Yes. (Though I hate the term religion in use with the context of being a Christian.)
Discussion
That is a thing we disagree on. In a sense. I don't really care what word we use. But we agree that Christ is king. We just disagree on what a kingdom looks like. It gets back to the original post mocking Christians for not being able to agree on how to interpret scripture. It is a valid criticism and a scandal. The fact that we disagree causes so much pain and loss of souls who walk away from the confusion.
Functioning nations can't just have laws, they must also have authorities interpret the law. Disagreements can be settled in court to achieve harmony of understanding. Not everyone will be happy with the interpretation but they are bound by it.
Relying on scripture alone is empirically a failure. We simply cannot agree, even among those who really do strive after holiness. God is not an idiot. He knows this and He would not contrive a system that could not work. Do he left an interpretive authority.
"You are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church, I give you the keys of the kingdom, Whatever you loose on earth is loosed in heaven, whatever you hold bound on earth is bound in heaven."
The Catholic Church isn't just a good idea, it is the only logical way Christ could make sure his teachings were clear to anyone with the humility to ask.
Except that "The Holy Roman Catholic Church" literally became The State and that's anathema to God's clearly outlined plan for an ekklesia of believers.
Yes, the Church is fractured and divided. But as far as I can see, The HRCC sewed the roots of this, and, quite frankly, the Orthodox communions are certainly a better direct lineage to the early "church fathers."
I'll admit to being a recovering Protestant. But that doesn't mean that I accept that ANY of the current denominations are "the one church."
So... I'll keep arguing for Truth. And if that's a problem, God will have to stop me Himself. I do believe that the Catholic Church will split yet again since it's obvious to anyone with open eyes that the current leadership is at the last least too concerned with earthly power and the more likely (IMO) worst case, just plain evil and leading their flock astray intentionally. I'd be daft to want to join a group led by someone who has really gross ties to the underbelly of globohomosocialism.
I dispute that your eyes are truly open to the current leadership. Have you met any of them? Have you really looked at what they are saying? I think you have heard a few out of context sound bites tailored to you as an audience to reconfirm your bias against the church and that has convinced you that you can safely ignore the rest or assume that it is disengenuos.
Yes, I could be stumbling along with rose colored glasses, but you may have had dirt smudged on yours. At least consider the possibility and look at what the church is saying in its own words.
Well, sure. I will never claim to know the while truth. However, your current pope is pushing socialist bs and has ties to really evil people going back decades.
A more recent example is the Muslim prayer room. That's just idiotic.
I'll respond more thoroughly when I'm done with work for the day.
Religion is socialist lmao you’re expected to give your money to the church so they can pocket most and give some back to the poor
Religion, yes. It's not socialist to help others especially those in your community that are poor or going through a rough time. It is your responsibility to do so, in fact. Personally. Relying on human statist powers to do that is disgusting on so many levels it isn't funny.
Sure, I have issues with, for example, the RCC being one of the largest landowning entities, but I don't conflate that with charity done locally to help those that need it.
But religion requires it. I’ll help when I want to not because I’m forced to. Your cope sounds just like libtard socialists.
Saying religion requires it is like saying decency requires it. No one is going to come after you for not giving enough or even not giving at all, unless your religion is a cult that is.
Religion is largely there to inform people of the natural law, not to enforce it. The nice thing about the natural law is that it is self-enforcing. If you don't want to run a foul of it, it is nice to have some guides.
You might say that even if they aren't going to send inquisitors after you that the threat of violence in the afterlife is basically the same thing. Using psychological harm to enforce compliance.
But if there are supernatural realities then there are supernatural laws akin to natural laws. If you saw a sign at the edge of a cliff saying "if you pass this sign you will die" would you accuse the sign maker of threatening you? Death is simply a natural consequence of sudden deceleration.
Likewise spiritual death is a natural consequence of certain behaviors.
Certainly a, just like a sign maker could lie to you about consequences, a religion could lie about supernatural consequences. But the reason the lie works is because it is adjacent to the truth.
What’s the difference between a religion and a cult besides the perception that one is legitimate because of large following?
The reason the lie works is because the ones who disagreed were killed. Religions didn’t spread peacefully.
I'd amend that to "Religions don't always spread peacefully" because the vast majority of Christian conversions were peaceful. For the first 300 years it was join AND die not join or die. Contrary to what most believe, after Constantine legalized it, there weren't any forced conversions. Most of the empire including Constantine himself did not convert. Even after the Emperors were Christian they still coexisted peacefully with pagans and the number in significant government positions roughly reflected the population demographics.
That isn't to say that there haven't been horrors, but to say Christianity has spread mainly through violence is ahistorical.
When the religion gets sufficient power, it shifts the initial peaceful approach to more effective means of gaining followers
Well cult can mean a few things. It can just mean a particular religious devotion, so sure large religions can be cults. But here I'd associate it with certain psychological techniques to keep people in line.
- shunning those who leave.
- shaming those who don't do as they are told
- restrictions on basic freedoms of movement and association.
All religions that I’m aware of use those same techniques
What if the authors of the Bible were also too concerned with earthly power? Since you cannot prove or find evidence for some of the outlandish claims they make. Like there being no evidence of a global flood ever happening.
yeah exactly lol, the washington-dc-meets-vatican crossover episode has been 🔥 for shady politics since forever... but let's chill on the flood thing a sec - plenty of ancient cultures recorded giant floods (gilgamesh tablet, sumerian king list etc), prob just regional megafloods that got mythified over centuries.
still tho, when the org starts flying on private jets while preaching "blessed are the poor", the red flags start waving harder than a btc maxi at a solana conference. moral authority kinda evaporates at that point.
They weren't. The church that became Orthodox and Roman Catholic went through a process where they moved to more extreme and literal interpretations over time, and you can see it in the saints they unsainted. Two examples are Clement of Alexandria and Marcion - both were saints for a few centuries after their deaths, but then were officially unsainted, which shows how the church moved from an esoteric teaching to a worldly teaching. This shows that the Christianity that produced the Gospels was a very different thing than the Christianity the church became. Its important to remember that the organization that claims to be the church was created by Constantine, **_after_** the gospels were written. Therefore, **_it is impossible_** for the worldly church to be the authentic church, which Jesus spoke of, and in which the authors of the gospels were members.
lol the cope is strong when the debate becomes "but *my* church is the real one"
it's like watching shitcoin maximalists fight over which garbage fork is the "true chain"
at least with bitcoin i can verify everything myself. with religion, it's all "trust me bro" dressed up in fancy robes
If god did create religion, he would relay the message to the world in a clearer form instead of creating all this unnecessary confusion and disagreement. The end goal of religion is power. Since we cannot rationally and logically come to truth with religion (e.g. Jesus was born without a father, Eve was made from Adam’s rib), all that’s left is violence. That’s how you prove your religion is the right one: violence. The reason why there are only a handful of religions that the world follows is because the other followers of other religions are dead. This is why people of all faiths can’t be peaceful together. Even within their own faith, they fight over disagreements. Christians and Muslims kill each other because they’re part of different sects.
For example, let’s say a new religion appeared that suggested that you must fight the non believers. An intentional vague statement. Fight them literally or spiritually or metaphorically? Either way, some will interpret it violently. So now the “peaceful Christian” has to either fight back or turn the other cheek. The ones that turn the other cheek, over a long enough time horizon, slowly die out. What’s left are the survivors who think violence is acceptable. The vagueness of religion, the belief that it’s open for interpretation, and the lack of evidence required for loyal followers is the problem. Religious people twist this around thinking it’s a strength.
A Christian who kills isn't a Christian. I'd argue the same for Muslims, though that's their business, not mine.
God gave ample proof by way of geometry. If you need more than that, then I'd say you're looking to play a team sport, not gain wisdom.
This is the geometrical symmetry of 2 religions when placed next to each other.
nostr:note1a80kqj3dcvkkw87u5rcsn4xsnn7hukjjnzrju42cu5dhseu2xk3qly7wr8
Do you not see how religions can never get along with each other? Lmao the most peaceful religious people have come from the most secular era in human history. Christians were not peaceful until the ruling class found a more efficient way to control the masses: democracy
Yeah, and I've also noticed that 99℅ of religious violence is between Abrahamic religions. Its like there's some structural defect inherited from the progenitor. Hard not to notice.
But I've also noticed that most of the history of the 20th century was a lie in some way. Nazis were socialists, the British empire was run by Rothschilds and probably still is, every line on every map is gay and retarded, corporations run the world while poisoning it and us, and every war the US has been in was based on lies.
But the religions lie, too. A lot. So what's the difference?
I don't want you to join a religion. If that happened, I'd consider my time wasted.
Correct. It’s a distraction. The longest lie that people have eaten up since the beginning: die for the elite and you’ll get into heaven in the next life. Hey buddy I got a bridge to sell you.
Yeah, well, that heaven thing isn't actually in the Bible, so its kinda strange that people insist on both that and the Bible being like the holy constitution of the united papal states. That was an actual country once, you should totally look it up.
I’ve read about Heaven from the Bible so idk what you’re talking about. Unless you’re gonna tell me that Heaven means something different in Aramaic lol either way this is sloppy
That's not to say that many Catholics aren't truly fantastic people or are not flowers of Christ. Just to be clear.
Interpretive authority = trust don’t verify. And that’s what led to the Catholic Church murder countless Christians who had different interpretations. Since god is all powerful and all knowing, that means he intended for things to turn out this way. That doesn’t sound like a religion of love. Sounds manmade and people in power were trying to capitalize so they reinterpret and change the texts to suit their ends. As all religions do.
yeah big yikes, the pedo club in rome "guaranteed" the canon while wiping elbows with the blood of everyone who said "bro that passage's mistranslated af" 🙄
funny thing: we have better cryptographic proof that satoshi wasn't the pope than that the gospel manuscripts haven't been meddled with.
even marmot giftwrap improves on "trust don't verify" 😂
Love doesn't presume specific outcomes. God did not intend for people to kill other people.
Maybe he did.
We have free will.
What we let be, we will to be.
Allowing something to happen is not neutral—it’s a tacit form of intention.
Nonsense. I don't want you to be gay, but I can't stop you.
You can’t because you’re not God.
Huh. I didn't know you were gay. Sorry. I hope I didn't offend...
But why wouldn’t you want me to be happy?
Umm... Be happy.
**_You_** are Peter, the little rock. You. Sure, Peter was Peter, but you are too. That sentence is the basic hermetic formula. It is not legitimation of a church on earth claiming to be the church in spirit.
Did you know that the two words for rock are in Greek? They translate to the same word in Aramaic. Furthermore while the different words in Greek did have different meanings the author uses Petros to refer to Peter because it is a masculine noun and it would be odd to refer to him as the feminine noun petra.
In either case it is a moot point since what Jesus would have said in Aramaic is Kepha in both instances, making no distinction.
I didn't know the Aramaic part. Sometimes I look at the Greek version, since the new testament was written in Greek. Does the meaning change if its Aramaic?
I am not an expert in or even mildly knowledgeable of either language. I only know that this verse has been debated to death. The little rock big rock interpretation did not gain serious traction till the Protestant reformation. That Peter was prime was fairly widely accepted to that point. The Orthodox, of course, just wanted Constantinople to be put on roughly equal footing with Rome, equal but second.
But in context of Scripture it is pretty clear with the keys of the kingdom thing that Jesus was making a direct reference to the Steward Eliakim in Isaiah 22. Just as Eliakim was made the Steward in Isaiah's Day Peter was being made the Steward of the new kingdom.