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I’d say the vast majority of “christians” have not read and do not understand the Bible. They cherry pick whatever they think translates to their modern day agenda. The problem is, their cherry picking is a someone else’s translated, cherry picked verse that gets lost in translation. A proverbial game of telephone if you will. At the end of the day, it’s all nonesense for stupid people that impacts MY life and I’m fucking sick of it.
I was raised Catholic, went to a Catholic high school (was voted most likely to become a priest), and now I'm firmly an atheist. I read the bible multiple times and had a few bible study classes.
It's consistently amazing to me how little most christians know about what's in the bible. It's always entertaining to see their reactions when I correct them during an argument, or even when they say things like "The Bible says God won't give you more than you can handle" or "God helps those who help themselves." Those things, and lots of others that people attribute to the bible aren't in there anywhere. A lot of times it feels like I'm discussing a movie with someone who only read a review of it.
I was raised catholic. Nursery, primary, high school and sixth form. Church every week. Extra lessons at the church in preparation for the sacraments. I was even an altar server for a time. I think I must have pretty lucky with the parish priest/my teachers though because I the most important thing that was drilled into us was the “golden rule” - treat others as you wish to be treated. Even as a child I knew the Old Testament stories were just that - stories. We were never ever taught that god hated anyone no matter what. We were also taught about other religions and not in “these idiots got it wrong” way. Judaism and Islam were taught as basically the same as Christianity but with a different idea of who Jesus was. I took Christian theology and philosophy A level and had a fantastic teacher. We spent hours debating the existence of god and we were never told we were wrong if we no longer believed by then. There’s a name for it I’ve forgotten now, but we compared the gospels to look for inconsistencies and examined what that meant for their validity. You were never expected just to believe for beliefs sake. I’m not catholic anymore, I have too many issues with the Church. But it’s shocking how unchristian the current brand of American fundamental/evangelical Christians are. It’s just so far from anything I was ever taught.
Most, if not all, monotheistic religions can be very loving or very hateful, depending on what the people make of it. At least that is my personal experience in Catholic Christianity and Islam.
You’re spot on. Unfortunately, I’ve ran into far more hateful than loving. Fake loving for appearances, yes. Actual loving, no.
I have a couple of friends who are of the faith, many express similar distastefulness for the hateful ones. They tend to refer to them as "Xtians", a term they use to mean "Christians, without Christ" hence "Xtian"
Yeah I grew up in the South and it didn't give me a very positive impression of the faith, and well I still adamantly claim that I'm not a Christian.
However, I do have some respect for the faith and a large part of that was meeting someone who is now a close friend of mine. One of the kindest, most patient, and sincere individuals I've ever met, a Catholic man whom I will not mention by name. I told him about my own experiences with the faith, and how his being a good person made no sense to me, that's when he started explaining how he understood the faith, how he practiced it, and how it was meant to be practiced. That kind of thing definitely takes some of the "Edgy Anti-Theist" out of you.
Religiously speaking nowadays, I consider myself Agnostic leaning Buddhist if anything.