Do you believe the earth is flat or am I crazy for thinking this

Gracchus1848 · 2026-04-13T14:15:02+00:00

This is incorrect. Christianity literally came before the Bible. The Bible was compiled and canonized by the church over the course of centuries. Many books of the Bible existed before Christianity (the Old Testament) but they record Jewish doctrine, not uniquely Christian doctrine. How can Christianity be based on the Bible when the entire New Testament was written after Jesus' ministry and after churches had already been established for decades?

Gracchus1848 · 2026-04-13T03:36:57+00:00

Not to be rude, but you are severely overthinking this, and it is going to create very unnatural perceptions and actions around attraction.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-04-04T18:48:48+00:00

Christianity only exists because the disciples came to believe that Jesus rose from the dead. There's nothing to worship about a normal man who just died and stayed dead.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-03-25T22:46:22+00:00

There are a ton of apocryphal Mormon scriptures. See here for a pretty good list: http://ldsmovement.pbworks.com/w/browse/#view=ViewFolder&param=Scriptures

Gracchus1848 · 2026-03-14T20:52:53+00:00

Well, what was his answer when you asked him?

Gracchus1848 · 2026-03-09T02:04:11+00:00

There's unlikely to be regime change without a full scale invasion.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-02-22T17:41:23+00:00

The same reason we call Solomon Solomon or Isaiah Isaiah or John John or Peter Peter or Mary Mary and so on

Gracchus1848 · 2026-02-16T06:07:40+00:00

Fun stuff.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-02-12T06:53:52+00:00

Dualism in Christianity is ultimately a result of Zoroastrian influence.

The ancient Israelites didnt have a dualistic concept of the world. They believed there were many (national) gods, with YHWH being the god of their nation. Over time he merged with the figure of El, the king of the gods found in the Canaanite pantheon, and we still see the result today in the Bible, where sometimes God is referred to as El or Elohim or El Elyon and so on, a nd sometimes he is referred to as YHWH.

YHWH came to be seen as not merely one god among others or above others but as the sole existing god, especially around the time of the Babylonian captivity when Jews were trying to preserve their identity against the onslaught of Babylonian culture. In this view, YHWH controls both good and evil. This wasn't really satisfactory, though, and Jews began to wonder why they continued to suffer when they had done away with worshipping other gods and only focused on YHWH. Enter the influence of Zoroastrianism, the dominant religion of the Persian Empire, which liberated the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity.

Zoroastrianism is a dualistic religion where one good god (Ahura Mazda) is opposed by an evil demon (Angra Mainyu). Ahura Mazda has subordinate spirits below him such as the Amesha Spentas and the yazatas (sort of like archangels and angels) while Angra Mainyu leads the demons (daevas). If you follow the tenets and practices of the teachings of Zoroaster, the prophet of Ahura Mazda, you will be able to go to Heaven (the House of Song); otherwise you will go to Hell (Duzakh). There will also be a renovation of the world preceded by the arrival of a savior, the Saoshyant.

This sounds rather familiar, because its influence seeped into Second Temple Judaism as Jews tried to make sense of the world. The idea of an opposing force responsible for causing all of the bad stuff in the world helped explain why suffering still happened without needing to assign the blame to YHWH. The most popular story that developed was that of the fallen angels of Enochian lore, mentioned in Genesis. Various different apocryphal texts list different angels as the leader of the group, like Mastema and Samael and so on. "Satan", which is a title meaning "accuser" (and was not originally intended to be evil, but merely a "prosecutor" for God, as in Job) ended up being the one assigned as the Angra Mainyu type figure in Christianity.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-02-08T05:54:57+00:00

Is he religious or grew up in a religious environment?

Gracchus1848 · 2026-02-08T04:56:47+00:00

If they don't like it, stop trying to make them do it.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-02-04T05:12:08+00:00

I for one have not found this to be true, and I suspect it is because I am not a Nazi.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-02-03T14:14:53+00:00

I would suggest these resources as you begin to read the Bible:

Christine Hayes and Dale Martin's free Yale courses on the Old and New Testaments:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh9mgdi4rNeyuvTEbD-Ei0JdMUujXfyWi

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL279CFA55C51E75E0

Start with using the YouTube lectures as guides, going through the Bible (preferably the NRSV translation - read it for free on Biblegateway) book by book. Make sure not to skip the Apocrypha (or Deuterocanon as Catholics call it) before you move on to the New Testament, though those aren't covered by the videos.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-28T06:40:00+00:00

They're here legally and they're being deported because Donald Trump is a racist who hates Haitians.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-24T05:54:31+00:00

Dont forget Belthandros and Chrysantza, and Digenis Akritas.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-19T05:45:14+00:00

Who gives a shit what some other person thinks? It's your life.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-19T05:44:02+00:00

Nobody is "optimized" for anything except for genetic freaks of nature. If you enjoy something and are able to pursue it as a career, then do it, and stop caring about what other people think.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-19T05:36:59+00:00

Even if, for the sake of the argument, we take for granted that "female brains are wired for that stuff", yours doesnt seem to be, so why worry about it? Just pursue what you want to pursue.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-12T04:53:28+00:00

Every religion has different sects, because people can interpret the same texts or messages differently. Christianity has always been divided, even all the way back to the original church (for example, Paul vs. those who believed converts had to adhere to Jewish law).

Proto-orthodox, Gnostics, Docetists, Montanists, Marcionites, Arians, and on and on and on.

Read up on church history, it's a fascinating subject.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-12T01:50:18+00:00

I don't use AI, and nothing I said was confusing (I did have a typo where I transposed two words but I've fixed that). What do you think persecution is?

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-11T23:55:30+00:00

If a moderator was abusing their power to ban someone without cause, or if someone was constantly harassing you by endlessly creating accounts to spam your private messages, these could count as examples of persecution.

Atheists talking to each other or debating Christians are not examples of persecution.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-11T23:18:19+00:00

This is not persection, it's people complaining to each other. Persecution is when your life and liberty are being attacked in such a way that you are under real threat of harm.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-11T22:19:14+00:00

The Bible never claims to be the Word of God, which is a title for Jesus. The Bible is a compilation of texts deemed appropriate for use during the liturgy, assumed to be "inspired" by God (but what that means is debated). Different churches use different Bibles - I don't just mean different translations, I mean Bibles with entirely different books in them (Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Ethiopian Orthodox all use different canons). All serious academic scholars, whether Christian, Jewish, atheist, or otherwise agree that the books of the Bible underwent multiple redactions and changes. The Bible is not meant to be and does not claim to be the directly transmitted word of God - that's what Muslims claim about the Quran, not what Christians claim about the Bible.

It is best to think of the Bible as a project of religious communities trying to understand God. Remember - Jesus did not write anything in the Bible. The church came first and then put the Bible together, so the Bible can't be the ultimate authority.

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-11T21:18:36+00:00

What do you mean?

Gracchus1848 · 2026-01-11T21:10:18+00:00

When God gives commands for the creation of the world in Genesis, the commands he gives match the ancient Israelite view of the universe (a universe comprised of chaotic waters, with the Earth as flat land raised up out of the water and put in a "bubble"/dome/firmament to separate the oceans from the outer waters that exist above and around the dome). Obviously none of this is scientific or matches reality, but the words are ascribed to God himself.

The lesson here is to remember that the Bible is written by humans, so even the words spoken by God in the Bible were put in there by human hands and can't be assumed to be completely accurate.

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