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Goodbye Jesus

Well That Was The Old Testament


Sybaris

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........... we're supposed to follow the New Testament

 

I have heard this a lot from Christians but I was never a Christian so don't know how or why they can make that rudder change.

 

Is it just cherry picking or is there something that says to disregard the OT when it comes to things like not eating shellfish, earing blended fabrics, marrying your rapist etc..?

 

I tried to find something online but it all led to biased christian sites.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The way I was taught to deal with this particular contradiction is to seek repetition in NT. If it's mentioned again in NT it's still bad, otherwise it's obsoleted with the new deal with god. Hence, gay sex and adultery still bad; shellfish and mixing fabrics a ok.

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They aren't just making something up.  When Paul began writing his epistles, (which were basically letters of instruction)  he instituted a "saved by grace", "saved by faith" idea.  And he taught that no one could please God by obeying rules.  Nowadays christians refer to that as legalism.  Paul claims that he got his ideas directly from visions (or revelations) from God.

 

On the other hand, we have Jesus saying that he didn't come to abolish the law (the rules as given in the old testament).  The gospel of Matthew has Jesus saying this:

 

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19"Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.…

 

So, as with most things in the bible, you can find multiple passages to support whatever position you take. It's a buffet-style religion.

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Just the title of this thread made me laugh. :P

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There are also new rules that come into play in the NEW testament that people tend to ignore.  Rules like women should not speak in church.  Women must cover their heads in church.  Men must not wear hats in church. Sell your possessions and help the poor.  Love your enemies.  Don't plan for the future.  Don't judge other people. If someone hits you in the face, turn your head so they can hit the other side too.  

 

All of these things are new testament.  And all are, for the most part, discarded. 

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One thing that is notable about the whole new testament rules thing.

 

As it applies to homosexuality vs. divorce.   Both are considered sin in the new testament.  Yet christians never mention divorce, never dwell on it, never hold picket signs condemning it.  They will welcome a couple into their church who have been married several times previously. 

 

It was in the writings of Paul that homosexuality is condemned.

 

It was Jesus who condemned divorce and said if you married a second time it was adultery. 

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........... we're supposed to follow the New Testament

 

I have heard this a lot from Christians but I was never a Christian so don't know how or why they can make that rudder change.

 

Is it just cherry picking or is there something that says to disregard the OT when it comes to things like not eating shellfish, earing blended fabrics, marrying your rapist etc..?

 

I tried to find something online but it all led to biased christian sites.

 

 

Christianity did to Judaism what Mormonism did to Christianity.  Does that help?

 

You want a religion where you are the big shot deciding how the tithe money gets spent?  Well you need some legitimacy.  So pick an old, well-established religion and then say you are the prophet who has received the next Covenant.  Cash in on that other's religions legitimacy but you get to use your prophecy skills to make updated rules that fit your own personal taste.

 

Nowhere in the Old Testament does it ever say there will be a new covenant or even that God will take the form of a human to sacrifice himself to himself to save humanity.  All that was invented by Christians who cherry picked and fudged Old Testament scriptures. 

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One thing that is notable about the whole new testament rules thing.

 

As it applies to homosexuality vs. divorce.   Both are considered sin in the new testament.  Yet christians never mention divorce, never dwell on it, never hold picket signs condemning it.  They will welcome a couple into their church who have been married several times previously. 

 

It was in the writings of Paul that homosexuality is condemned.

 

It was Jesus who condemned divorce and said if you married a second time it was adultery.

 

I think the reason for that is because divorce became so common in society. It used to be a big taboo until it became mainstream. I think the same will eventually happen to homosexuality. It will be accepted by so many that the conservatives will have to give up and find a new sin to demonize. Adultery is another one. It is vilified in both testaments, but when was the last time any of us heard a sermon denouncing it?

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if that what they wanted then i want to see christians cursing fig tree

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...

 

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. ...

 

I was taught that when Jesus said his last words from the cross, "It is finished," that meant that that he had "fulfilled" the law, and "all is accomplished," as mentioned in the Bible quote above. This instantly set us free from all the hundreds (thousands?) of crazy laws in the OT.

 

The curtain in the temple tore, theologically removing the priest class from in between the people and God. That was another instantaneous result of the death.

 

But then, of course, Paul piled his bullshit on, and the rules just went haywire in a different direction.

 

So for a while I considered just ignoring Paul. Hmmm. Thomas Jefferson Bible style.

 

The beginning of the end of my faith journey was when I realized that Paul contradicts Jesus too much, adds all kind of un-loving misogyny and crap, and might just be a sham to create a politically-based new religion. Once I started typing those kinds of things into an internet search, the end came much more quickly. To say the least, lots of people detest Paul.

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...

 

"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18[/size]"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. ...[/size]

 

 

I was taught that when Jesus said his last words from the cross, "It is finished," that meant that that he had "fulfilled" the law, and "all is accomplished," as mentioned in the Bible quote above. This instantly set us free from all the hundreds (thousands?) of crazy laws in the OT.

 

The curtain in the temple tore, theologically removing the priest class from in between the people and God. That was another instantaneous result of the death.

 

But then, of course, Paul piled his bullshit on, and the rules just went haywire in a different direction.

 

So for a while I considered just ignoring Paul. Hmmm. Thomas Jefferson Bible style.

 

The beginning of the end of my faith journey was when I realized that Paul contradicts Jesus too much, adds all kind of un-loving misogyny and crap, and might just be a sham to create a politically-based new religion. Once I started typing those kinds of things into an internet search, the end came much more quickly. To say the least, lots of people detest Paul.

One of the things that helped me out of religion was how much the people I knew depended on Paul, almost to the exclusion of Jesus! Pastors never preached on Jesus, never encouraged memorizing what Jesus said - only what Paul said. It was trading one form of legalism for another and some of the best things Jesus taught were just ignored.

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Even when I was a xian I couldn't stand Paul, he was such an arsehole!

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The Pauline epistles are among the most bizarre texts written in the ancient world. They make no sense and their only purpose appears to be to drive people insane. 

 

Early Christians must have been some seriously screwed up individuals. If they'd had psychotropic drugs back then, perhaps there would be no Christianity. 

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The way I was taught to deal with this particular contradiction is to seek repetition in NT. If it's mentioned again in NT it's still bad, otherwise it's obsoleted with the new deal with god. Hence, gay sex and adultery still bad; shellfish and mixing fabrics a ok.

 

I had also heard of this "new deal". You would think an omniscient being would have forseen circumstances requiring a new deal.

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The way I was taught to deal with this particular contradiction is to seek repetition in NT. If it's mentioned again in NT it's still bad, otherwise it's obsoleted with the new deal with god. Hence, gay sex and adultery still bad; shellfish and mixing fabrics a ok.

 

I had also heard of this "new deal". You would think an omniscient being would have forseen circumstances requiring a new deal.

 

 

 

Back when I was a kid my Sunday School teacher used some kind of switch-a-roo to come up with the answer "God planed it that way to teach us to rely of God's grace".  Yes God gave us impossible rules to follow so we would learn that we needed Jesus when God gave us the new deal.  I was a kid so I guess it wasn't really my fault that I found this convincing.  Looking back now it stinks of bull crap.

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The way I was taught to deal with this particular contradiction is to seek repetition in NT. If it's mentioned again in NT it's still bad, otherwise it's obsoleted with the new deal with god. Hence, gay sex and adultery still bad; shellfish and mixing fabrics a ok.

 

I had also heard of this "new deal". You would think an omniscient being would have forseen circumstances requiring a new deal.

 

 

 

Back when I was a kid my Sunday School teacher used some kind of switch-a-roo to come up with the answer "God planed it that way to teach us to rely of God's grace".  Yes God gave us impossible rules to follow so we would learn that we needed Jesus when God gave us the new deal.  I was a kid so I guess it wasn't really my fault that I found this convincing.  Looking back now it stinks of bull crap.

 

 

That's like someone selling you a car but not the tires

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With thousands of individual cults (churches) with different doctrines, Christianity is a very large cut-and-paste religion. Every doctrine comes from the idea 'the law is dead', meaning Christians do not have to adhere to the Law of Moses because Jesus set them free from the law. Churches use this notion to add what they want to their own doctrines and point out they are mentioned in the OT. The only Law Christians follow is whatever parts of the law appeals to their personal prejudices.

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Even pastors will commonly say that things like dietary laws were "fulfilled" in Jesus and do not apply to us anymore. However, they ignore that the apostles immediately instituted another dietary law for the Gentiles "abstain from blood and from the meat of strangled animals" because "Moses has been preached in every synagogue since the beginning". That's it. No Holy Spirit, just tradition.

 

Paul made some weird statements about how obvious things were "Doesn't even nature itself teach you that a man should not have long hair? If anyone wants to be contentious about this, we have no other practice, nor do the churches of God." No, nature teaches the opposite. Lions males have the mane, females don't. Humans of both genders will have long hair unless it is cut. Paul was indoctrinated from birth to be a Pharisee, and then concludes that his indoctrination was natural. This is why he concludes that observation of the natural world would lead anyone to obey his god, but he arrives at that after a lifetime of indoctrination.

 

Believers are taught that it all makes sense, and that we are too stupid and rebellious to understand the deep things of god, so they spend years studying it to try and make sense of it. Most get a contorted kind of reasoning that makes their god "good all the time" regardless of the insane behavior he dishes out.

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The way I was taught to deal with this particular contradiction is to seek repetition in NT. If it's mentioned again in NT it's still bad, otherwise it's obsoleted with the new deal with god. Hence, gay sex and adultery still bad; shellfish and mixing fabrics a ok.

 

I had also heard of this "new deal". You would think an omniscient being would have forseen circumstances requiring a new deal.

 

 

 

Back when I was a kid my Sunday School teacher used some kind of switch-a-roo to come up with the answer "God planed it that way to teach us to rely of God's grace".  Yes God gave us impossible rules to follow so we would learn that we needed Jesus when God gave us the new deal.  I was a kid so I guess it wasn't really my fault that I found this convincing.  Looking back now it stinks of bull crap.

 

So what your teacher was telling you was that God, in his omniscience, created humans, who he knew would fail, and then after they failed told them they would only be "saved" by following a bunch of rules that they couldn't possibly follow so that they could fail and finally learn that they need Jesus, because we just needed to learn to rely on God's grace? You cant make this stuff up!

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The way I was taught to deal with this particular contradiction is to seek repetition in NT. If it's mentioned again in NT it's still bad, otherwise it's obsoleted with the new deal with god. Hence, gay sex and adultery still bad; shellfish and mixing fabrics a ok.

 

 

I had also heard of this "new deal". You would think an omniscient being would have forseen circumstances requiring a new deal.

 

 

Back when I was a kid my Sunday School teacher used some kind of switch-a-roo to come up with the answer "God planed it that way to teach us to rely of God's grace".  Yes God gave us impossible rules to follow so we would learn that we needed Jesus when God gave us the new deal.  I was a kid so I guess it wasn't really my fault that I found this convincing.  Looking back now it stinks of bull crap.

So what your teacher was telling you was that God, in his omniscience, created humans, who he knew would fail, and then after they failed told them they would only be "saved" by following a bunch of rules that they couldn't possibly follow so that they could fail and finally learn that they need Jesus, because we just needed to learn to rely on God's grace? You cant make this stuff up!

Apparently you can.

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Complicating the picture is that our version of the NT is somewhat arbitrary. Even the four gospels are only chosen by one branch of the early Christian church. There are / were many other gospels.

 

Many of "Paul's" letters aren't written by him - that's exactly why they're so damn confusing. The real Paul was actually quite reasonable (in a crazy fundy way!) but then people started writing their own books and putting his name on the cover and things got really messed up!

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I scratch my head over xians that say "Well, that was the OT..." when they're explaining why they don't have to follow all the rules like the anti-shellfish type thing, yet those same xians have a cow over making sure the Ten Commandments are posted everywhere, even though the Ten Commandments are in the OT.

 

You would think xians would be fixated on the Golden Rule that jesus taught, "Treat others as you wish to be treated," rather than desperately clinging to the Ten Commandments, which nobody can truly live up to and aren't necessarily true.  For example:  "honor your father and mother, that your days may be long upon the land..." completely ignores the fact that babies and young children die, not to mention the most loving and honoring of young people can die which desolates their parents.  And resting on the Sabbath -- maybe a long time ago people did this, but very few people do it today.  Not coveting your neighbor's wife puts women in the same category as things that a man owns, along with his house, his servants (slaves, hello), and livestock.  There are also debates over "Don't kill" which can be translated either at "kill" or "murder" which are two very different things.

 

Then there's the fact that Moses destroyed the original Ten Commandments when he saw the people sinning, so he went back up and god gave him a second set of Ten Commandments that included things like, "you must observe Passover" and "do not boil a kid (baby goat) in its mother's milk).  No xian ever has posted those Ten Commandments on their lawn, or demanded they be put in front of a school!

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U​m... Old Testament....New Testament.  Same god, right?  Same never change god, right? 

At best god, and especially bible god does not ​exist.  At worst, he is one mean bully bastard.

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Yeah, the curtain was torn in two in Matthew 27.  Meaning, as RW said, no more priests interceding - now you can go directly to god yourself.  Or it could mean no more worrying about laws. Now you please god by faith.  Or it could mean Jesus has defeated sin's hold on mankind.  The bible doesn't say what the curtain being torn means.  

 

Of course, a couple of verses later we have the zombie parade.  So..........

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Yeah, the curtain was torn in two in Matthew 27.  Meaning, as RW said, no more priests interceding - now you can go directly to god yourself.  Or it could mean no more worrying about laws. Now you please god by faith.  Or it could mean Jesus has defeated sin's hold on mankind.  The bible doesn't say what the curtain being torn means.  

 

Of course, a couple of verses later we have the zombie parade.  So..........

That's the trouble with so many things in the bible.  It tells a short story, consisting of anything from one verse to a dozen or so, but there is no explanation of the story.  So every apologist, every denomination, every preacher, every reader can come up with a theory of what that story means.  It's very poorly written, as an instruction manual.  It's written as a piece of literature, as art, which is something that is meant to be interpreted differently and personally by every reader or viewer.  As wonderful as art is, and it is, it makes for a poor instruction manual.  If god was really the author and the things in it were real, it should have been written as an actual instruction manual with easy-to-understand stories with clear explanations.

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