They don’t read the Bible.
this post was submitted on 29 Apr 2025
780 points (99.1% liked)
Political Memes
8048 readers
2237 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
They will cherrypick a few passages that are unique to the KJV.
You know, the specifically pro-monarchy version of the bible.
Yeah, I'm not American and English isn't my first language.
Because of this I was never aware of how many English translations of the bible there are. I also don't understand how anyone would want to stick to a translation as old and outdated as the KJV when we have multiple more modern and likely more accurate translations available today.
Yet SOMEHOW these American conservatives swear by the KJV and refuse to accept that other translations are likely more accurate and better to use.
Some even believe the KJV is the only perfect translation apparently. No other translation is allowed or even considered. I saw a video of a pastor saying that the KJV fixes the source texts. Wtf kinda logic is that?
Sorry for the rant. Feel free to ignore it.
Don't apologize, you're spot on.
To put it simply, the don't like the teachings of Jesus. What they want is a metaphysical justification for oppressing other people. It's a tool of the privileged and the powerful - the very ones Jesus spoke out against. :)
Yeah I recently got into reading my bible more and so far I love what I'm reading about Jesus and his teachings. I think he'd be very upset if he had to meet most of his "followers", though.
Jesus-from-Matthew (you know, the one written closest to the alleged events) is definitely my least-disliked NT main character.
Too bad Jesus-from-John (and fucking Paul) are who actually gets worshipped.
The bit where Matthew-Jesus says that preachers are like whitewashed tombs, shining on the outside and crawling with the most disgusting filth on the inside... 🧑🏼🍳🤌🏼
Mark is the generally-recognized first Gospel to be written, from which Matthew and Luke get some of their material
Ah thank you for the correction.
Sorry Chaplain Lent, I made you look bad in front of Lemmy.
Still gotta check out each version. I've only read Luke so far. Looking forward to comparing Matthew and John now.
Jesus has a massive punishment kink pretty much across the board; for a character who is pitched as bringing universal love, he's really really into describing exactly how he's going to throw most people into an endless pit of burning shit.
There's good stuff too, including excellent sales advice (parable of the fig tree, the mustard seeds).
There's good stuff too, including excellent sales advice
I need to remember to keep an open mind while I read. More than just religion and faith to be learned here.
Yeah unfortunately they are the pharisees and Roman soldiers of the 21st century.
Don't say that too loudly. Most of them have such a hard-on for Roman times and anything military that being called a Roman soldier might just make them think they're some kind of modern-day warrior instead of recognising it for the insult it's meant to be.
And even if they did, modern Christians just handwave away as meaningless anything in the Old Testament they can't justify because it's been "fulfilled by Jesus".
That's for sure. If they did, they would be very upset.
load more comments
(2 replies)
Conservatives love to ignore that the Bible is actually pretty woke.
My in laws are extremely religious and comservative and biggoted. This year at easter, my wife volunteered to pray. She had a bunch of verses like the one in this post and just ripped them through bible teachings that theyre dicks. It was awesome
I, too, choose this guy's wife.
If you're willing, I'd love to learn more about the specific verses as well as their reactions.
Except the old testament, God constantly wants pepple to sacrifie their kids, stone people to death, etc. He's not a nice dude.
There’s lots of woke stuff in the OT too. The above passage is from the OT. Entire chapters are dedicated to describing an economic system where capital can only be gained temporarily, then it reverts to the original owners’ family in Jubilee years. AFAIK it was never actually implemented though.
load more comments
(1 replies)
According to the old testament who aside from Abraham was demanded to sacrifice his kids? Also God spared the son of Abraham and gifted them meat instead. As for capital punishment that exists, but only in cases of severe and proven crimes.
Yeah, doesn't that sound insane to you? Hey, sacrifice your kid for me... ope, just kidding bro, here's some meat for being an obedient little removed.
load more comments
(3 replies)
Jephthah. Judges 10:30-40.
Guy returns from war after vowing to God that if he made him victorious he would "sacrifice to him the first to greet him upon his arrival home" or something like that.
God doesn't directly ask it. But his daughter comes to greet him first. And well God doesn't stop it.
It's obviously all nonsense. There isn't a god to judge as being good or evil. This is a story about some delusion guy that murdered his daughter after winning a battle. But still.
The bible is filled with blood sacrifice stories like this.
The apologia is that since it says she “bemoans” her virginity, she was only consecrated as a virgin or something. That’s the ass pull you get on the off chance that a Christian recognizes Jephtah’s name - they don’t really read Judges lol. (The other interpretation is that god doesn’t ask Jepthah to do the sacrifice, he’s just a dumbass and promises to sacrifice the first thing he sees.)
I don’t think there are any other examples of explicit human sacrifice other than that story, the binding of Isaac (where god intervenes just in time), and then Jesus himself (which is supposed to be a deliberate parallel to Isaac - god goes through with sacrificing the Son of Man, Abraham was spared making the same sacrifice.) I might be missing something though.
There is evidence that historical ancient Israelites practiced human sacrifice though, and that does haunt some of those passages.
Well, I would say that all of the stories in which god tells the Israelites to slaughter the inhabitants of a land is a form of blood sacrifice.
Especially the ones where God is really angry apparently and instead of telling them to rape the women and children; he instead commands that they all be killed as well.
Again. Obviously god doesn't do this. It's just humans killing other humans and using their god to justify it. Not unique to the bible and no reason to call out a specific religion (though the three Abrahamic ones all believe the old testament in some way or another).
I guess I don’t see slaughter in war as comparable to ritualistic human sacrifice - ie your statement
The bible is filled with blood sacrifice stories like this.
I guess there’s something different between
Happy is the one who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
and a formalized ritual sacrifice. Again, there is evidence that the ancient Israelites practiced some forms of child sacrifice - I think the precedent of Isaac and some cultural memory/shame/repression is something a little different and more complicated (and more interesting) than “the Bible condones being bloodthirsty in war and this can be read as a form of human sacrifice.” I’m looking for frames/interpretations that enhance my understanding of the text - not stop at “these were bad people” - and I think there are very interesting parallels and connections to be made between the three demonstrated explorations of ritualistic human sacrifice in the Bible.
From my understanding there is debate among even biblical (religious or otherwise) scholars on the level of ceremonial human sacrifice that the stories of Moses and Joshua's time partook in. There are laws against human sacrifice in the old testament. But there are also laws against most of what god commanded be done to non Hebrews. Most agree that the laws of the old testament primarily applied to the Hebrews only.
You can definitely read the early bible as "oh it was just war". But you can't really when there are specific stipulations on which women to kill or to "save for yourself"
They specifically are told to kill women that have "known men by lying with them". How they determined this is not clear. Likely through rape.
Numbers 31 is basically explaining a lot of the after battle events. "Cleansing themselves" etc. It definitely seems to be an organized part of handling the spoils of war.
I'd say finding a women after the war, raping her, and then killing her if she doesn't bleed sufficiently enough (likely how they determined this 'known a man') and doing this because it was commanded by your god is not necessarily "human sacrifice" in the ritualistic sense. But, I'd say it's not something I'd care to distinguish if we're talking about dehumanizing other people and killing them.
Which was my point to begin with. The bible is filled with these absolutely awful things being normalized to out groups. Whether they played drums and slit someone's throat at an alter like a movie scene is not really the requirement for "human sacrifice" that I'd require.
Human sacrifice can just be killing innocents in the name of your god. Which the bible is absolutely filled with. Ceremonial or not is not really important to me. The ritualistic part of it can absolutely be the aftermath of a battle. Which is when this slaughter of innocents primarily took place.
The bible is a fragmented mess of retranslations and secondary source material. Leviticus also has the verse about homosexuality that these idiots love to point to too.
It's definitely just a mess of contradictions. I wouldn't say "woke". Jesus was pretty woke throughout. Though some gospels more than others.
...Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
As a Jewish person, Israelis could also learn a lot from this
James 5:1-6
Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter.[a] You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.
Does this mean it's antisemitic to deport foreigners?
more WOKE rubbish!!!
Leviticus is the same part of the bible that tells people gays go to hell. And people who eat shellfish.
Fun fact: hell is not mentioned in the Old Testament. Christians came up with eternal burning damnation all on their own.
You are right that the (likely) prohibition on some form of homosexuality is the exact same (likely) prohibition against shellfish and pork.
It’s an influence from Greek though - lots of early Christianity is Plato/other Greek philosophers + Judaism.
I mean this was a time where people had legally codified indentured slavery for a certain time frame.
You or your family could sell yourself to work for 7 years and then after that you could choose to keep working there after a jubilee year or go to another master.
Usually most people who did this were foreigners.
People owned those guys. Powerful people with money to be able to keep indentured slaves.
So it makes sense to suggest people to treat these persons well. They might be slaves to a rich guy who already pays for them and doesn't want to have to spend more.
So yeah, treat them well
You are right, but the details are a bit of.
So there were two kinda of slavery. For Israeli the concept of indentured slavery was applied: 7 years and then you were free. But if you married during that time and had children, your wife and children remeined slaves.
So masters tried to find wife's for their indentured slaves, because most likley people won't leave back their family after 7 years. So Israeli slaves could pledge themselves to their masters for live.
When you buy a male Hebrew slave, he shall serve six years, but in the seventh he shall go out a free person, without debt. 3 If he comes in single, he shall go out single; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. 4 If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master’s, and he shall go out alone. 5 But if the slave declares, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out a free person,’ 6 then his master shall bring him before God. He shall be brought to the door or the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl, and he shall serve him for life.
For non Israeli (Gentils) their was just plain and simple slavery.
44 As for the male and female slaves whom you may have, it is from the nations around you that you may acquire male and female slaves. 45 You may also acquire them from among the aliens residing with you and from their families who are with you who have been born in your land; they may be your property. 46 You may keep them as a possession for your children after you, for them to inherit as property. These you may treat as slaves, but as for your fellow Israelites, no one shall rule over the other with harshness.
leviticus 19:35
Do not use dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity
Oh man the US is really fucked
load more comments
(1 replies)
Matthew 19:24
view more: next ›