Comment by pdevr 7 days ago
Merry Christmas to everyone.
Being a non-Christian and it being Christmas time, I am sharing one verse from the New Testament that is, in my opinion, useful - or at the very least, insightful - to anyone, regardless of religion.
Luke 16:10: He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.
That's like how you can evaluate someone's character by whether they return supermarket trolleys when they're done with them
Thank you for sharing this one! It's from a beautiful parable found only in Luke's gospel, from which only "no slave can serve two masters" seems to have entered the popular lexicon. Your quote, or the closing line "you cannot serve God and wealth", better speak to the spirit of the passage.
For anyone interested in approaching the Bible this season, perhaps as part of a New Year's resolution, there are many wonderful free and paid resources to do so. It's easy to get bogged down in a comparison of translations and tools, or to ambitiously pick a Bible in a Year reading plan and get waylaid in the pentateuch. Instead, I'd recommend starting with the Berean Standard Bible (a modern, public domain translation with good footnotes) and Mark (Matthew is my favorite, but it starts with a genealogy and requires some Old Testament knowledge to fully enjoy.)
Here's a link: https://biblehub.com/bsb/mark/1.htm
Eh not really - https://historyforatheists.com/2024/12/pagan-christmas-again...
Easter also not pagan. But pophistory thinks that as well. Scholarship doesn’t line up.
Weeks ago a local newspaper had the headline:
"keep the big bang until later for your children, the bible is really a great set of fairy tales"
Im not religious at all, actually "implicitly fighting against it", though I have to admit: This sentence made sense and Im thinking still until today about it, because actually I think its quite true - for smaller children, the storylines in the bible are much more "real" and understandable than the story of: "hey, there was a big bang, all molecules were created then and you are consisting today of these molecules"
The Bible and the Big Bang theory are not mutually exclusive. The Old Testament is a very symbolic book and gives no specific details on how exactly the world was created, other than the seven days of creation. We know that the 7 days weren't referring to our current concept of a day. There's also no water above the sky. It was written like that, because it would be easier for people to understand. Science wasn't a thing back then. If it were written in 2025, it would obviously be very different and probably much more detailed.
Modern Christians know that religion and science can go together. Science researches _how_ something works. Religion answers _who_ created it. The Big Bang theory is actually accepted by them today.
>We know that the 7 days weren't referring to our current concept of a day.
We don't know that. Some Christians believe that because they believe the Bible is univocal, which it isn't, and because they want to use other unrelated scripture like "a day for God is like a thousand years" to support a framework for Genesis which they believe is validated by current science.
But I see no reason to believe that when the ancient Hebrews wrote about creation taking seven days, that they didn't mean seven actual days.
>It was written like that, because it would be easier for people to understand.
A supposition not backed up by evidence, and one that assumes the author of Genesis had a modern understanding of astrophysics, which they did not.
> Science wasn't a thing back then. If it were written in 2025, it would obviously be very different and probably much more detailed.
OK. So as I suspected you believe that the Genesis creation story (or at least one, as there are two conflicting creation narratives) represents literal truth, but that the account itself couches this literal truth in metaphor.
I suppose that's better than the Biblical literalists who insist that Old Testament genealogies prove the world is only 10,000 years old and that therefore things like carbon dating are fake, but I do wish Christians would just accept that Genesis (along with the rest of the Bible) is entirely mythology and that they don't have to "make it fit" with modern science. It just didn't happen.
>Science researches _how_ something works. Religion answers _who_ created it. Religion also makes just as many claims about how as who and why.
Religion doesn't answer anything of the sort, it claims to answer it, a priori, without evidence.
And of course there are countless religions with countless such "answers." You believe only one answer is valid, again, without evidence.
This is not an opportunity for you to proselytize to me.
The Pontifical Academy of Sciences (PAS) is the leading authority of sciences for Roman Catholic Christians, not only do they accept big bang theory, they public scientific proceedings of astrophysics meetings: https://www.pas.va/en/publications/scripta-varia/sv155pas.ht... (free download)
If we are free to interpret the Bible that way, does that mean the resurrection of Christ is also a metaphor? Maybe they just meant that he is alive in our hearts.
What part of the Bible are up for interpretation, and what parts are considered to be fact?
I'm sure there are some that think that but I was taught the earth is 10,000 years, the creation story in Genesis is the literal truth, and people spell Christmas "Xmas" because people are trying to take Christ out of Christmas. None of these are fringe positions in the US. There are so Christians that believe science is real but we're very much the minority.
If you think the Bible is childish, then I can only assume you've never studied it in earnest. These aren't fairy tales. They are a collection of books written in numerous styles and languages belonging to various genres drawn from many cultural contexts spanning thousands of years and whose canon was determined by the Catholic Church in the 4th century (most famously, at the Council of Rome when the 73 books were listed). Theologians, philosophers, and biblical scholars are deepening their understanding of this text to this day.
Just look at something like John 1:1: «In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.» Most adults aren't in a position to comprehend that, never mind a child. It is one of the most profound sentences ever uttered (those with sufficient philosophical and theological background might find this recent book on this topic of interest [0]). Or consider Exodus 3:14: «God said to Moses, “I am who I am.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”». If that doesn't knock you off your feet, then you have not understood it. This is an incredibly sophisticated metaphysical statement, the meaning of which was unknown to the ancient pagans. (A good, short introduction from a philosophical angle can be found here [1].)
But more importantly, both you and the author of that article have committed a very basic category mistake. The Bible is not in the same business as the physical sciences. It doesn't answer the same questions. The Bible is not a scientific treatise, and the physical science are not a path to salvation from sin.
The Bible is also not a text of mere parables and life lessons. Indeed, this is one of those distinguishing features of Christianity that many fail to appreciate. In other religious traditions, it doesn't really matter where the truth claims come from or who said them. You could accept the claims without knowing or caring about the author. But you cannot do that with the figure of Christ. You cannot say "Oh, I accept the lessons of the New Testament, I think Jesus was a wise teacher. I just don't accept his divinity or the resurrection or the miracles or all that other stuff my bourgeois sensibilities can't stomach." Those claims that are uniquely Christian are about Christ and rooted in the authority of Christ. It is Christ who saves - a person - not knowledge, not some method, not a technology, but a person. Christ calls himself the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end of all creation, eternal, the Almighty, and the source and completion of history and salvation.
That's not just some "fun" or "cute" passage. The point is that - if Christianity is true - it is through Christ that Man's relationship to God is restored and elevated. It is through Christ that man is ennobled. Man is invited to participate in his divinity, and unlike other traditions that maintain Man can attain divinity through his own efforts alone, the Christian says "no", it is not in Man's power to do that, to pull himself up by his own bootstraps; only God can do that, and the way is by answering "yes" to his offer, by cooperating with him so he can accomplish that divinity in us. To do that, God humbled himself through the Incarnation to share in our humanity: «the Word became flesh and dwelt among us». He entered the pathology and disorder of the world to liberate it from it, to be the path out of it.
That is what Christianity teaches. That is what Christmas is about. Either that is true, or Jesus was a liar or a madman. What he wasn't was merely another "wise teacher". Either Christmas celebrates this momentous historical event of the Incarnation, or it is ridiculous.
Did you copy this from catholic.ai or some similar domain? :-D
Merry Christmas to all. On the note above, there is not a lot of Biblical Christianity seen today, as many do not read the Bible. It is very sad to me, and why I like to make a distinction. It is lovely to see such cheer in this thread overall though, and if you are a professing Christian I would urge you to be reading and studying your Bible.
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Don't be snarky."
i was a recipient of dreadful christrian brainwashing for about 14 years of schooling, and i got a fairly mild case
I'd consider myself more spiritual rather than religious, but do pray to a god of my understanding. Just wanted to say thanks for sharing this, I haven't actually read the whole Bible but, as the other reply states, I'm sure there are so many little nuggets like this in there that many ignore.