@feld I'd rather think I was doing Prometheus' work. 🔥

@feld I'd rather he fucked off and left my world alone, but whatever. :)

@starbreaker I appreciate the random evangelion reference lol

@vantablack Who said it was random? How else are you gonna kill an angel who comes to you saying that you're preggers and God is the baby daddy?

@starbreaker while i agree that the skydaddy the institutional church promotes is def a rapist, as a christian, i disagree with your reading of luke’s gospel and the possibility of mary consenting. the conception myth was 1. to make the story appealing to people in a greco-roman context and 2. to differentiate the conception of Jesus from the conception of the Divine Emperors.

also, the idea of jesus being a sacrifice to satisfy the wrath of god is not and has not been universal

@starbreaker the conception myth was also meant to serve as a bridge between the Hebrew stories of the barren woman being miraculously granted children and the Greco-Roman traditions of godmen and angelic mediators. mary’s conception of jesus should be read in that context as well as in conjunction with the story of her relative Elizabeth in the chapters preceding. A man who questions God is rendered silent, and the narrative is handed over to two women.

@starbreaker now i guess someone could respond that it’s a story of women being reproductive vessels. i think it’s good to challenge the myths and destroy idols. but i also think “Mary was raped she could not have consented because of a power differential” is based on a conception of God that I don’t believe in based on how I’ve read the Prophets and the Gospel

@catzaddy That's fine, but the only god in which I believe is Lemmy, and he's been dead a couple of years now.

As such, I look at the way most USian Christians act and I can't tell if their God is really God, and a god of love, or if they're actually worshiping Moloch or that lying angel Mastema mentioned in the apocryphal Book of Jubilees.

And, frankly, I don't give a damn. If they had the decency to keep their bullshit religion away from the government, I wouldn't have a beef with them.

@starbreaker most christians in this country and in the history of imperial christianity have been worshipping who i refer to as Skydaddy. i blame paul, a roman citizen and pharisee cop who co-opted the Jesus movement to make it something wholesome for the “civilized” world. Suddenly Jesus teaching his students to understand the Divine as a loving parent becomes “God is Ultimate Daddy Boss look this pagan/secular/civilized imagery will suit our needs”

@catzaddy It's easy to blame Paul, but I recall a discussion here on Mastodon about how Paul's main beef was with an institution called #porneia, which was basically forced prostitution.

I don't know if the term will come up in a search, though.

@starbreaker yeah my fellow xtians, even the libs and a few radicals, will try to defend paul and fish out his context from deep in between the lines of letters attributed to him. to me, the whole story sounds like someone who was able to take advantage of a leaderless movement largely composed of the uneducated and marginalized.

@starbreaker tho you do bring up a good point about moloch bc yes i would say white christians in this country have been sacrificing Black children to him for centuries

@catzaddy Black, brown, red, yellow, and even their own on occasion.

And if you were an Illuminatus! Trilogy fan I'd bring up Yog-Sothoth as well. :)

@catzaddy You have every right to disagree, and the interpretations you mention are interesting, but I will continue to interpret Scripture to suit MY purpose, which is to attack politicized Christianity in the US.

@starbreaker lol thank you for granting me the right to disagree.

i’ll be attacking the same beast, just from a dif angle.

@catzaddy I meant it as an acknowledgement of a right you inherently possess as a human being. I'm sorry I failed in conveying that meaning.

@starbreaker all good neighbor i’m just being silly.

@catzaddy @starbreaker if the conception was a myth, what, exactly, is your christianity based on? Have you discovered other parts of christianity that aren't myth-based?

@donblanco just bc something is a myth doesn’t mean it can’t be true

@donblanco @catzaddy Let's just say that if I *were* a Christian, I would favor the Thomas Jefferson's The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth over other translations/editions.

http://americanhistory.si.edu/jeffersonbible/

The letters of Paul, the entire Old Testament, and all of the supernatural stuff are irrelevant and detract from Jesus' teachings, IMO.

@starbreaker @catzaddy still presumes that he actually existed as a historical person, though...

@donblanco @catzaddy True, and we know that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John didn't write their own gospels.

Then again, there might not have been a Homer, either, yet we still attribute the Iliad and the Odyssey to a single figure.

@cobra2 My copy of the Bible also has a Satanic Gospel:

"For Helel so loved the world that he raised a third of the heavenly host in rebellion, knowing that he would be cast down for his temerity, so that the sons of Adam, Lilith, and Eve might learn to defy tyranny."

SATAN 3:16

@cobra2 Same source as the original. I made that shit up. :)