gap between myself and the hope of ever discovering inherent rather than circumstantial worth to Christianity.

How can you celebrate the merits of something you've never read? To what end would you go to verify Anons ITT werent just making things up? Why are you shit at even emotional argument?

>keeps saying I've never read the Bible because I haven't read it cover-to-cover 20 times

Like I said, this is pretty fruitless if you can't actually participate in conversation in good faith. You are literally saying that teaching me about positive lessons from the Bible would be pointless because I haven't read the Bible as many times as you have. You're wanking

You gotta stop watching so many talking heads and think for yourself. You don't even talk like a real person. You absolutely need to read the bible to discuss it, end of discussion, if you're too lazy to do that then there isn't much wider the "gap" between you and learning something can get.

My God you're a fucking faggot, nearly everything you've said in this was a baseless accusation that did not even remotely approach reality and your eagerness to insult/negate is the opposite of Christlike

Good luck getting into heaven with the attitude on display in this thread, dude

How would you know what Christlike is or not? Isn't that a baseless accusation?

>muh good faith

At the end of the day you're throwing a tantrum for being told to do your homework.

>a preacher would never tell you to read the bible

why so shit at emotional arguments?

If you are an actual Christian I don't think I have to point out the difference between what you are doing and what a priest would say to someone who came to them asking for wisdom. A preacher's response would not be "have you even read the Bible you absolute disingenuous faggot?" At this point I almost think that you're just trolling really hard

>common morality and values
>repository of history, tradition and culture
>provides a healthy and constructive outlet for "those personalities" (which have always existed) that if not for Christianity and positive community involvement, turn to things like Social Justice, Marxism or some other such evil thing, to provide a sense of purpose and belonging, that they require,, as an aspect of their rank-and-file personality

>A preacher's response would not be "have you even read the Bible you absolute disingenuous faggot?"
>he's never listened to pastor anderson

By and large he'd tell you what I've been telling you. Of course, you know that, and this is still a product of you trying to dilute how stupid you look by continuing the conversation, but that's fine. I'm having a blast.

>telling someone to read the bible is unchristian

Kek

>having a blast
Why is it fun for you to make people think that even articulate/intelligent Christians are mentally unhinged?

He went on to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard, rented it to some farmers and went away for a long time. 10 At harvest time he sent a servant to the tenants so they would give him some of the fruit of the vineyard. But the tenants beat him and sent him away empty-handed. 11 He sent another servant, but that one also they beat and treated shamefully and sent away empty-handed. 12 He sent still a third, and they wounded him and threw him out.

13 “Then the owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my son, whom I love; perhaps they will respect him.’

14 “But when the tenants saw him, they talked the matter over. ‘This is the heir,’ they said. ‘Let’s kill him, and the inheritance will be ours.’ 15 So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.

“What then will the owner of the vineyard do to them? 16 He will come and kill those tenants and give the vineyard to others.”

When the people heard this, they said, “God forbid!”

17 Jesus looked directly at them and asked, “Then what is the meaning of that which is written:

“‘The stone the builders rejected
has become the cornerstone’[a]?
18 Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; anyone on whom it falls will be crushed.”

19 The teachers of the law and the chief priests looked for a way to arrest him immediately, because they knew he had spoken this parable against them. But they were afraid of the people.
Luke 20

I wouldn't consider you a Christian so I'm not too worried about getting you to show how unhinged you are.

Haha you fucking faggot, I was talking about you

...

The only thing to take away from Christianity is traditionalism. You don't need religion for that. I was Christian until I was 17-18, I have nothing but respect for them.....well, most of the time. The truth is that most "Christians" are christian only my name and tradition. They largely do not practice what they preach. America isa majority Christian nation, enough said.

Agnostic Atheist, Traditionalist, white nationalists are the master race.

I grew up in a catholic-agnostic family.

I can understand the values in the bible, and I think people should read the bible even if they're not religious. It's good reading material either way.

That being said, I hate organized religion. People should take the values of their faith and apply it individually.

Easy. Talk to God, not Man.

I forgot to mention, someone recommended this youtube channel and I think content is amazing, minus the parts preaching against racial loyalty. See, that is what being a Christcuck gets you. Jesus was a socialist egalitarian. Anyway, here is the channel: youtube.com/user/CSLewisDoodle

you are never going to prove God's existence empirically, as you can prove, for instance, the law of gravity. what is more, if you could, then God would just be something useful, just as the law of attraction is useful. but that would be no real God, or it would be a very sad one. my view is very ontological. i can't prove that justice or freedom exist empirically either. but I love these things so much that i would not want to live without them, that is, i would be willing to die for them. they therefore define my existence, giving it meaning and making it what it is. God is to me truth, justice, and freedom all united into one. and i believe in God because i know that without the idea of the one, then things like justice have no meaning. if everything is not tied together, and there is no eternal, then why not be a degenerate, make money and fuck whores? but i can't do that - for better or worse. so despite the little proof of freedom and justice i see in the world, i still live for them. God is my love for those things, the unifying purpose. but do i believe in 'miracles' or Christ rising from the dead? these physical or tangible things are important to the common man - perhaps they are less important today to him - who cannot reason to God's existence. so I would not eliminate them. Moreover, even if Christ did not have such powers, he was still a good man, who changed the world for the better. finally, although i say that God is my love for these things, this love acts upon me (it comes out of nowhere as conscience does). moreover, it is also a love for order and truth, which does not exclude hierarchy, natural inequality, violence against degenerates (Deus vult!), etc. maybe this helps.

Did God intend for progressively more and more people to go to Hell by making the case for his existence progressively less and less believable as time goes on? If he wanted people to be Christians wouldn't he have left some evidence that didn't necessarily boil down to "x from over 1000 years ago said that x happened"?

especially when believing in such claims in regards to nearly any other subject (outside of the central claim of Christianity) would necessarily qualify a person as not having done their due diligence in seeking out truth?