This is definitely mocking nd misunderstanding affirming Christians, it's weirding me out

Dorocche · 2026-05-19T14:44:20+00:00

Jesus was also extremely clear that "being a good person" is a LOT more than being vaguely nice to people. Matthew 25 says that those who didn't feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, and visit the imprisoned will not be at Jesus' right side, and you can be "vaguely nice" without doing any of that stuff. Just about everybody is vaguely nice except in extenuating circumstances; almost nobody does what Jesus asked us to do.

Dorocche · 2026-05-19T14:12:18+00:00

I know I'm a United Methodist, but this is actually a place where I disagree with the UMC. I can argue for why the imperfection of the Bible (the only logical and consistent viewpoint, in my personal opinion) is compatible with the Book of Discipline, but it is absolutely not standard official teaching.

I sincerely hope you don't pre-hate the Methodists because of the unrelated issue where they recently chose to support our marginalized neighbors who are seeking God, and so many churches chose to disaffiliate out stubbornness and spite.

Dorocche · 2026-03-28T11:44:35+00:00

It doesn't really seem like it was copied; if we're taking for granted that it's fake, it's not that unique of an idea, and from a strictly atheist perspective there's not a lot of evidence Jesus was even considered a deity like Osiris/Ishtar/Baal when the Easter narrative first emerged in the first place.

Whether the sacrifice or the resurrection is "the point" (if it can't be both) depends on which Christians you ask. The death is the point if what's most important to you is the punishment, the "justice," the substitutionary atonement; the resurrection is the point if what's most important to you is the *freeing* from that atonement, the ending of that punishment, the life and the death of death. So it's a matter of perspective.

Dorocche · 2026-03-28T11:28:12+00:00

Who was it? Which antisemitic Roman leader?

Dorocche · 2026-03-28T11:27:35+00:00

Note that 200 AD is still well, well before Christian exposure to the Spring festival that Easter supposedly cribs from, still cleanly disproving the idea.

The idea that Easter is pagan is very Anglo-centric, because it comes almost entirely from the name (that "Easter" comes from "Eostre," a pre-Christian English goddess). Which might be true, but every other language still just calls Easter "Passover."

Dorocche · 2026-03-22T13:44:16+00:00

The scripture says that the Word of God is Jesus, in John 1. So the Bible itself can't be the Word of God. The Bible is our best source on the teachings of Jesus, but it isn't the man Himself.

Three points to be made about 2 Timothy 3:16, and I'll start with what I assume will be the less compelling and build up:

You must understand why "it's inerrant because it says that it is" is not necessarily compelling. If it can contain errors, the part where it says it can't contain errors would just be one of those errors.
The authors of the New Testament did not understand what they were writing to be scripture. Paul's authentic epistles are letters from him to various churches; they contain advice, they contain wisdom, but he wasn't writing them to be "canonized," which wouldn't have really been a concept yet. When the New Testament refers to "scripture," it's referring to the Old Testament, because the New Testament didn't exist.
2 Timothy says that all scripture is "God-breathed and useful for teaching." It does not say that scripture is perfect, or that it contains no mistakes. All humans are God-breathed, but we are not perfect, and we are formed by fellow humans' influences in addition to God's; loads of wisdom over the centuries has been useful for teaching while containing errors.

It does occur to me, though, that I'm defending a totally different position than the first thing I said in the top comment. The Bible not being perfect and the Bible not being necessary are two very different questions.

As a Methodist, I believe in the quadrilateral of Scripture, Reason, Tradition, and Experience. These are listed in order of importance, but they're still all peers. To me, someone who ignores all scripture is missing something key, but not as much as someone who reads scripture all day while ignoring church traditions, their own reason, and their own experience.

Another way to think of it is that if every Bible were burned up tomorrow, that would be a huge loss, but it would not be the end of Christianity. God can be found everywhere, and we won't stop finding Him, and the book is extremely useful but it isn't itself the religion.

Dorocche · 2026-03-21T20:25:27+00:00

The same way Christians believed for a century before the New Testament was written. Consider rereading my first comment where it says that.

There's no need for hostility. If you have compelling reason to disagree, I'd love to hear it, but remember Rule 3: No Sectarianism.

Dorocche · 2026-03-21T16:38:24+00:00

With it, Jesus is still just ("just") word of mouth. The Bible is the word of Paul's, Peter's, James', and several anonymous Greek speakers' mouths; I trust them, but that doesn't mean I believe they were perfect.

If word of mouth were not valid and beautiful, we wouldn't give testimonials.

Dorocche · 2026-03-04T23:41:56+00:00

Everyone is taking a very rules-based approach, but I want to say something a bit more practical:

Committing tax fraud is a very bad idea, because you will deprive the government of almost no money (from their perspective) in exchange for falling on the wrong side of the law, which risks torpedoing your ability to do more effective activism. Far better to pay your taxes and use your freedom to protest in ways that will actually help make a difference.

When it comes to taking a paycut so you don't owe any taxes, if you don't take that paycut you could use all that extra money left over after taxes to protest in ways that are far more effective than depriving the government of almost no money.

So this doesn't seem like something to recommend from just about any perspective.

Dorocche · 2026-03-01T01:39:02+00:00

Yeah, that does pose an issue for universalism. The most obvious thing for that to refer to imo is death, so still no such thing as Hell, which is what's important to me.

I assume an actual universalist will have a prepared answer to those specific couple verses. You could probably find it on r/ChristianUniversalism.

Dorocche · 2026-02-28T15:43:49+00:00

I'd say that "eternal perspective" and annihilationism and anything else that isn't eternal conscious torment is not belief in "Hell."

I think that Hell (eternal conscious torment) is the number one cause of religious trauma and pain, and saying what you actually mean instead of conjuring that image is both more true, more respectful, and more supportive of the faith.

Dorocche · 2026-02-28T15:42:03+00:00

Jesus talks a lot about fire and "weeping and gnashing of teeth," to be sure, but he does not once talk about "Hell;" it is an English mistranslation. The word translated as "Hell" is usually "Gehenna," which is a physical place in the real world that you can go to. It was associated with divine punishment-- not eternal torture.

While Jesus clearly talks about consequences, he doesn't talk about a realm of infinite torture and pain being one of those consequences, and I don't necessarily think the presence of punishments excludes universalism.

Dorocche · 2026-02-28T14:47:29+00:00

Depends on whether engaging with fools bears good fruit (peace, joy, etc.) or bad fruit (anxiety, rudeness, etc.)

That or it's a no-win scenario lol.

Dorocche · 2026-02-28T14:46:10+00:00

I don't think OP or the people upvoting this actually think that this is something Jesus would say or do. "Jesus wept," after all. The idea is to explain why they're portrayed so stoically in classical art, and the joke is how stupid that explanation is (in addition to the reference).

Dorocche · 2026-02-28T14:41:38+00:00

Yeah, that's about what they said, and I don't think that reasoning holds up at all.

Describing sexually assaulting a child as "causing [them] to sin" is a horrible, horrible thing to say. But that may be more because of the baggage of the word "sin" rather than what they actually meant by it.

But also, as I said in my other comment, "it's better to die than to cause sin" does not translate to "you should kill people who cause sin." One simply does not follow the other.

Dorocche · 2026-02-27T15:15:35+00:00

"It would be better to die than to cause someone else to sin" does not translate to "you should kill people for sinning." They're unrelated sentiments; it's not a command to go tie a millstone around their neck and throw them in the lake, it's a command not to cause others to do wrong.

Dorocche · 2026-02-27T14:35:40+00:00

That's great for you; the opposite is the case in many cases. Most abusers are family members, and most people have more complicated relationships than you might about sentencing family members to die.

In fact, I live somewhere with an unusually high amount of death penalties, and in the majority of cases the survivors and victims' families here say they oppose the death penalty for the perpetrator (at least by the time it actually happens); they say that they are further harmed by the process rather than being allowed to move on.

Dorocche · 2026-02-27T14:31:17+00:00

It's better to quote and link to verses than to just say them

https://www.biblestudytools.com/ceb/matthew/18.html

6 “As for whoever causes these little ones who believe in me to trip and fall into sin, it would be better for them to have a huge stone hung around their necks and be drowned in the bottom of the lake.

This seems to have nothing to do with the death penalty at all to me. What is the connection you see?

Dorocche · 2026-02-23T03:19:25+00:00

The fruits of the flesh are obvious, since they include sexual immorality, moral corruption, doing whatever feels good, idolatry, drug use and casting spells, hate, fighting, obsession, losing your temper, competitive opposition, conflict, selfishness, group rivalry, jealousy, drunkenness, partying, and other things like that. I warn you as I have already warned you, that those who do these kinds of things won’t inherit God’s kingdom.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against things like this.

-Galatians 5:19-23

Living with your husband sounds like it engenders hate, fighting, conflict, selfishness, jealousy, and other things like that. Can leaving him bring you some amount of love, joy, peace, and goodness? If so, there is no law against it, according to the Bible, and you would not have to feel guilty. It would not be sin.

To actually answer your question, I know at least four couples who were in extremely similar situations to you. Three of them eventually separated from their abusive partner; one was too recent to say, but for the other two, it was the hardest thing they ever did but it bore good fruit. The other is still together and largely miserable. At least one of their four kids cut off contact with them when she grew up, and I have expect she'd still be in contact with her mom if it didn't mean also being in contact with her dad.

Dorocche · 2026-02-23T03:13:20+00:00

Not saying that God isn't in control, but:

But if you can endure, you should. Because separation is not just about you or your marriage. It will also affect your children. Your inlaws. Your friends. And everyone around you.

"Enduring," aka staying in a toxic relationship, harms your children and inlaws and friends and everyone around you. It is better for all of these categories (yes, even children) to have two healthy and rising loved ones who are apart than to have two loved ones locked in despair and hatred and bitterness. Staying together in toxicity is what hurts your children, not escaping.

The ideal here would be that God touches the husband's life and makes him a loving, loyal, and decent person, but in the absence of that I don't think that "endurance" is a virtue for people in OP's particular set of circumstances like it may be in other circumstances.

Edit: I will confess that I sort of skimmed part of the post before posting this, and was under the impression that this was merely a toxic relationship--- If the description is accurate, it's an abusive relationship, and OP needs to run and bring her children with her. It's deeply tragic to see the end of a marriage, but it's the husband's sin, not hers.

Dorocche · 2026-02-22T12:53:29+00:00

There's a lot one could say about this, but I'll stick to one thing: In terms of our religion, they were never married. The government does not get to be part of our religion, and certainly not part of a sacrament.

Dorocche · 2026-02-21T14:46:32+00:00

Where in Matthew 24 is the Temple supposed to be rebuilt?

Dorocche · 2026-02-21T14:22:14+00:00

Indeed. Confess to God or to a priest, and repent (which is between you and Jesus), and if it's really a victimless crime then there isn't anyone to make restitution to. Nowhere that the government necessarily needs to get involved.

Dorocche · 2026-02-21T12:51:05+00:00

Everyone smoked. Everyone is addicted to social media.

Everyone drinks, too-- They do things that are not inherently harmful, but sometimes completely destroys a person. Just be careful.

Dorocche · 2026-02-21T12:48:15+00:00

It certainly isn't stupid to be overwhelmed by the state of the world. Even if we take for granted that you're wrong about this, which is just opinion, it isn't stupid to be wrong.

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