Sterile_Technique

And?

I covered that already: it paints a pretty clear picture of how christians are to think of gay people. Do you believe that homosexuality is fairly categorized into the same group as murderers, violent criminals, and slavers?

So we should love them if they are our enemies…

Should? Yes. Do? Rarely. Christians love to vote the rights away from the people scripture tells them to love. Why? Probably because scripture also tells christians to beat them to death with rocks. Which accomplishes the goal of bolstering hatred against that group while building a no-true-Scotsman scenario for people like you to dip in afterward and point to another verse and exclaim that "Oh no no no, those aren't true christians; everything's just unicorn farts and glitter between christianity and homosexuality, cuz we're supposed to loooove them!" So here you are, a knight in shining armor, defending evil and feeling like you have the moral high ground while doing it. It is absolutely wild how effective that book is at manipulating people with good intentions. This is why the contradictions are so glaringly unacceptable.

So close yet so far! The whole Bible is about how we as humans are evil and need a saviour. This “evil shit committed by the church” isn’t endorsed by the Bible at all! In fact, God’s standard is perfection!

If god's standard is perfection and he made us evil, then he is himself evil. ...and the Bible absolutely endorses evil - this whole conversation is about a few of the specific examples of such.

I have seen evil committed by Atheists as well, does that make every Atheist evil and depraved?

Are you ignoring the spiel about systemic patterns and drawing attention to individuals, or is there an atheist playbook somewhere successfully convincing hordes of atheists to carry out the same types of evil against the same types of people? I'm not aware of the latter. There is no atheist dogma. If an atheist chooses to commit evil, that's on them... atheism isn't a cohesive group in any sense other than of the thousands of gods humans have invented, atheists believe in one fewer than you.

Yes. For example, Türkiye, the leaders often pay lip service to Islam. But if people who identify as Christians want non christian things, then populists will cater to that. Doesn’t mean Christianity is at fault. The American republican party can be the same but stop paying lip service to Jesus.

As you've probably guessed, my issue isn't with christianity specifically, but religion in general. I don't care if the user manual has a cross, star, crescent etc on the cover, it's all the same shit; that said, I'm more familiar with christianity, as it sounds you are as well, and christianity is the veneer of choice for a hefty chunk of the evil taking place where I live, and the one that me ensnared throughout my childhood, so that's the one I'm most vocally opposed to. Had I been born somewhere with a different regional mind-poison I'd be bitching about that one instead.

No. Because I don’t interpret the Bible to tell you to hate everyone who is sinful or different. I don’t interpret it to mean “you are better than everyone else” or “elect a fascist”. I think being a Christian means we need to act like Christ.

As did I... with a few uncomfortable exceptions that we've gone into great length discussing. That's why I asked how you reconcile the disparity between the church and the book: I could not. The purpose of a system is what it does... and what it does is incite hatred, sometimes to the extent of full-blown war. It is a tool of evil like no other.

Historically speaking, shotguns and bolt action rifles were fantastic tools to fight Nazis with!

Tad off topic though - we were discussing firing range safety.

Some important tips I forgot to mention:

Explosive residue from the firing process can injure your eyes and skin, so be sure to use proper eye protection and thoroughly cover your face.

Your ears are also vulnerable here, so make sure your hearing protection is suitable for decibel level produced by the size of rounds you're firing. Ear plugs may not be enough by themselves, but can be used in tandem with over-the-ear protection. Plugs are a common source of litter, so don't leave them behind at the scene of the range.

Good point. Gun safety might be a more appropriate topic.

Remember to keep the safety on, and make sure the range is clear before choosing a target. Make sure the area behind your target is also clear before opening fire. If your range is set up with moving targets, ensure the area around you and your firearm can accommodate the range of motion needed without obstructing or sweeping the barrel past anything that isn't a target.

And remember to use a brass-catching device, as the fingerprints left on the casings are made of natural oils which may or may not add a statistically significant amount of fuel to the bla- ...wait I forgot what we were talking about.

Where does it say to hate these people? The whole context of this conversation is talking about the law and addressing pharisees.

The context is a list...

the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine

It drops homosexuality smack-dab in the middle of some of humanity's absolute worst. Even ignoring the other verse that states gays should be murdered with rocks, the one you linked paints a pretty clear picture of how christians are to think of gay people.

Irrelevant.

...how? That bit was contrasting the church against the book. The church is a function of the book. You ever heard the expression "the purpose of a system is what it does"? Kinda sounds stupid at first, but this is the kind of thing it's talking about, and the reason you see even memes saying things like "the system isn't broken and needs to be fixed; it's working exactly as intended and needs to be destroyed." The evil shit committed by the church is the result of the instructions from the lore. So, hard disagree - it's 100% relevant.

“Red” to me means leftist. But I assume you’re an American and talking about the American Republican party led by Donald Trump.

You are correct.

Pedantry

Naw that was a good distinction. We seem to be online around the same time, so I assumed you were also US, despite your instance.

Should I- someone who believes that God literally became man and died for our salvation, reject God’s gift because Karen in Mississippi hates mexicans? By no means!

Absolutely not, but back to the system spiel. I'm not talking about the occasional anomaly, I'm talking about recurring patterns, entire communities, voting patterns. Oppressive regimes have always had a cheat code to win elections, and that's be catering to christianity (in areas where christianity is the dominating religion... we could pretty well copy and paste this entire conversation subbed for islam or w/e if you wanted). It's the same us-vs-them shit every time. So should you- someone who believes in god, reject that mythology over the realization that it compels people to do evil things, consistently and frequently? That's up to you. I did. I'd at least encourage you to reject the evil - by which I mean the human element, the church. Cling to the book if you must, but advancing the church isn't doing humanity any favors.

How do I feel about the current president of the United States of America? I believe he is an evil antichrist and he along with those who idolise him need to repent and turn to Jesus before it’s too late for them.

antichrist... he certainly checks a lot of the boxes. I can say with a pretty high degree of certainty that the folks here won't be repenting in any meaningful way. Trump is their god; Jesus is just their mascot. ...I'm not convinced it isn't already too late for us.

☝ they're not kidding.

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7795586/

Plants, like all organisms, can only survive within a specific temperature range. Take a forest or jungle or some region of ocean plantlife, and in each you've got variety of plants with a similar threshold... crank that heat up and there comes a point where a lot of them just die.

So... things like an entire jungle just collapsing could happen kinda suddenly.

An indentured servant is not comparable to a sex slave 🤦

You don't think so? Feel free to elaborate on why. Of the three random atrocities I listed, sex slaves are the most comparable in my opinion. I almost didn't even use that example because it's too similar to a laborer slave.

And I show you a bit of the Bible which condemns enslaving people after you claim it is promoting slavery because it is apparently silent on the topic,

That is another lie. It's clearly not silent on the topic - I never claimed it was. Please don't put words in my mouth - they taste funny.

and you just say “contradiction!” Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Yeah, that's how contradictions work. Ya starting to see why I'm not a huge fan of them?

I’ve read the Bible before I started going to Church full time. There’s nothing in it telling you who to vote for. Or to hate groups of people.

You literally just linked a verse instructing you to hate on homosexuals in your previous post. Did you forget? As for other groups, how do you reconcile disparities between what scripture instructs vs how the church acts? There's a heavy red lean in christian voters despite Christ's teachings largely boiling down to things decried as 'woke' today. Why is the modern culture surrounding christianity so blatantly at odds with the lore of christianity?

My family has a mix of religious belief or lack thereof. I really doubt that would happen, considering my beliefs differ from my parents, and I have a sibling who is even a different religion.

Good to hear. Having conversations like this with an internet stranger always makes me a bit nervous - I'd hate to be the catalyst for a situation that devolves into domestic violence. I don't know the social situation of the person on the other end.

I guess you're right.

Nevermind, National Guard peeps. Just do that paperwork as ordered. We got trains to fill!

Masters, do the same to them, and stop your threatening, knowing that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and that there is no partiality with him.

Doesn’t sound like Trump/Epstein, knife wielding, or bombing gazans behaviour to me.

Ah, right. I forgot to give the follow up instructions for Trump to give his sex slave a nice pat on the back for a good sloppy finish, the knife murderer clean your corpse up nicely for the funeral, and Israel to send some ibuprofen to the hospital they just leveled. Surely that justifies the preceding act!

It is not possible, nor has it ever been possible, for a slaver to treat a slave with respect or dignity. Making sure to feed and water them regularly and give a smiley "good morning!" every now and then isn't going to justify keeping them as a slave. Suggesting that is does is - drumroll - promoting slavery!

the law is not laid down for the just, but for the... ...enslavers,

First of, if fucking only. Legality and morality are very frequently at odds with each other, slavery being a prime example, and a great illustration of why the opener to that verse is absolute bullshit: slavery was legal. The holocaust was legal. Manifest destiny was legal. That doesn't make any of them 'good'.

And second, a contradiction in the Bible?! Dude those are a dime a dozen. Nice to see it called out as a negative in another section I guess, but being ambiguous about it isn't the same as condemning it. To the contrary, I'd wager that shit is by design: if it was too overtly evil people wouldn't follow it... gotta bake in some plausible deniability. ...and even that has the cherry on top of hatred for homosexuals in the same sentence by lumping them in with murderers and slavers.

I said earlier that the Bible advocates for some evil shit - that was an understatement. It's really good at advocating for evil shit. So good at it that the people it tricks into carrying out the evil shit think that what they're doing is somehow moral or even benevolent. It's got evil down to a science. There was a time when I fell into that trap too. I get it. You think you're doing good. Take the contradictions like the one you highlighted as proof of inconsistency. And dig. There are a an absolute ton of them in scripture. If your only exposure to it are the verses your preacher is spitting at you, you are NOT getting the whole story. Read it yourself. Consider the implications on your life of each statement it makes. Consider what it's compelling you to do to others - and I don't mean some vague 'love thy neighbor' shit, but specifically how are you being taught to think about different groups of people, or whether you do things like vote against or in support of those people. ...and be careful when you start to find things that make you uncomfortable or start to think critically of the religion: it's a closed community that doesn't respond well to dissent, so if you say the wrong thing to a religious authority figure or even family member you could find yourself in a violent situation with all of your current support networks rugpulled from beneath you. It's fucking terrifying.

Hadn't even considered that - I figured it came down to size constraints or the anatomic changes of the fetus.

Crazy. I wonder if that's something we could influence.

"Ha ha ha"? "awkward"? You're missing the point. Falsifications on documents can have legal utility. That could be the difference between someone getting checked into a fucking concentration camp vs walking free. Even if it's audited and flagged for correction, that's still gumming up the system.

Would larger acts of resistance be better? Fuck yeah. The Oath of Enlistment (and similar oaths like commissioned officer, federal employee, etc) literally compels those who took it to engage Trump the way they do any other enemy of the US / threat to the constitution. But have they? No. They appear to have the same lack of spine as the rest of us, you and I included. But are there smaller steps of resistance that can be taken by that group? Yes. You and I included. Whatever it is you're able to do to hinder the Nazi infestation plaguing our country, fucking do it. If it seems small and insignificant, do it anyway. It's better than nothing, and that shit adds up.

Any act of resistance is worth encouraging.

Discreetly fucking up records is a start.

Now I'm going to refuse to purchase one even harder!