Americans worship Supply Side Jesus
but then there’s also plenty of arguments that most Christians worldwide worship the Church not Jesus
this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Indeed. Wasn't one of the commandments to avoid false idols and stuff? And wasn't one of Jesus' things about you being able to directly pray to god or something? Just saying, the church is and always has been a scam, a political institution used to better control the masses, especially applicable in large population nations and empires (like the Roman Empire), loosely based on ideas of some guys' teachings. And that's the case for all organised religion.
there are stories that in the Councils to determine which gospels to include in the New Testament, one of the first gospels to be deemed heretical was one where Jesus argued against the establishment of a church …
Do you have a link on that? that genuinely sounds like an interesting thing to read into
heads up, there’s a reason I labeled them “stories” (certainly not something you can confirm through the church) – most of the stories come up as “secret knowledge” within the various esoteric/hermetic/gnostic sects and usually make reference to the Gospel of Mary Magdalene
- possibilities include
- most likely, Gospel of Mary, part of the Berlin Codex – somewhere between 100 and 150 CE maybe
- less likely, Dialogue of the Saviour, part of the Nag Hammadi library – maybe 150 CE
- two main councils for determining the New Testament (and remember they didn’t have carbon dating to determine authenticity)
- 393 CE – Synod of Hippo
- 397 CE – Synod of Carthage
- we do know
- the 12 disciples were sexist
- Mary Magdalene was a single noble lady – a perfect target for misogynistic slander painting her as a prostitute
Wait, does your story include that the council found it preferable to say the Son of God, King of the Jews, legitimate heir of King David, hangs out with a prostitute than with a noble woman?
Considering that we're talking about powerful men, that wanted to remain exactly that: powerful men, and not have their authority questioned by women, yes, yes they did.
more insipid than that – that he would rather spend time with her instead of his “best buds” was clearly not right, so she must’ve been cheating – and if she was a proper woman, she would’ve been married already, something must be wrong with her …
Tags don't exist in Lemmy, so it's not something we can add to the community. How about adding [joke] or [non-serious answers only]?
tags don't exist in Lemmy
But Lemmy is open source. The framework could be added so everyone could have tags.
That's indeed a wonderful thing about open source software. It doesn't necessarily solve this person's question, though.
Or ask in c/wrongAnswersOnly?
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I'd argue that the American civil religion already involves worshipping money, rich people and corporations
I'm pretty sure most Trump supporters already worship him more than God so it seems to be on its way 😅
As an atheist, I had to ask myself how I know people are worshiping a god. In the US, it seems to boil down to a few things:
- Giving money to an organization in order to participate with the community
- Showing obedience to authority by allowing them to dictate some (but not all) of one's behavior
- Being hyper-focused on how the organization got to where it is today and whether what they do today aligns with its initial values and goals
- Performing rituals in hopes of causing specific outcomes
Based on this, I am already worshiping Apple.
I would argue that nobody gives money to their church as a form of community participation. Rather, they give money in the hope that they can buy their way to salvation or as payment to ease their guilty conscience. Probably both.
I live in Utah. Mormons are absolutely required to tithe in order to participate in temple ceremonies. I've never been LDS, but my understanding is that the accounting for how much you tithe is carefully monitored. It's also my understanding that you must participate in temple ceremonies to achieve admittance into heaven.
Your statements are correct about the practices of tithing and temple attendance. The things you mention are widely practiced among the faithful. My dear father and oldest brother attend their annual “tithing settlement” while I happily deposit an extra 10% into my savings.
So it's a cult. Not like that's any huge revelation, but there's no way anyone can claim they are NOT a cult.
I disagree woth the third one, as it implies using critical thinking to evaluate the success of an organisation, be it in a positive or negative light. I haven't heard a single strongly religious individual immediately agree that Joseph and Mohammed were p*dos, and using that as evidence to make a sound reasoning and evaluation on their religion's moral principles.
Religious people clearly use critical thinking. They just base a lot off of flawed premises.
They do use critical thinking but never apply it on their own religion, just all the others. To quote Richard Dawkins, "We're all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just take it one god further".
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They prefer to be called the primal forces of nature.
Sadly, I'm old enough to remember when that movie was a blistering satire and not nostalgia for a simpler time.
Excellent video about Japanese culture that I think is extremely relevant here:
i mean… at least companies exist
Time to attack and dethrone our corporate overlords.
Some would say it's already happened, just not completely. Corpo worship really is a thing. It's just not yet larger than Christianity, though it does affect policies much more than religious institutions.
Article from more than 20 years ago:
The Market as God. It might interest you.
The "God" actually is a worldwide mega-corporation, or few business in a particular market
"Will"?