I have been reluctant to call myself an atheist. Mainly because I associate the label with many negative qualities and find many atheists to be perpetually 14 edgelords who claim to be pro-science but seem to think the scientific method is composed of running into a church and yelling “Fake!”

I could go on if it were my intent to chase away my audience with a stick so I’ll mostly leave it there.

How can I see such angry arrogant bullies chanting “Sky Daddy!” and go “Yes I am one of them?”

It is illogical.

But I have no choice but to wear the label, because God is not real.

If God were real, Christians would be the kindest and most giving people in the world.

I don’t need to tell you how far from the case this is.

I don’t need to tell you about the cruelty of Christian movements. About how all their good will and charitable acts begin and end at “Believe in our God and stop complaining!”

They do not stop suffering, they deny it even exists. Claiming it to be part of God’s plan and how God doesn’t make mistakes. The latter is true because the former isn’t. God doesn’t make mistakes because there is no plan, there is no God.

This is insanity

While I have known Christians who are truly kind people, some of them I call my dearest friends… these are the exception not the rule. And even he, one of my best friends, will ignore his conscience and choose cruelty if he believes it the will of his God. Even if his Pope says it isn’t.

If God were real these Christians would not be so angry that non believers and transpeople exist. They would be fearful of his wrath and joyous of his love.

The rich would not horde wealth but spend it in service to the poor, for the riches of Heaven would be far greater and far more permanent.

If God were real he would heal the sick, we would hear of the miraculous healing of amputees. We would hear of gender dysphoric teenagers who awoke in a new body. We would hear how the angels themselves condemned Israel’s genocide of Palestine.

God would have saved my Christian friend who became brain dead in a hit and run, and actually dead two weeks later.

God would have halted the actions of every man of faith who decided to prey upon children, nay they’d be too scared of his wrath to even have thoughts of doing as such.

But God will never lift a finger to help anyone. Not because he is cruel or indifferent. But because he isn’t there.

Should I hear a voice with an otherworldly glow say “It’s me, the Lord your God. I am sorry for my absence, but I need your help to make this right.”

All would be forgiven and I would bow in reverence to Christ.

But that day will not come.

I am an atheist not because I am heartless and reject him… but because my heart calls out to him and receives nothing.

I have pondered if maybe God is around and some can hear him more clearly than others.

But then I remember how Conservatives behave, either using God for a selfish agenda or being suckered by false holy men…

And there goes that hypothesis.

God, if you’re willing to talk I am willing to listen. But sadly you aren’t because you don’t exist.

  • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
    1·
    3 days ago

    Read the Gospel of Matthew today and when I got to this part, it’s obvious that what he wants people to still follow is the ten commandments

    • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
      11·
      3 days ago

      Oh. It’s not the Ten Commandments. It’s the entire law.

      Like “don’t wear linen and wool together” and “snip the tip” and “hey, if your bride doesn’t bleed on the wedding night, you can wave the bedsheet around and stone her.” Or “you can buy slaves and keep them And give them to your kids as inheritance, as long as they’re not Israelites. Oh. And you can sell your daughters, too.”

      • QueenHawlSera@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
        11·
        1 day ago

        Except he proceeds to very clearly only reference the ten commandments and refer to them specifically as commandments.

        You’re clearly projecting something that’s just not there onto the text.

        Not sure why. Is “There aren’t non-biblical records of a Rabbi and his 12 homies running through Israel healing people of leprosy, a literal miracle, through touch alone.” Not enough of a reason to discount the text?

        • FuglyDuck@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          Except he proceeds to very clearly only reference the ten commandments and refer to them specifically as commandments.

          except the Law of Moses is not the ten commandments. The Law contained the Ten Commandments, yes, but generally, “The Law” referred to The Torah, and specifically, all of the laws given to the Israelites directly by god. Which are far more than just the 10. Sometimes, it can also be used to refer to the an Oral tradition (which is what the Pharisees were following… and which Jesus was critical of.)

          You’re clearly projecting something that’s just not there onto the text.

          No.

          This is not me projecting anything. This is very, very basic hermeneutics. Everyone around him knew what he meant, and we also know what he meant. “the Law of Moses” means the Torah- that is, the first five books of the Tanakh. those books are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. This was, and remains, common knowledge.

          When Jesus also adds “…and the Prohpets”, he’s referring to the prophetic books of the Tanakh. (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi.)

          At no point did “the Law of Moses” ever refer to just the Ten Commandments. And at no point in the scriptures did Jesus ever just discuss the ten commandments. It was always the full law. Always.

          The idea that Jesus came to create a “new convent” and overturn the old law is to justify and explain away why the jewish people largely did not accept him as the Messiah. (which they did not accept him because he did not fulfill any of the messianic prophecies. You can tell because we’re not in the Davidic Age where the Kingdom of Israel reigns supreme over all earth, having conquered every last nation and brought the most Sith-like “peace” imaginable.)

          Why is this important, you ask? Because, when people say “i like the teachings of christ” and such things, and espouse his morality… they’re espousing all the awful shit he taught. They probably don’t know about that stuff, because no one really likes to talk about all the bad shit in the Bible. No one really wants to understand the really ghastly nature.

          Because when one says “I think the Teachings of Christ are cool” one is really saying things like:

          -I think slavery is Cool

          Leviticus 25:44-47:

          44As 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.

          yes. this is chattel slavery. Yes. Jesus taught this was cool. He almost certainly encountered this type of slavery on a daily basis, and his adoptive father - Joseph- likely owned a few slaves, seeing as how he would have had need for laborers.

          - It's cool to murder 60% of your daughters on their wedding night because of a misunderstanding of basic biology!

          Deuteronomy 22:13-21:

          13 “Suppose a man marries a woman but after going in to her dislikes her 14 and makes up charges against her, slandering her by saying, ‘I married this woman, but when I lay with her, I did not find evidence of her virginity.’ 15 The father of the young woman and her mother shall then submit the evidence of the young woman’s virginity to the elders of the city at the gate. 16 The father of the young woman shall say to the elders: ‘I gave my daughter in marriage to this man, but he dislikes her, 17 and now he has made up charges against her, saying, “I did not find evidence of your daughter’s virginity.” But here is the evidence of my daughter’s virginity.’ Then they shall spread out the cloth before the elders of the town. 18 The elders of that town shall take the man and punish him; 19 they shall fine him one hundred shekels of silver (which they shall give to the young woman’s father) because he has slandered a virgin of Israel. She shall remain his wife; he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.

          20 “If, however, this charge is true, that evidence of the young woman’s virginity was not found, 21 then they shall bring the young woman out to the entrance of her father’s house, and the men of her town shall stone her to death, because she committed a disgraceful act in Israel by prostituting herself in her father’s house. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

          Which. To be clear. Part of the Oral teachings the pharisees followed but Jesus rejected included the understanding that this particular law was in fact totally unjust. 60% of women do not bleed the first time they have sex.

          The evidentiary standard for whether or not a bride was a virgin was, if on her wedding night, when her husband goes and has sex with her, and she does not bleed, she was not a virgin.

          Given that only 40% of women do in fact bleed, 60% of women are condemned to death regardless if they had premarital sex or not. ergo… this law commands killing innocent women simply because “god” was too stupid to understand the biology he created. or rather, the men pretending to be god.

          -I think it's cool that, If you wait 30 days after abducting a woman whose family you slaughtered, you can take her as your wife" and rape the fucking hell out of her

          Deuteronomy 21:10-14:

          10 “When you go out to war against your enemies and the Lord your God hands them over to you and you take them captive, 11 suppose you see among the captives a beautiful woman whom you desire and want to marry, 12 and so you bring her home to your house: she shall shave her head, pare her nails, 13 discard her captive’s garb, and remain in your house a full month mourning for her father and mother; after that you may go in to her and be her husband, and she shall be your wife. 14 But if you are not satisfied with her, you shall let her go free and certainly not sell her for money. You must not treat her as a slave, since you have dishonored her.

          This is literally saying that it’s completely okay to go into a city, kill all men there, and take the young women and hold them captive, and after you ever-so-generously allowed these captives to mourn their families- which you just slaughtered- to force them to become your “wife”, and have sex with them.

          This is, to be perfectly clear, rape. a captive cannot consent to marry their captor, and cannot consent to sex. we would recognize this as a very horrific warcrime today. it is a horrific practice which was common in the bronze and iron ages. Women were not people. They were property- and in war, they were spoils of war.

          - It's pretty cool that raping a woman was treated as a property crime, and if she was yet to be betrothed, I can just pay a fine and rape her for the rest of her life!

          Deuteronomy 22:28-29:

          28 “If a man meets a virgin who is not engaged and seizes her and lies with her, and they are discovered, 29 the man who lay with her shall give fifty shekels of silver to the young woman’s father, and she shall become his wife. Because he violated her, he shall not be permitted to divorce her as long as he lives.

          I mean think about it. you go and rape a girl who is probably under 12 (because that’s about when people started doing betrothals.) … the punishment is to pay some silver to the father; and she becomes his wife. the silver he pays is the bride-price that the father would have lost. The daughter has no choice is this.

          Back in the bronze age, women were essentially property, and they had no conception of marital rape. Like the warbrides above, there’s no consent here. Because property can’t consent.

          I mean, there’s more. By today’s standards of moralitiy, “biblical morality” is legitimately fucked up. When people, I dunno, base their policies off “the teachings of christ” what they don’t know can fuck us all over. In some regards, assholes like Mike Johnson are the correct ones on the issue.

          Not entirely because they’re good people, but because Jesus was largely a product of his time. (basically equivalent to an evangelical fundie, in terms of how he viewed the Law and morality.)

          This is not to say all christians suck. This is to say that the good people who happen to be christian are not good because of their faith, but in spite of their faith; and that the reason there seems to be a disconect between what is perhaps the majority of christians and assholes like Mike Johnson is that most christians either don’t read their bible or quietly ignore the bad bits where Johnson embraces the unpleasant bits. The irony being, that the only reason Jesus wasn’t a white supremacist too, is that jesus wasn’t white.