Subnostr

If you want to know how far religious nationalists will go in pursuit of what they believe must come to pass, read the book of Joshua. Not only does it document serial genocides and recount that history as "good", Joshua 1:18 quotes the people answering Joshua's command with "Whoever rebels against your word and does not obey it, whatever you may command them, will be put to death." Yes, that is right, irrespective of the command no matter how illegal or vile, the supporters of the god-nation will kill anyone who disobeys the state.

No, that was not a quote from the Quran.

Did you hear about the time when a reasonably friendly group wanted to "lie with" Jewish women, and the Israelites told them they needed to be circumcized first? and they all got circumcized at the same time, and 3 days later when they were in the most pain, the Israelites went in and slaughtered them all?

Or what about the time when they said they were attacking Hamas underneath a hospital, except that the proof was a complete joke and easily rebutted, and so what actually happened is that they simply destroyed an enemy hospital? Yep, that just happened.

By their deeds you shall know them.

pam 2y ago

The Bible has a lot of interesting tips and tricks - I mean Queen Esther slept with the king to get what she wanted, and not just that, she slept with him first - and with men being men, rocked his boat for 3 days, got completely on his knees - before getting what she wanted lol.

But it's also important to understand that the Bible was written when war was crude and brutal, times were different then. Knowledge was not power, only physical ability was. Even the old testament and new testaments are 400 years apart. So our learning and understanding of applying the Bible is often interpreted to today's time and era. In fact, Christian origins of denominations differ based on the country’s culture and way of practice. These days, anyone can have access to bibles, diff revisions, languages and interpret it compared to the Roman days

Torah and Quran are very much based on the old testament, and have lesser modifications and interpretations compared to the Bible. But there exist liberals and conservatives, diff ideologies, prophet's interpretations, cultural influences, political influences etc.

It’s tempting to simplify, but it's way more complex than that

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Discussion

Mike Dilger ☑️ 2y ago

Oh yes. Very complex. And the New Testament is a godsend (shall we say) for the Christians to come out of that crude and brutal way of thinking.

I do not mean to indict all god-fearing people in my post (even though as an athiest I tend to lean that way), but I started it with "religious nationalists" and I meant only the most extreme of them. But maybe even that is too far of a stretch as times have changed. Still, I continue to be suprised at how little they have changed among certain people such as Ben-Gvir and Netanyahu.