I gotta ask - what is it with conservatives and their ignorance of the Bible?

Agreed, OP. They are the biggest hypocrites of all - constantly virtue signaling about "Rah Rah America" and Christianity, and "Omg, Jesus."

R1, Your signature says it all: Catholics believe that Good Works matter.

Protestants do not. And not that I've bothered to Google, but it is my impression that the Republican Party comprises mostly Protestants. (As to the Latino MAGAts, there's no accounting for some people.)

[quote]Catholics believe that Good Works matter. Protestants do not.

Explain.

R2, that's an ignorant as hell thing to say. I'm Protestant and always keep trying to remember what Jesus said and I try to do good works. Not ALL Protestant people are bad. I'm sure there are people of different religions who voted for Trump, including Catholics, Muslim and Jewsish people.

They don't give a shit about Christ. Like all conservatives, they care about their own needs, wants and position in society above all else.

God is their excuse to treat people horribly: "Because the Bible told me so."

[quote]God is their excuse to treat people horribly: "Because the Bible told me so."

But the Bible tells them to do the complete OPPOSITE.

Christ is EXPLICIT about telling people to:

• Welcome the stranger to your land and treat him as your own

• Heal the sick

• Feed the hungry, clothe the naked

• Love your neighbor and your enemies

• Know that the kingdom of God for the weak and poor, not the rich and powerful

• Avoid judging others; avoid hypocrites

And yet EVERY SINGLE MAJOR INITIATIVE by the GOP contravenes these teachings.

Can someone please explain.

Not one of them in ten thousand has ever read the Bible. American "Christians" are frauds almost to a man. The Bible is not antigay either, and no honest reading of it can come to such a false conclusion.

And the women of course are even bigger frauds since the Bible is very misogynist.

And yet women are a majority of almost every religion.

And probably do 80% of the worok.

They are not Christians, they are christo-fascists.

As I look back on the continuum of history, and how Christianity was used to to control and oppress no wonder they preached about the meek and about forgiveness, and how all your rewards were going to come in the afterlife. Religion is a tool, a weapon to oppress.

The distortion for evil purposes of Christ's message started with St Paul, who made it into the basis for a church, ie a moneymaking corporation. It all went to shit from there.

Paul is gravely suspicious of women. In that, he's building not on Christ but on the Old Testament, which is as misogynist as you'd expect given the timeframe.

There are a million things in the Old Testament that modern Christians would disdain to observe (as comically shown in the famous monologue from The West Wing, where the President castigates a Laura Ingraham-like character). Jesus himself would disdain many premises in the Old Testament (notably "an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth", which is the opposite of his message). Instead, they pick and choose the ones they intend to live by, and want to force everyone else to live by those few too. In the 60s, when the hippies tried to live according to Jesus's message of love, peace and harmony, the conservatives were the first to head for the pitchforks.

[quote]Catholics believe that Good Works matter.

What an absolute load of horseshit R2.

Actually, one of the points of difference between Catholics and Protestants is that many Protestants believe that people are saved by faith alone, (based upon a line of St Paul to that effect), and Catholic dogma teaches that Christians will be recognized by their good works (based upon a line of St. James). "My brothers and sisters, if a person claims to have faith but does nothing, that faith is worth nothing. Faith like that cannot save anyone". That isn't to say that Protestants never do good works, because plenty do, nor that there aren't a ton of Catholics who never do good works. (Good works would be defined pretty much as following the Sermon on the Mount).

But a large portion of people who would define themselves as Christian (either Catholic or Protestant) based upon birth and the church in which they were raised, would be hard put to name acts and behaviors that would make them more "Christ-like".

Jesus wept.

Because it’s not about what the Bible says. It’s about co-opting the Bible and interpreting it to support your cult. And let’s be clear that we’re talking largely about white Evangelicals who tend to hate anyone who isn’t white and straight.

Evangelicals are largely "Non-denominational", aren't they? Traditional Protestants like Episcopalians, Presbyterians, and Methodists are involved in good works and charity.

Like trusting to one's doctor about illness and medicine rather than to spend one's time reading medical textbooks and journals, people largely learned to trust their pastors and the authorities in their sect for doctrine rather than to try to comprehend and resolve what the Bible offers. This "sect-understanding" then filters out among the non-churchgoers who retain or understand as much or as little of it as they feel like, adapting it to their personal ambitions.

[quote]Evangelicals are largely "Non-denominational", aren't they?

No, Baptists, Assemblies of God, and lots of smaller groups are Evangelical denominations.

The oddest one of them all is that the Bible says nothing against abortion.

r11, right, Nazis weren't christians either for the same reasons

The most important American Christian movement was started to defend slavery. It was corrupted from the start. It continues to be a tribal identity that is twisted to justify whatever the tribe wants, including wealth and hate.

It exists today primarily to defend the subordination of women and white supremacy, and as a promise of revenge on everyone else at the Second Coming. It’s purpose is not to convey the lessons of Jesus.

The majority of Christians feel that you are a truly good person you will automatically want to worship their Christ and their God regardless of where in the world you may be or whatever the dominant religion is where you live. So their mindset is that if you don’t already feel that way there is something inherently wrong and evil with you, therefore they feel that they can treat you anyway that they want to, regardless of what their Christ taught.

Evangelicals have a "personal relationship" with God and are not terribly worried about getting all the facts right. You can't have an intelligent argument about the supposed tenants of their religion with them.

Before the Civil War the SOuth was the least churched reason. In 1860 only 11% of Texans belonged to ANY church. The South became Christian and made the US majority Christian, by 1900, and the cause of it was using churches as an organizing principle for white supremacist violence.

Why are conservative "Christians" so obsessed with guns?

Because guns mean they don't have to compromise with others.

Bear in mind in the SOuth in 1900, starvation was a normal expectation, and a large propoertion of whites suffered from nutrition deficiencies causing diseases such as pellagra and rickets. But the important political priority and political organizing principle was going to a whites only church and voting to keep the blacks down. That's what conservatism gets you.

One thing the Trump "efficiency experts" are especially keen to get rid of is food stamps, which is bread and butter to their Appalachian constituency.

"American "Christians" are frauds almost to a man."

Fits in nicely with their faux patriotism and their allegiance/loyalty to one of the biggest dirtball scumbags to ever walk the planet.

[quote] Evangelicals have a "personal relationship" with God and are not terribly worried about getting all the facts right. You can't have an intelligent argument about the supposed tenants of their religion with them

Yes. They believe that all that is required for salvation is to “feel Jesus’s love” and all your sins melt away.

To quote a famous practitioner: “Isn’t that CONVENIENT?”

As a somewhat flawed artifact of world history and culture and religious beliefs the Bible is interesting. It may even be considered literature in it's various versions. But men wrote the Bible. Humans. and they interpreted the stories and oral histories and folklore and wanted it to conform to their beliefs and cultural traditions. Personally I don't need the Bible to give me advice and direction on how to conduct my life. I try to be kind. I try, through my actions to make the world better, starting with my own community. It's not that complicated. But some people crave rules and directions, and rituals.

Protestantism, in all the various denominations, was a reaction to the corruption of the Catholic Church.

Southern Baptism was not a reaction to the corruption of the Catholic Church. It was a reaction to the anti-slavery movement.

It is born agains - evangelicals because they "interpret" what the bible says and of course, God speaks to them. Otherwise how could they look at a thrice married, adulterer, liar and con man and say he was chosen by god to lead us?

They don't read the Bible and all they know are a few stories pitched at them ad nauseum. Stories that are fake or misrepresented to them.

Dump has lied about his knowledge of and love of the Bible from the beginning of his campaigning career. He doesn’t know one word of the Bible.

Look, OP. It's not about the Bible to them obviously. It's about being on a winning TEAM.

A team that not everyone is allowed on and where there's a hierarchy for the players/fans.

Jesus isn't the coach, he's their mascot. The Bible is their rally chant for when they come out of the tunnel or want the crowd hyped, it's not their code of conduct.

They give zero fucks about the meek, the poor, etc unless they can get donations from them or get them to join THE TEAM.

They're not big on following the 10 commandments either

OP, it's because they aren't genuine christians, they embrace the church because they think it makes them superior to others & it's a bargaining tool, "If I'm a saint on Sunday morning ,I can be a complete shit the rest of the week". Example of a real christian: Jimmy Carter.

Mary's origin story is that, without her consent, she was inseminated by God.

That's a sexual battery, if one wants to rationally assess that interaction by applying inconvenient, pesky, reality-based empiricism.

But, marketing thought that was a downer, so, "She's the Bless-ed Virgin" was concocted.

There. That makes it all better.

So, right off the bat, the subjugation of women in inherent in Christianity, indeed, in all of the monotheistic world religions.

To really drive the point home, in a Trolling for the Ages, according to one of the Gospels of Mark, Luke, John, Paul, George or Ringo, upon resurrection, Jesus himself didn't choose to appear to a man first. He appeared to a woman- Mary Magdelene, in effect, making her the first ever "Believer", but to this day, women are denied the priesthood in the RCC.

Centuries of conditioning, socialization, internalized and external misogyny, and denial of the basic freedom to control our own bodies (Mary was raped and didn't abort and neither will you!") and I don't have to wonder why millions of American women voted for the likes of Donald Trump.

R4, It's pretty much spelled out as the very raison d'etre of the Protestant Reformation, so why don't YOU just shut up?

YOU as an individual may be saintly. But that is not quite your religion writ large (including, not to put too fine a point on it, saints).

Let me be clearer: Catholicism has it that "Good Works" lead to salvation. Protestantism holds that faith alone, a belief in Christ, suffices. Sola fide.

No point in naming failed or successful or even "hybrid" members of either Christian sect, such as yourself. Good people do good deeds, which is why morality is not limited to people who believe in God.

Moreover, r42, the Birth of Jesus (as the rest of His Story) is along the lines of prior myths, such as the birth of Dionysus, a Resurrection God of yore, complete with drinking ceremonial wine. Human mother, supernatural father.

Eat a shrimp and DIE!

R17 has s right. They’re just a bunch of cafeteria Christians.

R38 My favorite clip is when a fox news person asks him what his favorite passage in the bible is and he goes "uhh, that is too personal, I'd rather not say." Not taking the queue that Trump didn't know shit about the bible he presses, 'Just one verse or passage that you cherish?" and Trump cannot site one word.

The Bible is a very violent book. The first half of it, The Old Testament, is filled with passages about being ok with warring and killing your enemies, God's wrath against his enemies, judgment, damnation and sagas of peoples who have been against each other and God. Even the book of Psalms- which is considered mostly calming- has angry Psalms. Proverbs doesn't mince words, either. There are judgment passages in the new testament too: Matthew, Acts, Romans, Thessalonians, 1 John, Timothy, James, and of course Revelation.

Most fake conservatives ie fake Christians forget the foremost tenet of the Bible and Christianity. The Bible has also been manipulated for personal motives throughout history so it is not a completely trusted narrative. But the essential tenet of Christianity is— Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. And no one man can judge the heart of a man because you don’t know the intentions and motives that make up that heart. Only God has that power.

I've done everything the bible says. Even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff

Conservatives don't actually read the Bible -they use it as a hammer to pummel people who disagree with them about anything.

[quote]R46: They’re just a bunch of cafeteria Christians.

Well, the bible is the equivalent of a buffet cafeteria where you can find anything you're looking for, so there's that.

[quote]R25: Evangelicals have a "personal relationship" with God and are not terribly worried about getting all the facts right.

What 'facts,' R25? It's all just stories populated by literary characters. They didn't actually exist, and they didn't 'teach' anything. One set of passages is nullified by other passages. People just glom onto the ones they personally prefer.

[quote]• Welcome the stranger to your land and treat him as your own

Balance that with Jesus's supposed instructions for dealing with anyone with whom you have a disagreement:

"If your brother sins against you, go and confront him privately. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. But if he will not listen, take one or two others along, so that ‘every matter may be established by the testimony of two or three witnesses.’ If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the Church. And if he refuses to listen even to the Church, let him be to you as a foreigner or a tax collector" (Matthew 18:15-17).

"Tell it to the Church." Let that sink in for a moment. ("It's Landru... He's summoning The Body!") And Christ's instructions for dealing with them is predicated on the idea of foreigners as someone to be despised. It normalizes it.

[quote]• Heal the sick

That is something that Christ is depicted as doing (magically), not as something that can be practically carried out by anyone else. Efforts at "healing" are basically defined as 'thots and prayers' (cf James 5:13-16). The bible reflects the primitive view that illness is either caused by demons which must be driven out, or by sins which must be confessed and forgiven. Jesus is depicted as healing a man and then telling him, "Behold, you have become well. Sin no more, that something worse should not happen to you" (John 5:14). If you're sick, you obviously did something to deserve it.

[quote]• Feed the hungry, clothe the naked

Feeding multitudes is something, again, which Jesus is depicted as doing magically. Christians have always seemed to have the tacit realization that what Christ does through miracles isn't anything they can be expected to replicate in practical terms.

Christ is depicted as teaching some really mean things.

"For whoever has, to him will be given, and he will be in abundance. And whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken away from him" (Matthew 13:12). Here, the saying is an interpolation, shoehorned into the text in order to provide that all-important "second witness." It has its fuller treatment in the Parable of the Talents, Matthew 25:14-30, which concludes,

"Therefore take the talent from him, and give it to the one having the ten talents. For to everyone having will be given, and he will have in abundance. But the one not having, even that which he has will be taken away from him. And throw that worthless servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’"

This essentially teaches, 'Take away from the poor, and give it to the rich.'

And the poor? Throw 'em into hell.

The so-called "teachings of Jesus" are full of this kind of stuff.

"And these enemies of mine who were unwilling for me to rule over them, bring them here and slay them in front of me’ ” (Luke 19:27).

"Angered, the Lord delivered him to the torturers, until that he should pay all being owed to him" (Matthew 18:34).

Ever wonder why the history of Christianity is full of injustice, torture and murder? These haven't been "fake Christians" (as the 'No True Scotsman' fallacy commonly offers); they've been following the teachings of the bible.

It should be asked, 𝑤ℎ𝑜'𝑠 ignorant of the bible?

The Extremists, The Christian Nationalists are doing the same fucking thing that those who seek power have done for centuries beyond counting. Religion is a weapon.

They also ignore James 5:1-6

[quote]Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming on you. 2 Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. 3 Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have hoarded wealth in the last days. 4 Look! The wages you failed to pay the workers who mowed your fields are crying out against you. The cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord Almighty. 5 You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened yourselves in the day of slaughter. 6 You have condemned and murdered the innocent one, who was not opposing you.

As someone who grew up in the Bible Belt, I observed that Christians mainly follow the Old Testament and the teachings of Paul more than the teachings of Jesus. They seem to gloss over a lot of what Jesus taught.

The Bible is pretty vague and poorly translated from its original languages so it’s open to anyone’s interpretation which is how we ended up with thousands of denominations.

If the Bible was 100% only Christ’s teachings then it would be a very different religion.

Newsflash. No one really gives a flying fuck about religion, whether they’re conservative or liberal. It’s 100% performative theatrics. It’s not about what you do or believe, it’s about what you PRETEND to do or believe.

You know, like how religious men pretend to be offended by porn, and how religious women pretend to be virgins.

People interested in this thread may like the podcast Misquoting Jesus, in which a Pulitzer-prizewinning Biblical scholar (who claims not to be a Christian) tells you what is and isn't in the Bible, how it reads in the original language and what we know of the history from other sources. He has a whole episode on What Does the Bible say about Abortion?

Kit is right: the answer is nothing. And absolutely Nada in the New Testament. But he cites a few passages from the Old Testament that suggest God thinks a baby is not a person until it's viable (ie can breathe by itself). e.g. if you kill a pregnant woman the penalty is death. But if the baby dies because it couldn't survive on its own, you only have to pay the father a fine for that part. He says he thinks Christians became anti-abortion because as the popularity of the religion grew, Romans started spreading rumours about how barbaric Christians were, including that they ate their own babies. The stance against termination was to try to counter such rumours.

Keen readers will have noticed the "pay a fine" example suggests that right from the get-go men considered that a pregnant woman's body didn't belong to her. But the Bible does not use it as an excuse to outlaw abortion, even though terminations, though very dangerous, were taking place in the ancient world.

[quote]R57: He says he thinks Christians became anti-abortion because as the popularity of the religion grew, Romans started spreading rumours about how barbaric Christians were, including that they ate their own babies. The stance against termination was to try to counter such rumours.

There's no need to try to trace anti-abortion back that far because it doesn't characterize Christianity per se; historic Christianity has not always been anti-abortion. It has appeared only in fits and starts, and there have been notorious instances of hypocrisy among those who claimed anti-abortion views, yet secretly practiced it (i.e the recurrent discovery of hundreds of infant skeletons in septic systems and ponds adjacent to nunneries and monasteries).

The idea that ensoulment begins at conception is entirely modern.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐑𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐢𝐨𝐮𝐬 𝐑𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐀𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐌𝐲𝐭𝐡:

Not at all about god, it’s about control.

R55, Not saying you are, but please don't use the term "Christian" when you mean only "Protestant." As a Catholic, I resent the latter sect's determined co-opting of the entire religion.

r59, that is a great article

and r61, the great roman apostasy is a horror upon all humanity, please don't think you're off the hook

I agree with the OP 100%, and proud to be a liberal Catholic. When MAGA Catholics try to defend their party and Trump, I constantly remind them : 'That's not what I was taught growing up in the Catholic Church.'

They usually point out about feeding the hungry, and counter with, :"It's in the Bible: Give a man a fish and he eats for a day, but teach a man to fish and he eats for a week." I don't know how to counter that, though.

It's not in the bible r63. It's a Chinese proverb. And if they try, God Helps Those Who Help Themselves, that's not in there either, although most American Christians are just goshdurn sure it is.

Catholicism has as much or more to answer for than Protestantism. Girls,girls, you're both abhorrent

They're aware he said those things in the OP. But helping others requires effort and many of them can't be bothered.

This thread is like a battle inside the asylum.

[quote]Mary's origin story is that, without her consent, she was inseminated by God.

No, according to the Gospel of Luke, the archangel Gabriel tells Mary that she will bear a son named Jesus, etc. Mary agrees to this.

I shouldn't get in a shouting match about Bible verses. I'm an atheist and don't care, but obviously a book with 1200-1500 pages that doles out rights and wrongs, written by 40+ authors and untold editors over multiple continents and 2000 years is likely to provide some tidbit that fits the occasion: damning or praising as the context suggests.

Of course some people use it with a very prejudicial purpose, to condemn others while painting themselves in a righteous light.

In the end it's all nonsense, there's no god, and it's just a tool for a superior stance and to effect control. Why play a game that can't be won because it's all based on nonsense?

In fairness, r65, nobody expected the Spanish Inquisition.

Anyone who thinks teh Catholic Church is divinely inspired has to explain why the pope presides over the celibate clergy while he also presides over eastern rite churches that allow pirests to marry.

Obviously no Catholic can pretend celibacy is a moral imperative in these circumstances. It is merely a tradition. And traditions can be changed at any time.

The Catholic position, hardly a rock-solid one, is that celibacy is a "discipline" rather than a "dogma". I would take that to mean that they demand this discipline of people requesting to be priests, but they can't really find irrefutable Biblical or theological grounds to say that God demands it.

Modern Christianity comes down to believing you can be the biggest asshole in the world and it will be forgiven because Jesus.

In other words, as stupid as a dress code R73 but with less support.