Church. Why?

[juttjaw]

"The slavery in the Bible was not based exclusively on race. People were not enslaved because of their nationality or the color of their skin. In Bible times, slavery was based more on economics; it was a matter of social status. People sold themselves as slaves when they could not pay their debts or provide for their families. In New Testament times, sometimes doctors, lawyers, and even politicians were slaves of someone else. Some people actually chose to be slaves so as to have all their needs provided for by their masters."

This ^^^^^^^^^^^

I have a feeling that the vast majority of slaves did not choose to be enslaved.

 

[Champakian]

NJL - Religion never turns ugly. Groups of people (in the struggle over limited resources,
as I pointed out above) do. Religion is then used as part of the justification, but that is
a smokescreen to hide the ugliness in man. Religion seeks to mitigate that state...



Get your head out ... well, 'nuff said.


REM Atheist here.

 

[jaF0]

Church victims are still enslaved to this day. They are required to submit part of their income and some of their time as 'volunteers'.


Money? Look at assholes like Dollar, Osteen and that premier church asshole the Poop, err Pope.

 

[Champakian]

He did get rich. I wonder why that is? It wasn't by putting a gun, real or metaphorical, to their head and demanding the content of their purse.

Is it because in America, people are affluent and will pay for that which they deem desirable?

Has he not given them their monies worth? If they are sated, it's their money.

Who the freak are you to judge them? Gawd Almighty???

 

[lovepussy691]

If it makes people feel good about themselves, do better in the world, and believe in something more, more power to them.

 

[Mr_Neb]

The whole magical fantasy figure bit makes no sense to me. How do people fall so far as to believe in such silliness?

You are really asking two questions. The first is in your title, "Church. Why?" That answer is simple. "Just because they can." I am not being flip. There is no need to justify why there is religion (or religions). It is because there are and enough people believe in them that they sustain themselves. They need no more justification than that.

You second question is in your post, paraphrased as, "Why to people believe in religion if it makes no sense to me?" That answer is also simple. "Because they do." It doesn't need to make sense to you or anyone else. Religions, among other things, are a common ideology among a group of people. If you don't share that ideology, then you aren't in that group.

And in a free society, that is all that is needed to have religions. They are free to believe whatever they want to believe, whether that is in God, multiple gods, pink elephants, the Easter Bunny, or the Tooth Fairy. If those bring you peace and solace, then good for you.

Now before anyone takes this to places it doesn't belong, I am not condoning very bad acts done in the name of religion so please don't go there.

 

[colddiesel]

"The slavery in the Bible was not based exclusively on race. People were not enslaved because of their nationality or the color of their skin. In Bible times, slavery was based more on economics; it was a matter of social status. People sold themselves as slaves when they could not pay their debts or provide for their families. In New Testament times, sometimes doctors, lawyers, and even politicians were slaves of someone else. Some people actually chose to be slaves so as to have all their needs provided for by their masters."

Apologist Crap. And how many blacks are there in your cosy little local church?

 

[rockcasbah]

The whole magical fantasy figure bit makes no sense to me. How do people fall so far as to believe in such silliness?

My best friend refers to all religion as “ the sky fairies”.

When the rapture occurs he’ll be shit outta luck.

I’ll be smokin a joint with my personal lord and savior, Marilyn Monroe.

 

[njlauren]

NJL - Religion never turns ugly. Groups of people (in the struggle over limited resources,
as I pointed out above) do. Religion is then used as part of the justification, but that is
a smokescreen to hide the ugliness in man. Religion seeks to mitigate that state...



Get your head out ... well, 'nuff said.


REM Atheist here.

The problem is religion is man made (note I am not saying that faith is false), and it is ugly, too. Have you ever read both books of the bible? There is a lot of ugliness there and it isn't talking about sinful acts or the like, it is in the religion itself. In the Hebrew Scripture God reputedly tells the Jews it is okay to wipe out and kill the inhabitants of Jericho (who are Canaanites) because they are supposed to live there (note, it wasn't the inhabitants had taken it from the Israelites; it was their town, had been).

In the NT Paul goes on a rant about women in Timothy (well, okay, it likely wasn't written by Paul) that is ugly and nasty and has been, I will add, the root of the misogyny that still permeates Christianity. Scripture is full of negative things, ugly things, as is religious teaching of the churches.

Sections of Matthew and Luke are really interesting, they are written for a mostly Jewish audience yet they contain a lot of anti Jewish tirades, specifically around the death of Christ, and outright blame the jews as a people, and that led to thousands of years of anti semitism and ultimately, the holocaust (and sadly cotinuing anti semitism). The tirade was deliberate, by the way, when those books were written the Jews were in revolt against the Romans and this was them telling the Romans "hey, buddy , don't blame us, we aren't rebelling, hell, we blamed the Jews for killing our Savior, not you guys"


The problem boils down to you can't separate religion from mankind, one is the function of the other; what you can do is seperate out what is the real teaching and what is human stupidity and ignorance.

 

[njlauren]

"The slavery in the Bible was not based exclusively on race. People were not enslaved because of their nationality or the color of their skin. In Bible times, slavery was based more on economics; it was a matter of social status. People sold themselves as slaves when they could not pay their debts or provide for their families. In New Testament times, sometimes doctors, lawyers, and even politicians were slaves of someone else. Some people actually chose to be slaves so as to have all their needs provided for by their masters."

This ^^^^^^^^^^^

That is the old trope, that "slavery here wasn't so bad, because X". Sure, the slavery we had in the confederacy was one of the worst forms in history (there are others that were relatively as bad), in that it turned slaves into property and it was not only a lifetime condition for the slave, it also was true of their offspring as well (in biblical times the Assyrians would do this with captured people, other places it would apply only to the captured slave, children were not slaves). You can argue that in biblical times slavery wasn't so bad because often it was economic (you owed someone money, you were desperate and seeking a way not to starve, it was punishment for something). It was most definitely better than the US south, because it never affected the children. More importantly, in Jewish times slavery was like indentured servitude, it had a fixed time (I believe at the end of a jubilee year, 7 years, all slaves had to be freed no matter how long their contract).

When whites bring up that slavery was practiced in Africa or that Africans sold people to white slavers, most slaves were captured that way, blacks will defend it saying "that is a different kind of slavery, people were part of the tribe, it wasn't generational, etc)..which is true, but as African slavery is not justification for slavery in the US (having slavery in a country that proclaims as a basic right mankind to be free makes it even more vile here) saying it was less worse doesn't make it any less of a crime.

And as I posted, when it came to slavery most of the major religious groups were either silent or as with the Episcopal Church, defended it (not even gonna talk about the Southern Baptists, nuff said), churches were often complicit in it, for example Georgetown U was built by slave labor, other churches benefitted from the largesse of slave traders and plantation owners. Interestingly, several Popes starting in the 14th century issued bulls against slavery (usually specific instances, like enslaving people in the Canary Islands). The church also issues bulls against the slave trade....
but not slavery itself.

The elephant in the room is obvious, if the Catholic Church had condemned slavery then what happened? Given the power of the church in so many places, what happened? And the answer is in the human nature of religion. In the US, explain Maryland, a predominantly Catholic state, was a slave state? Explain Louisiana, similar demographics, and there were Catholics who were slaveholders in all the slave states. The answer? The church never backed it up. They didn't excommunicate those in the slave trade, they didn't excommunicate Catholic rulers who allowed it and benefitted from it. In the US, they didn't excommunicate or threaten either slave traders or slave holders and they didn't preach to Catholic politicians if they supported slavery, they were excommunicated or even denied communion. Not to mention that Catholic Theologians used the bible to justify slavery, or said "The slavery that the Popes condemned was not the same as the US" (they were right, just the wrong way, slavery in the US was much worse than many other places) .

In the end, they basically said that if they pushed for this they would lose a lot of their flock and a lot of money.. Same with other churches.


Religious belief is not an evil, faith is not an evil, the problem is that when it becomes organized and you have a church and teachings and a hierarchy, it gets corrupted.

 

[BrokenBarbie]

Thou shalt not question the great scarecrow in the sky...

 

[njlauren]

Thou shalt not question the great scarecrow in the sky...

I was gonna get mad, I thought you said Crow, Crows are amazingly intelligent creatures, smarter then a lot of the people running around the US these days that is for sure.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

The whole magical fantasy figure bit makes no sense to me. How do people fall so far as to believe in such silliness?

The perpetrators of the hoax want control.

The easy marks want to be told comforting lies.

 

[BoyNextDoor]

I used to go to church quite often. It brought me peace and calm.

Communing with others and having rituals are very calming and affirming. I agree.

 

[Tryharder62]

I have a feeling that the vast majority of slaves did not choose to be enslaved.

I wish I could use "I have a feeling" in discussions. Economics was a big concern. Survival was tough. I am sure some took advantage of people who were in the biggest fight to survive.

I used to go to church quite often. It brought me peace and calm.

Did you stop due to covid?

 

[njlauren]

Using "I have a feeling" in discussions is perfectly fine, as long as you say that it is a feeling. If you say you have a feeling, you are saying I don't have anything to prove this, it is just what my gut tells me. Very different from crap like "wind turbines cause cancer" or "the election was stolen" , that is making a statement of fact when it is just belief in a conspiracy theory.

 

[stickygirl]

I'd agree with the post suggesting churches and christianity are about power and money, but that's only the means, not the underlying philosophy. Religion relies on people's fear: fear of the unknown, fear of the bogeyman, fear of death. Keeping people in ignorance is a tool well known to religious groups as it is to any oppressive regime: Polpot murdering teachers, the catholic church keeping knowledge of Latin away from the populous.

Like any animal, we come pre-programmed to survive, avoid danger, unknowns, carnivores, strangers with bigger clubs.... death basically. If you can kid a frightened person you have a way to cheat death then you'll have a sucker for life. 'Give the church your money until it hurts and the more devout you prove yourself to be.'

Ignorance is the key and just because some smart people are frightened of death too doesn't stop them from being ignorant.

Why do humans have this idea that they are special? More special than animals or plants. In the autumn I compost my summer plants, horses get made into glue, but we get fucking wings and a harp. Right.... Compost.

 

[jaF0]

Religion relies on people's fear: fear of the unknown, fear of the bogeyman, fear of death.

Hence Man created God.

 

[doowdniw]

"The slavery in the Bible was not based exclusively on race. People were not enslaved because of their nationality or the color of their skin. In Bible times, slavery was based more on economics; it was a matter of social status. People sold themselves as slaves when they could not pay their debts or provide for their families. In New Testament times, sometimes doctors, lawyers, and even politicians were slaves of someone else. Some people actually chose to be slaves so as to have all their needs provided for by their masters."

This ^^^^^^^^^^^

Last time I checked , in the Old Testament, genocide and involuntary enslavement were a fairly regular occurrence.

 

[stickygirl]

Hence Man created God.

Quite - it's an understandable step given our instincts. We can still gaze in wonder at the night sky without having to throw ourselves on our knees and worship it. The miracle of birth is just cells doing clever things: there is no sentient force behind it.

 

[colddiesel]

. Interestingly, several Popes starting in the 14th century issued bulls against slavery (usually specific instances, like enslaving people in the Canary Islands). The church also issues bulls against the slave trade....
but not slavery itself.

The reason Brazil did not ban slavery until the 1880's was because the biggest slave owners were the religious orders - Catholic monks and nuns which were financed by vast sugar estates. The slaves were then 'freed' but immediately exchanged their labour for food and maintenance! No change at all. The Brazilian governments has admitted that as late as 1990 40,000 people were still living in slave conditions in Brazil.

More slaves were sent from Africa to South America than to North America .

 

[Tryharder62]

Hence Man created God.

The perpetrators of the hoax want control.

The easy marks want to be told comforting lies.

I didn't create Jesus Christ. Most can concur that He lived and died on the cross. What people disagree with is whether or not he was divine.

Make generalizations much.

 

[colddiesel]

I didn't create Jesus Christ.

True: some Jewish dude fucked Mary and she then concocted a fairy story which convinced her senile husband, and the nonsense got out of hand. A publicist from Tarsus built him a false reputation out of various stunts (called miracles)

As a low grade tekton, JC's celebrity marked him out as the Kardashian of his day.

 

[Tryharder62]

True: some Jewish dude fucked Mary and she then concocted a fairy story which convinced her senile husband, and the nonsense got out of hand. A publicist from Tarsus built him a false reputation out of various stunts (called miracles)

As a low grade tekton, JC's celebrity marked him out as the Kardashian of his day.

Well there's your problem. You trust the news out of Tarsus. It's all fake news. I get my news from CNN - Christ news network. All Christ...all the time.

 

[Gamine67]

Why Church?

Money and Power. Just tell people you’re the Invisible Friend Whisperer and the gullible, simple and lost will gladly open their wallets and follow your lead.