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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsToday's Republicans do in fact have Christian values
Slavery, women as property, endorsement of rape, genocide (ok if Sky Daddy or his self-proclaimed moral authorities demands it), death penalty for many very minor offenses, suppression of learning and inquiry, apostasy is the greatest possible sin.
Yes, current Republicans are so racist they would be very happy if slavery of "non-whites" were re-instituted.
I could go on, but those are some pretty strong bullet points right there.
If you are a Christian and object to these characterizations of your Bible's teachings, you haven't read it.
Look at what the Christians of Europe have done over the centuries. Exactly that. Genocide, rape, slavery, authoritarianism.
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Skittles
(171,710 posts)yup
Elessar Zappa
(16,385 posts)My mom’s an episcopal and her church certainly doesn’t take the Bible all that seriously (which is a good thing).
Sibelius Fan
(24,808 posts)Skittles
(171,710 posts)so tired of hearing about so-called "Christian values" - how about just being a decent human being without expecting a reward in the end?
Think. Again.
(22,456 posts)Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)It’s all misogynistic mythology. Go by the golden rule — who needs all that other horse shit? Magic isn’t real, and gods don’t actually exist.
questionseverything
(11,840 posts)Because I can tell you that is not a winning game plan
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)The Christians who like the ideas of genocide, racism, rape, women as property, etc, are never gonna vote Democrat anyway.
questionseverything
(11,840 posts)Every thing you mentioned is from the Old Testament or “law”, you conveniently forget the love and forgiveness or “good news “ the New Testament delivers
slightlv
(7,790 posts)the Magats don't draw the their inspiration for their ideas and deeds from the Prince of Love of the New Testament. Instead, they worship Jehovah, the male sky god who kept pace with the other male warrior gods of the region. Maga Christianists have much more in common with Islamists than they have with New Testament Christians.
Sibelius Fan
(24,808 posts)“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
ancianita
(43,307 posts)Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)#1 Garden of Eden God's first mistake not knowing they'd eat the apple. Also, this is where concept of original sin is introduced, without which the New Testament, Jesus blood sacrifice wouldn't be necessary.
#2 Noah's Flood God's second mistake had to kill all men, women, children, infants, fetuses, animals and plant life and try, in his all powerful omnipotence, to get it right on his next attempt.
#3 Never condemns slavery, but, hey, here's a New Covenant.
Btw, this new convenant excuse is total BS
ancianita
(43,307 posts)
MorbidButterflyTat
(4,511 posts)Armchair/internet theologian who accuses others of not reading the Bible: it wasn't an apple.
wnylib
(26,012 posts)as MAGA fundamentalists. More literally than many Christians do.
Atheist zealots are like Jehovah's Witnesses, proselytizing based on literal views of the Bible. I can easily picture them in an English Lit class ridiculing poetic imagery because it is not literally true, or because they think that everyone who likes poetry takes it literally and therefore is stupid.
Yes, some people do take religious mythology as literal fact, probably the same people who take legendary stories about famous people as literally true, like George Washington chopping down the cherry tree. But not everyone does.
From an anthropological perspective, religion serves many purposes in a society. It provides shared experiences in ceremonies and rituals. Religious stories and writings provide shared cultural references and expressions. Religious writings are not history or science books, but they provide stories that express the people's feelings and perspective about historical and natural events. Religion does not strive for strict objectivity like science does, and even science does not completely overcome human subjectivity, according to Carl Sagan. Religion blends objective and subjective to find personal and social meaning in life's experiences.
Greek and Roman mythologies expressed many truths about human psychology in the stories of the gods.
The story of Adam and Eve expresses the human condition. Human beings are not all knowing or all powerful. We have the concept of a God or gods who are. They are the forces of nature and the universe that are beyond our control. We make decisions and choices within our own limited framework of knowledge and understanding. Choices have consequences that we must be responsible for, even though we can't know the outcome with certainty. That defines us as not being omniscient. The dilemma of the human condition is that we have to make decisions anyway within our limitations.
We are part of a whole. We are not THE whole of existence. Religious people ascribe that to a god that represents all that is beyond us, or in philosophy, "the great unknown." We do grow in accumulated knowledge over the years and millennia. Our understanding of each other and our place in society, the world around us, and the universes changes with time. So we have new interpretations of old stories or we place some of the old stories in the context of their times, no longer applicable to modern life.
But some traits of being human do not change, which is why we can still relate to the emotions and psychological truths in Shakespere's plays and poetry without embracing today the barbaric practices of the 16th and 17th centuries. There are still social and individual values and meanings in old religious writings that we can relate to today, without embracing customs that belong to a different time and context.
Some Christians today speak of the writers of the Bible being inspired by God and therefore they believe that every word and punctuation mark was dictated directly by God, as if he were a bearded, white-haired guy in the sky.
But to other Christians, the Bible was written by fallible humans seeking spirituality but sometines not transcending the limitations of their own cultural customs and human limitations.
As with most other things in life, there are many perspectives within religions so that they don't all fit into one stereotype. Some people, like a number of our Democratic leaders, find inspiration and moral guidance in their religion - Jimmy Carter, Joseph Biden, Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Raphael Warnock, Hillary Clinton. When you ridicule people for practicing a religion, you are ridiculing some of the finest Democratic leaders our nation has known.
magicarpet
(18,509 posts)magicarpet
(18,509 posts)... follow the teachings of the Christ - Jesus.
It is the faux khrishtuns who are excessively hypocritical and intolerant - who are of contention and ridicule - here and everywhere.
The Khrishtuns who wrap themselves in the cloak and the shroud of Jesus' under the guise they scrupulously follow his teachings - but in reality march to the drums of Fascism. That irks and concerns the secular masses to no end.
Don't shove your extremist religion and Hyper-Theocratic zealotry down my throat,.. thank you very much.
niyad
(132,440 posts)
anciano
(2,256 posts)slightlv
(7,790 posts)anciano
(2,256 posts)
JoseBalow
(9,488 posts)Sky Jewels
(9,148 posts)Karadeniz
(24,746 posts)somewhere, either son of...or of some town. It's hard to imagine anyone totally in a vacuum, isolated from everyone. The ancient Jews could belong to a broader community as well, some identification with a religious sect. Jesus didn't grow up in a vacuum, either, but we can toss out his relating to the Pharisees or sadducees. That leaves the Essenes, with whose lifestyle and beliefs he'd have been very comfortable with. They were very mystical, absolutely dedicated to the soul being our connection to Source and developing it...the belief found in the parables. They were also dedicated to equality and forbade slavery among their members. So, if institutional Christianity hadn't erased Jesus's connections to mystical Judaism, the anti slavery aspect might have prevailed!!!!
slightlv
(7,790 posts)The overall beliefs and mysticism parallels mine quite a bit. But they still didn't treat female apostles the same as the males. And it seems like the females "bought" themselves a way into the group as a whole with their families' money a lot of the time. They were still more along the lines of Paul when it comes to sex. Icky, yucky, detracts from Spirit.
It was "celebrate"... not celibate! 
Karadeniz
(24,746 posts)ancianita
(43,307 posts)lol they did believe in celibate, tho' 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essenes
LAS14
(15,506 posts)Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)that you've read the Bible, acknowledge it's endorsement of slavery, genocide, rape, etc but that you can claim to be a Christian and not follow your Bible?
I'll grant that you may call yourself a Christian and not find slavery, genocide and rape morally acceptable, but that just makes you better than your imaginary god.
rampartc
(5,835 posts)evanelicals on a mission to spread the gospel of god's prosperity for the small price of a "seed" and
meek and poor of spirit who try to live by the golden rule and share a few loaves and fishes...........
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)requires no god, no imaginary authoritarian dictator who also happens to advocate morally reprehensible things. Just throw that mythological god out and do good because it benefits all of us.
rampartc
(5,835 posts)i am fine with the golden rule and the sermon on the mount, i treat people as i'd be treated - usually leave 'em alone, but no god is required .
dchill
(42,660 posts)onenote
(46,142 posts)But he would strongly defend his values as Christian values.
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)He wouldn't include slavery, genocide, rape and authoritarianism, but would name other values that could more accurately be described as humanist than as Christian, at least if Christianity is presumed to have something to do with the Bible.
Also, a self-declared atheist could not currently be elected as President of the United States, given the extreme ignorance/prejudice of so many Americans.
I guess the difference is in deciding what we call "Christian values". I assert that the Bible is the source, not the claims of people claiming to be Christians, every one of whom has their own cherry-picked version of what their religion is.
orangecrush
(30,256 posts)Dr. Martin Luther King?
lees1975
(7,046 posts)I'm not going to argue. The context for interpreting the Bible from a Christian perspective is the words of Christ, and his interpretation. And it's not that. There are good commentaries on exactly what all of it means, for those who are interested. I don't think you are.
But I will agree, that today's Republicans are headed toward bringing all of that back, in some form, though when it gets down to basic philiosophy, if the Republicans do win this thing, their battle is going to be between the financial interests who want Trump in there so there's no restriction on their redistribution of wealth to their pockets, and turning America into another Russian oligarchy with them at the top, and the Christian nationalists, whose philosophy is opposed to the accumulation of wealth, although their religious convictions don't seem to be worth the time it takes to spew them out.
We are in trouble now, people, if you believe the data and the oddsmakers. This is where we are headed, regardless of whether you think this is a correct Bible interpretation or not. The election is not much more than four months away, and a lot of people in this country have lost their minds. Twenty years ago, 34 felony convictions and a looming prison sentence would have ended any Presidential candidacy. The fact that this hasn't done that in a week is troubling. And it is telling the world that there's much to be doubted about American Democracy.
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)apparently the context for interpreting the Bible is not what is written there, or in the history of how it came to be written there, but only can be properly understood if you put on your "Jesus is good therefore these words must be good" glasses.
How do you interpret the Old Testament without the "words of Christ" since (supposed) Jesus hadn't even been (supposedly) born yet?
How about this lees?: "The context for interpreting the Koran from a Muslim perspective is the words of Allah" Exactly the same soundness as your proposition.
How about this, less? The Bible is total made up crap. None of the values you'd like to claim for it cannot easily be found in virtually every other MAN-MADE religion.
Goodheart
(5,760 posts)- the late, great Robert Green Ingersoll, the most remarkable American most people have never heard of; who before the invention of television and radio was seen and heard by more Americans than any other person.
ancianita
(43,307 posts)If one wants an interesting look at the Pentateuch -- which simply means "five books" -- take a look at biblical scholar Michael Heiser's The Unseen Realm and Reversing Hermon (which explains the Book of Enoch, found in the Qumran Scrolls found in 1948) and one will never read the NT writings of Peter, Paul, Jude, or first 5 books of the Bible the same way again. As only a small part of their info, each book explains how evil came to be originally conceptualized, not as what Pharisees called "devils," but as forces, that are, of late, called 'the enemy' by many well read, scholarly Christians.
Goodheart
(5,760 posts)ancianita
(43,307 posts)As former slaves who knew nothing at all about how to organize their own lives (remember that generations only worked, slept, ate whatever they could find, and were in absolute desolation physically) after pharaonic captivity, they had to be told what's right and wrong, what to do/not to do, etc. They were "chosen" to go through a process of moral and god consciousness. They weren't appreciative of freedom and free will.
Numbers is the culmination of the story of Israel's exodus from oppression in Egypt and their journey to take possession of the land God promised their fathers. As such it draws to a conclusion the themes introduced in Genesis and played out in Exodus and Leviticus: God has promised the Israelites that they shall become a great (i.e. numerous) nation, that they will have a special relationship with him, and that they shall take possession of the land of Canaan. Numbers also demonstrates the importance of holiness, faithfulness, and trust: despite God's presence and his priests, Israel lacks in faith and the possession of the land is left to a new generation.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Numbers
Often the punishment of a God that no human could withstand even the presence of, was blamed on the Israelites, who were only being taught the courage to "make a home." Kinda like Harriet Tubman had to force slaves to leave at gunpoint, since they were so used to the safety of their misery and knew nothing of what freedom could be. I believe they called her "Black Moses," too.
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)ancianita how about considering not believing extreme claims (eg., god exists) without compelling evidence.
You are basing your life on lies and beliefs without good evidence. I feel sorry for you and I shutter at the thought of a society run on the values you espouse.
Voltaire2
(15,377 posts)Last edited Mon Jun 17, 2024, 01:27 AM - Edit history (1)
the people in the areas she led them to? I didn’t know that.
Also Africans were actually enslaved in America. That is an historical fact. Jews were not enslaved in Egypt. There is zero evidence that the myth of exodus is related to historical facts.
ancianita
(43,307 posts)called freedom.
So Exodus is another hoax, huh? Amazing that so many have been duped because of lack of evidence for a few thousand years. Take your claim up with Jews and their Hebrew Bible scholars about their ancestors who wrote the Masoretic text of their story.
Exodus 12:40 "Now the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masoretic_Text
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalist_chronology
Yet, biblical scholar Graham I. Davies notes that several literary texts from Ancient Egypt document the presence of Semitic peoples working for building projects under the 19th Dynasty of Egypt, suggesting a possible historical basis for the account of Israelite servitude to the Egyptians.
In a few hundred years people might just as casually say there's no evidence that a democracy ever existed in America, too. Destroying documents is what revisionists do when authoritarians win. That our 'experiment' of living by "an idea" and rule of law was for nothing. Just a myth, some cult of freedom, when future leaders say "don't say gay" and the only freedom is through work and obedience.
Voltaire2
(15,377 posts)One person was real. Freed African slaves did not develop genocidal myths about their liberation or the heroic people who helped them.
Marcuse
(9,010 posts)Robert G. Ingersoll Dead
The Famous Agnostic Passes Away Suddenly at His Summer Home
Religious Views Unchanged
No Evidence that He Abandoned Agnosticism, Though He Expressed Hope of Immortality
One would think that that the statement “Religious Views Unchanged” would be sufficient to dissuade people from thinking otherwise. However, stories regarding a ”conversion” on his death-bed began circulating, and, finally having enough of these rumors (mostly spread by highly evangelical clergy), Eva A. Ingersoll, RGI’s wife, with two others who were present (Sue M. Farrell, RGI’s sister-in-law, and Sue Sharkey, the housekeeper) signed an affidavit on March 17, 1906. This notarized affidavit restated and confirmed everything that was mentioned in the New York Times newspaper article.
In June, 1909, David Eugene Olson, an evangelical preacher from Oregon, published another affidavit, this one signed by an Archie E. Berry, which stated Berry’s father, Joehiel, heard Ingersoll’s confession on his death bed and that Joehiel was Eva Ingersoll’s brother! A refutation of these falsehoods followed with a second affidavit by Eva, and one by Maud, Ingersoll’s daughter, who was mentioned in Berry’s statement. (“Lying About Ingersoll” by George MacDonald, Blue-Grass Blade, Lexington, Kentucky, February 27, 1910, page 4.) This notarized statement indicated that not only were no outsiders present, but Eva was not related to Berry. An offer of $1,000 was made to anyone who can prove the statement by Berry as true.
Marcuse
(9,010 posts)
mcar
(46,056 posts)Xtians are supposed to follow the New Testament. The good ones actually do.
I am a cradle Catholic, educated in parochial schools. I even attended a Jesuit college. In the '60s and '70s, Catholicism was about love, acceptance, and helping others. It was actually quite beautiful - and I got a great education.
I no longer consider myself Catholic or even that religious, although we did raise our kids in the "faith."
The Catholic church has mostly become all abut about abortion. Plus, there's the whole priests raping kids thing. 
But no, Republicans don't have true Christian values, they have bastardized Old Testament values mixed with white, blue-eyed Jesus carrying an AK47 values.
ancianita
(43,307 posts)Last edited Sun Jun 16, 2024, 10:07 PM - Edit history (1)
You're seriously in error (some might even say you're lying ) when you don't quote any Bible passages that endorse
"Slavery, women as property, endorsement of rape, genocide...death penalty for many very minor offenses, suppression of learning and inquiry, apostasy..." You can't. Because there aren't any.
And when you say "If you are a Christian and object to these characterizations of your Bible's teachings, you haven't read it," YOU"RE the one who hasn't read it.
Nor do you know a single thing about the teachings of Jesus or his words in the New Testament, or New Testament teachings.
When you say "Look at what the Christians of Europe have done over the centuries. Exactly that. Genocide, rape, slavery, authoritarianism" you show you know nothing of European history.
If you don't believe in a God, or even make reference to the historical Jesus, you're not qualified to say what the Bible is or isn't. Nor what Christianity is or isn't. No sources, no facts, just 1st Amendment broadbrush attacks and shit talking.
Keep drinking that haterade and spouting off to 51+ percent of your fellow Democrats who are Christian.
You need to go read something. Try this, by a professor of history at Princeton. It's gotten rave reviews.
Have a peaceful Sunday. Brought to you by Christianity. 
spike jones
(2,020 posts)ancianita
(43,307 posts)spike jones
(2,020 posts)ancianita
(43,307 posts)I found the earlier bit about the Vandal and Goth Arians interesting. This book explains the period up to around the Lateran Council of 1215, when Christianity transformed itself.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/06/06/the-workings-of-the-spirit-christendom-peter-heather/
spike jones
(2,020 posts)this general time period is known as the Dark ages.
Christianity soon transformed itself to the inquisition, witch burning, and crusades.
ancianita
(43,307 posts)I thought you just posted that it all was the Dark Ages. A misnomer of that period, anyway, since most of the first scientists of that period were clergy. At the Lateran Council of 1215, Christianity transformed itself into the Catholic Church.
The historical sins of leaders does not define Christianity, any more than a scattered group of scared disciples (when Jesus was arrested and killed) define the church that Jesus later transformed them into growing, by helping them understand all the scripture in a way that neither they nor the Pharisees had really understood. He said he did not come for the righteous but for the broken. Everything else he did and taught followed from that. What later christians do that's evil is the misuse of their free will.
Funny how the rest of the world is saying that our democracy is no model anymore, based on how badly people abuse the law and irresponsibly use their freedoms in it. Yet none of us is going to say that's a fair assessment of the state of democracy, are we. And so it is with Christianity. Things that last a few hundred years could be as easily discarded as things that have lasted thousands, right?
spike jones
(2,020 posts)Response to ancianita (Reply #26)
Post removed
pwb
(12,667 posts)If you think everyone should think like you, you are in the wrong party.
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)That everyone should think like me? Straw man much, dude?
pwb
(12,667 posts)You don't know politics for sure. Or the Bible, get your testaments straight.
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)go ahead, I'll wait
And, golly, I guess I should be sorry I don't know my politics or religion and I guess I should think like you.
pwb
(12,667 posts)I get you, you are against all republicans and a very large section of democrats, but you are a democrat right? You are lost friend.
ancianita
(43,307 posts)Judging ancient text and history using some 20th Century word like genocide.
You are serious? You can quote but don't understand the world of those writers, or even who the Levites were. That's the ignorant hate you weave around this site.
You insult fellow Democrats for things you haven't even read, or read about, or understood if you did read it, when whole university majors exist to study what you think you know so much better.
Right now you in all your unserious glory, live in the "modern" world of child marriage and human trafficking, and it's not Christians doing that. So stop lying about your hateful attacks masked as expertise.
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)how about "the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group."
The more you type the more pity I have for you, the lengths you go to deny/obfuscate morally reprehensible teachings of your "holy" book.
University majors in Theology are as useful as university majors in Spiderman books. Fiction, my dear.
ancianita
(43,307 posts)Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)Aren't you special
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)the days were named after the planets of Hellenistic astrology, in the order: Sun, Moon, Mars (Ares), Mercury (Hermes), Jupiter (Zeus), Venus (Aphrodite) and Saturn (Cronos). The seven-day week spread throughout the Roman Empire in Late Antiquity.
Hey, why don't you call The Line and give your compelling evidence for god? They've debated Ingersoll, and easily defeated his arguments.
Have a blessed rational day!
Goodheart
(5,760 posts)Baloney: "If you don't believe in a God, or even make reference to the historical Jesus, you're not qualified to say what the Bible is or isn't."
The OP is perfectly entitled to condemn the Bible... and correct.
No endorsement of genocide? Take a look at Numbers 31, where the Lord orders the genocide of the Midianites.
Women weren't treated as property? Take a look at Jeremiah 6, where the Lord GIVES away wives as punishment.
The Bible doesn't endorse slavery? See Leviticus 25.
Now, you might say that Jesus came to deliver a new set of ethical code, but please point to where Jesus condemned any of that?
And here's more baloney: "Nor do you know a single thing about the teachings of Jesus or his words in the New Testament, or New Testament teachings."
I know quite a lot about the teachings of Jesus. So does Richard Carrier, doctorate in ancient history from Columbia University, who is definitely not a Christian.
Is the OP dissing fellow Democrats? I don't see it that way. He's dissing those who still cling to Old Testament virtues, not your own New Testament codes which apparently considers the Old Testament mandates as null and void.
ancianita
(43,307 posts)whoever doesn't diss Democrats shouldn't proudly parade their ignorance of Christian history, biblical history, as expertise, which does nothing to unify the party for getting their Christian Catholic president elected.
Biden believes what 51 percent of Democrats do.
So yeah. You're dissing your president's beliefs and values. They've actually driven the work he's done so well so far, whether you want to believe that or not. And he's not "in the closet" about his Christian beliefs, either.
Even when I was an avowed ATHEIST I didn't do such things on DU. WTLF
Go ahead. Share this thread with our party leader, Joe Biden. He'd probably defend the 100 year old family Bible he swore his oath of office on, and defend Democrats' Christian faith a lot better than I can.
Goodheart
(5,760 posts)Generally, Republicans are Old Testament. Democrats are New Testament. Now, Republicans will declare themselves for Jesus, sure, but they'd be far more willing to impose Old Testament methods.
At the moment I'm sort of with you: I don't see an advantage at this time to be bashing voters as "Christian". Maybe as pre-Christ biblically brutal, sure.
ancianita
(43,307 posts)Last edited Tue Jun 18, 2024, 10:24 AM - Edit history (1)
I ran across this the other day, and think it's something to keep in mind when Democrats here defend any divider/attacker of Democrats who are Christian:
Catholics went on to support Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal, breaking ranks with the Democrats only to reelect Dwight Eisenhower to his second term in 1956. They reverted to form in 1960 and ’64, voting for John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, both Democrats.
You would never see a group of Catholic bishops praying over the president in the Oval Office. As a result, according to the Pew Research Center, Catholics are less likely to hear political messaging from the pulpit than other denominations. There are some rogue bishops and priests who get a lot of media attention, but most prefer to avoid politics.
The truth is that few Catholics are influenced by what the bishops say, even on abortion. Most laypeople have already made up their minds. Political parties are bypassing the bishops and appealing directly to Catholics through political action groups supporting their candidates.
If this election is going to be as close as the pundits are predicting, Catholics in swing states could make the difference. Neither party has a lock on these voters. A few percentage points one way or the other could determine the election.
https://www.americamagazine.org/politics-society/2024/06/11/catholics-decide-2024-election-248120
chouchou
(3,144 posts)
ForgedCrank
(3,096 posts)know a single Christian who subscribes to even a single point that this post tried to make.
Or maybe this post refers to a politician who claims to be a Christian and there is a misguided correlation of sorts going on.
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)My point: modern Republicans are claiming they have Christian values.
Looking at the Bible, it's values are, first and foremost, obedience to authority, ie., authoritarianism, and endorsement of genocide, rape and slavery to the benefit of a tribe. Those align with MAGAt values.
The fact, and it is a fact, that so many people call themselves Christians and actually have values opposed to those in the Bible, shows either they haven't read the Bible or they've invented their own version of "Christianity" that is wholly cherry-picked, while ignoring the main lessons of the Bible: kill for your tribe.
Stardust Mirror
(685 posts)your precious Ten Commandments:
#1 Obey authority (I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.)
#2 Obey authority (You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.)
#3 Obey authority (You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.)
#4 Obey authority (Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.)
#5 Obey authority (Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.)
50% of the Commandments, the first ones listed, and commands to obey authority.
Don't steal, lie, kill, golly, I guess no other civilization prior to the Abrahamic every figured out that it is in their interests not to kill, steal or lie.
Or the Golden Rule? Five centuries before Christ, Confucius set forth his own Golden Rule: "Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself.".
So, to repeat, Christian values as expressly laid out in the Bible: authoritarianism, genocide, rape, pillage, slavery, women as property.
pwb
(12,667 posts)You must have read the Bible fast eh? Come on. You got your point across. You think religion hates you, they don't, but you go ahead.
Mariana
(15,626 posts)Said property that is not to be covted includes houses, livestock, slaves, and wives.
RockRaven
(19,373 posts)of that label, or lack thereof, for any given individual is dependent upon internal thought processes which are not accessible to others. So whoever says they are a Christian is a Christian as far as everyone else is concerned because nobody is a mind reader.
So "Christian values" are whatever people who call themselves Christians express as values -- and in today's America that is an enormous pile of nasty shit, and no reference to or quotations from any book is even required to know that.
uponit7771
(93,532 posts)LAS14
(15,506 posts).... differing positions. Maybe the OP author will get his mind jiggled a little.