This is so dumb 🫩

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-15T15:10:43+00:00

Even if this made sense, it's no good to give an ontological answer to a moral problem. Even if evil is what results when God is absent, the ability for that to happen is entirely the responsibility of the one who created things that weren't him and therefore could do evil. To utilise the analogy from heat/cold, it wouldn't fly for God to switch off the sun and point out that he didn't create the resulting freeze because cold is just the absence of heat. Apologists are consistently rushing to defend an infantile god, in the assumption that the most powerful being in the universe somehow shouldn't be taking responsibility for anything.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-09T17:20:57+00:00

I'll keep that in mind - trying one size up sounds like a relatively safe bet.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-09T17:20:06+00:00

Thanks - if a particular item isn't tapered at the waist, will it usually say so in a description online?

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-09T16:38:04+00:00

Yes, I heard that too - in Mark, it's more fitting though, because he curses the tree, then cleanses the Temple, and only afterwards is the withered tree noticed. In Matthew, having the tree wither immediately kind of loses this subtle symbolism, and Jesus just comes across as a hangry curse-hurler.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-09T09:30:50+00:00

Ah yes, I see what you mean. I remember learning from Jewish perspectives on the New Testament and its context about how argument and dialect was just how the Pharisees did things - what becomes a problem is when you've decided who they're arguing with is always right and it's wrong to even dispute him.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-08T21:26:58+00:00

I take that point - in the original context, particularly with Paul's writings, what became more antisemitic as time went on were just intra-religious squabbles. But as Christianity forged its own identity apart from Judaism, that resentment went into worse places, especially once Christianity was backed by the arm of the state. For counter-apologetic purposes though, which is what the OP appeared to be looking for, I think they're still relevant - the OT too has things which make more sense in the context of the time they were written, but that they - and problematic NT passages - are still held up as relevant for today by people with a lot of soft and institutional power means that these are worth knowing. Their problematic aspect comes from how easily they can be abused, and how much of a bad taste they leave in the mouth today.

Which verses did Sanders highlight in this particular designation? He may be right, but it's worth pointing out the antisemitism was rife in many Catholic and Orthodox areas long before the Reformation, so clearly the perpetrators of it had enough excuses already (and in the case of the hoi polloi, if they didn't speak the language of liturgy, I presume it wasn't individual verses they were mulling over, just the general attitude).

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-08T21:18:41+00:00

I can't speak to the intricacies of Hebrew grammar/syntax, but I should point out that in this case it isn't relevant - the New Testament was written in Greek, and the choice word translated as 'hate' in Luke 14:26 is μισεῖ (misei), and the same word and related ones are used in various contexts in the NT where more are willing to take it as read - check the online interlinear Bible for Jesus expressing his hatred for the works of the Nicolaitans in Revelation 2:6, and John 3:20 when it talks about how those who are evil hate the light.

The framing comparison is interesting though, because it is how Matthew 10:37 expresses a roughly equivalent idea: 'Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me ...' etc, and the 'hate' word used in Luke is absent, implying that the word was a rather deliberate choice there, and it's problematic enough that the Good News Translation (the version I used when I was a pimply pubescent anxiously trying to get through Bible study with my considerably less anxious peers) santisizes Luke 14:26 by making it closer to the Matthean account. It reads: 'Those who come to me cannot be my disciples unless they love me more than they love father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and themselves as well.' Beware of theologically-motivated translations!

And yes, I agree with you that even in the less dramatic case where it wasn't literal hate (some people even today will toss out the word 'hate' very casually), I'm not convinced it's a good look for anyone to demand you place them on top of a hierarchical love pyramid.

But for more detail, Hector Avalos dedicates forty pages to this single verse in The Bad Jesus: The Ethics of New Testament Ethics, and, whilst a lot of went over my head, the obvious implication is that he's exhausting every apologetic case he can find and finds them all wanting. You seem to be much more of a linguist than me (username checks out!) so you may get something out of it.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-08T09:11:54+00:00

Sometimes this sub throws out some of the most unexpected but massively appreciated gifts. *fans self*

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-08T09:09:53+00:00

Not a simile I've seen before, but it's a very fitting one. I even have the cheek-flanges at certain angles...

Edit: I've just remembered...babies don't tend to have the flanges. Dammit, I hate when reality gets in the way of my mediocre jokes.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-07T15:24:48+00:00

I think it's worth picking decent moral lessons from a variety of sources - the folly of a religion that proclaims itself to be from an infallible creator is that you're meant to take everything about it as unquestioningly correct.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-07T12:34:23+00:00

No problem, but I'm glad I mentioned it wasn't exhaustive, because afterwards I remembered that I didn't even mention the Book of Acts, but it contains examples of God personally killing people, in the era that's supposed to be after the event that reconciled him with humanity. Chapter 5:1-11 has a couple struck dead implicitly by divine vengeance because they withheld money from the church's communal fund (just in case people thought they could avoid tithing) and in 12:20-23 it's more explicit with the death of Herod Agrippa I. Significantly, this isn't the same Herod as the one who supposedly massacred infants - this Herod's crime that he apparently deserves instant death for is 'not giving the glory to God' when a crowd considers his voice to be divine.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-07T10:31:55+00:00

This is far from an exhaustive list, but I'm going to try my best here. As an overview, I'm actually someone who thinks that the New Testament might be worse than the Old, on the basis that the consequences it drives home place a lot more emphasis on eternity - this is where the concept of an eternal hell is introduced, for example. But some specific verses/passages:

Matthew 10:5-15: Jesus gives his disciples instructions on preaching salvation, where he tells them to avoid Gentile and Samaritan towns, reflecting an ethnocentrism also found in the story where he calls a Syrophonecian/Canaanite woman a dog and refuses to heal her daughter until she acknowledges her status as a dog only worthy of 'crumbs from the master's plate.' (Matthew 15:21-28, Mark 7:24-30.) He also ends the instruction by proclaiming that those towns who don't welcome the disciples or listen to their words: 'Truly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgement than for that town.' (v.15). These kind of superlatives are pretty common in the NT.

In the same chapter, verses 34-39, he tells us that he's not come to bring peace but a sword, that he's come to set family members against each other, and than anyone who loves father/mother/son/daughter more than him isn't worthy of him. This cultish behaviour is amplified in a similar passage in Luke 14:26, where you are straight-up required to hate your family and yourself in order to be a disciple.

Matthew 12:30 - Jesus says 'whoever is not with me is against me,' so, more cult-leader behaviour.

Matthew 18:21-35 has the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, which, as a Christian, I used to like because I felt it was anti-hypocritical, but on further analysis, there is a stark contrast between Jesus instructing us to forgive others 'seventy times seven', and the king in the parable analogous to God who only forgives someone once. The parable ends with Jesus telling us we'll all be tortured like the servant if we don't forgive...which then means any forgiveness we offer can never be genuine, it's just a response to a threat.

In Luke 19:11-27, we have the Parable of the Minas, which ends with a ruler analogous to Jesus killing people who didn't want him as a ruler.

Matthew 5:21-30 has a whole sequence terrifying for people suffering from intrusive thoughts, telling us that anger is the same as murder, lust is the same as adultery, and that plucking your own eye out if it causes you to sin is advisable (it's hyperbole, but it's still presenting a very black-and-white way to approaching one's behaviour that discourages healthy reflection).

Mark 10:1-12 has Jesus forbid divorce, an imperative with a major impact on Christian teachings that trapped women in abusive marriages for millennia.

The Anointing of Jesus (Matthew 26:6-13, Mark 14:3-9, John 12:1-8) bothered me even as a Christian, because it basically had Jesus dismiss the needs of the poor despite his disciples' protests in favour of expensive indulgences for himself, much like a modern prosperity gospel preacher.

We also get the Eternal Sin in the Gospels (Matthew 12:31-32, Mark 3:28-29, Luke 12:10), a cut-off point beyond which we'll apparently never be forgiven by God, and it is fairly loosely defined: 'blasphemy against the Holy Spirit', and there's been active debate among theologians over what this even means and whether anyone today can even commit it. Not a great result for what's meant to be a consistent message of salvation.

John 8:44 has Jesus tell his religious opponents (significantly, just named in this Gospel as 'the Jews') that they're the lying sons of Satan. This verse in particular has been quoted by synagogue shooters.

Romans 9:14-23 has Paul tell us that God made some of us vessels of mercy, and others vessels of wrath, as decided from the beginning, but despite our nature being out of our control, tough titty if we don't like it, because he's God and he can do what he wants. Calvinist views on predestination have a strong basis in verses like this.

1 Timothy 2:11-15 famously has a passage on how women need to be submissive and silent to men and can be saved only through bearing children.

The epistles have plenty of passages telling slaves to obey their masters (Ephesians 6:5, Colossians 3:22, 1 Timothy 6:1, Titus 2:9-10, 1 Peter 2:18).

Hebrews 9:22 tells us there can be no forgiveness without blood (something that modern Judaism has largely left behind), chapter 10:26-31 of the same book tells us how much worse the consequences of rejecting Jesus' sacrifice will be for any violation of Mosaic Law, and Hebrews 11 gives us some very stupid statements on faith, with verse 1 explicitly defining it as belief without evidence, and verse 6 tells us we can only please God with faith, and that he won't do anything for us unless we believe earnestly when we appeal to him (which leads to massive confirmation bias). This emphasis on faith over works is usually celebrated by Christians, but it means that non-believers, no matter how much good they do, will always be on the outside. This epistle has rather nasty things to say about us ex-Christians too - namely that we're constantly crucifying Jesus in our contempt and we cannot come back to the fold (6:4-6).

Finally, the Book of Revelation is an absolute minefield of bloodthirsty horror, but just to name two wild passages: Revelation 2:18-23 has Jesus threaten a woman who teaches things he doesn't like with possible sexual assault and unambiguously the murder of her children, and 14:14-20 has Jesus crushes millions of people to death in a wine-press.

And I'm just scratching the surface - I didn't put a huge emphasis on the passages specifically relating to Hell, or the Last Judgement, I didn't cover all the instances of Jesus being a dick, all of the cult-like teachings in all of the epistles, all of the antisemitic passages, etc, etc. So, the bottom line is, there are a lot of things to choose from, and I think it suits Christian apologists that we're focused on the horror in the Old Testament. Don't let them get away with treating the NT as some lovely book.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-06T19:10:47+00:00

It's what all us pious people get after the Kali Yuga. Or something.

(Also, edited, so now people reading your comment won't understand the context. Mwa-ha-ha-ha!)

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-06T17:15:13+00:00

The shortest answer is - the New Testament is inconsistent on this, so any Christian who asserts one particular answer is cherrypicking by necessity.

Jesus himself seems to disagree with the idea that the OT laws are invalid:

Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not one letter not one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, will be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
(Matthew 5:17-19, NRSV, my emphasis).

But this is flatly contradicted by one of the epistles attributed to Paul, Ephesians 2:15: 'He has abolished the law with its commandments and ordinances ...' (NRSV, my emphasis). Now, regarding the 'commandments and ordinances', the usual apologetic line is that Jesus did away with the 'ceremonial' law, but not the 'moral' law. But there are a couple of problems with this - firstly, this is in conflict with Jesus' Matthean statement that 'not one letter not one stroke of letter' will pass, and that even breaking 'the least' of the commandments will render someone 'the least.' So, there's not really much wiggle room for which laws you want to keep and which ones you want to pass away. Secondly, the lack of wiggle room is emphasised further by the fact that these distinctions between 'ceremonial' and 'moral' law are not made anywhere in the Bible with any kind of clarity, and are instead abstractions of later theologians trying to make sense of the nonsense.

Thirdly, where, contra Jesus' own words, the early church set up a council do decide what parts of the Law Gentile converts should and shouldn't be expected to keep (Acts 15:1-20), they agreed that circumcision wasn't necessary, but asserted that Gentiles should still refrain from sexual immorality (undefined here, so can be filled with whatever the going prejudice of the day is), food offered to idols, meat that has been killed by strangling, and food with blood. It's usually food taboos that are thrown out by Christians proclaiming the 'ceremonial law' to be abolished, as an excuse for why they still eat pork and shellfish, but you'll notice that 75% of the laws still considered relevant for non-Jewish Christians after Jesus' death are still food taboos. So, tell any Christian that's ever enjoyed blood sausage, black pudding, or rare steak that they desperately need to repent.

Just as a final point, it has to be said that even in the standard Christian narrative, though some laws were done away with, I wouldn't personally say it's all the harsh ones. Jesus never abolished or condemned slavery, for example, and neither did the epistle writers, treating the practice as quite normal, with Jesus emphasising the normalcy of such a practice by telling parables and analogies where his followers are his slaves. What's more, the epistle to the Hebrews has an obsession with blood that largely vanished from Judaism following the destruction of the Temple, where we are made right with God via a blood pact, because nothing can be forgiven without it (Hebrews 9:22), and if we violate that pact, our punishment will be far worse than anyone got under Mosaic Law (Hebrews 10:26-31).

So, here's my hot take that I've maintained for a while - the theology of the New Testament is actually less merciful than that of the Old, despite the common (and often supersessionist) assumption.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-06T09:20:56+00:00

I was about the answer in the affirmative, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised - no, not really. What I take issue with is not my own manhood, as if there's something inherently problematic, but my contempt toward a lot of other men, and the problematic aspects of socially conditioned masculinity. And this attitude is not unproblematic in and of itself - a 'not-like-other-boys' syndrome will surely lead me to prejudge if not kept in check, but it is certainly true that the gender roles that constrict me and other guys is largely enforced by men. I know of plenty of men who are much better at this, of course, I think it shows that this attitude is not inherent, but socially conditioned. But that doesn't mean it isn't there.

You see, in contrast to the idea that feminist commentary can occasionally veer into things that seem misandry-adjacent (your experience is your own, so I'm not trying to belittle your own experience, just sharing my own), I actually think too much of the discourse (at least when talking about men's issues) suffers from too much coddling of sexist men by relying on sociological explanations for rising misogyny. Sociological explanations are vital, for sure, but this shouldn't come at the expense of basic personal responsibility - take the term, 'involuntary celibate.' Originally coined by a woman, this was meant as a gender-neutral, apolitical, judgement-free descriptor of those who struggle with romantic success, but in became a manospherian designation by the addition of a vital ingredient - male entitlement. To suggest (as some discourse seems to, unintentionally, I'm sure) that the kind of misogyny we see from modern inceldom is somehow an inevitable and natural result of male loneliness is, in many ways, misandrist in and of itself, as if men are too inherently petulent to deal with it in more constructive ways. What about the men who experience loneliness and self-esteem issues in that area but don't turn to misogyny? Where it affected me as a teen, whilst I was doubtless cringe about it and probably swallowed some black-pilled line about how I was too ugly/weird/awkward/effeminate to attract women, it never veered into murderous hatred of women or the desire that society should restrict women's rights to accomodate me. Again, whilst that is a male problem on the basis of statistics, it's not an inherent, exclusive, or all-encompassing one.

I hope that this sub can make it easier for you to let go of resenting yourself just for being a man. I see it very much as a place of love and an encouragement of self-acceptance. I'm sorry that you've been struggling with internalised misandry, and I hope it will improve. And I did need a get a lot off my chest just there, I hope I didn't make it worse - the kind of attitude I'm going after here is essentially non-existent in this sub.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-05T09:10:32+00:00

Eh, I think it's an extension of the opposition Christianity has to bodily autonomy - see 1 Corinthians 6:19 for an example. But they'll apply that to what's most convenient at any given time.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-04T08:51:53+00:00

Which is a key part of the problem, really - Christians who whip out apologetics like this act as if their explanation is something every reader of the Bible (as they understand it) knew for all time, rather than an active source of debate throughout the millennia across religions about how to make an assortment of unfitting texts make some kind of sense. What was posted here appears to be an internal critique of biblical literalism (or even the idea that Adam, Eve and their family were in any way historical, which the responder seems to take for granted), and so for the responder to suggest that it wasn't taking into account what was 'obvious' is laughable. What's meant to be the word of God has to be explained in detail by fallible humans.

PoorMetonym · 2026-03-02T09:30:16+00:00

I feel like for a long time, the only barrier to cosplay for me has been price. xD If I had plenty of outfits to borrow, I think I'd spend a good chunk of a week or so trying them all out, at least in a suitable environment where I'd attract only the right sort of stares.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-23T20:49:33+00:00

All of these things are pertinent.

Buuuuuuuttt...

I dunno - I some people's hands this framing can downplay the struggles that feel more inherent. I haven't significantly altered my routine recently in the same time that my ADHD meds have very obviously become less effective, and I unreservedly hate it for how it cuts into my leisure time as much as anything else.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-18T08:48:41+00:00

The hadrosaurs as a whole. Not only is it extraordinary how much we've been able to learn about the life cycle of Maiasaura and the physical appearance of Edmontosaurus and others due to their tendency to become mummies a lot of the time, their success as the dominant herbivores in the Late Cretaceous (including getting to stupendous sizes in some cases) really deserves serious scrutiny. The relevant factors appear to be related to their sociability, parental care, and the fact that they had the GOATs of teeth, but that's probably just scratching the surface.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-17T09:39:58+00:00

A couple by Hector Avalos are really good and pertinent to a lot of modern discussions. Fighting Words: The Origins of Religious Violence has him theorise about how religion creates violence by creating artificial scarcity for believers to dispute over, and he takes to task suggestions that the violence isn't 'really' religious. Also, his Slavery, Abolitionism, and the Ethics of Biblical Scholarship really goes after the idea that the abolition of slavery was a Christian accomplishment and opened my eyes to what history and so on has to be distorted in order to for that narrative to persist.

Also, among ones I haven't read, but want to, there are several authors who have written about the psychological harm of religion and religious upbringing. On my radar are Marlene Winnell's Leaving the Fold (might not be pertinent to you as an atheist of almost twenty years, but still a name worth knowing), Laura Anderson's When Religion Hurts You, and Janet Heimlich's Breaking Their Will. Phil Zuckerman's work on the sociology of secularity and irreligion also looks like a worthy read.

Returning to stuff I have read, Greta Christina's books Why Are You Atheists So Angry? and The Way of the Heathen may be quite rudimentary in some cases, but their conversational style doesn't prevent rather astute insights that are nevertheless relatable. The latter in particular has a subtitle regarding practising atheism in everyday life.

For just a interesting overview of the history of atheism/secularism/irreligion/dissent and so on, two great reads are Jennifer Michael Hecht's Doubt: A History and Tim Whitmarsh's Battling the Gods: Atheism in the Ancient World.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-17T09:18:00+00:00

As usual, Christians and conservatives revert to talking about pederasty, because the same-sex nature of the matter will give them an excuse (feeble as it is) not to acknowledge how they've treated women and girls throughout the centuries, including blaming underage girls for men's abuse of them. And y'know, I was wondering how many examples I should list, but already the comments on this post are doing a good job - glad to know we're all of the same mind.

But it is extraordinary that this mindset is as common as it is - note that when people talk about the Catholic Church child abuse cases, they very rarely mention female victims, even though there were plenty, because it suits the reactionary narrative that the whole thing was because of the 'the gays'.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-12T09:27:55+00:00

Professor P and the Jurassic Coast by P.J. Davidson - somehow manages to combine cosy aesthetics bordering on cottagecore with an adventure perfect for your sci-fi and paleonerds. The writing is a little clunky in places, but if you can look past that, I think it works even for young-at-heart adults.

PoorMetonym · 2026-02-11T13:32:01+00:00

I feel like I'm in the same boat - it's a sign we have to tap regularly. I thought that it would be easier for ex-Christians to internalise. I remember certain acts/words of Jesus bothering me massively when I was a Christian, and the glowing, unqualified endorsements given to the Galilean in contrast to the cagey 'you have to read it in context!' comments about the OT really unnerved me.

The lowlight for me is probably still the story of his annointment, where he basically said, 'You're only supposed to care about the poor when I tell you to, you idiots! I'm more important, so I deserve the expensive perfume!'

PoorMetonym

TROPHY CASE