I agree, but they don’t deserve to be called fundamentalists the way they revise the bible
All what this does is whitewash christian fundamentalist atrocities, similarly to how the “um, ackchually, the nazis were socialists” is now giving a green light to the far right of today to repeat hystorical mistakes all across the world.
This.
Remember, God doesn’t make mistakes. So if God made you trans and put you here in this time where you have the options to explore that, well… seems pretty clear to me.
It’s either all part of God’s plan, or none of it is.
I mean there is shit like Deuternonom 23, 1
“No one whose testicles are crushed or whose male organ is cut off shall enter the assembly of the Lord."
Maybe just don’t give a shit about some non-sensical book some dudes in the desert made up.
The verse was meant to discourage religious eunichs, as so many verses were just meant to enact a change within a group of people long ago, the entire book of Deuteronomy for instance was telling Jews a specific code to live by, including sanitation and hygiene laws. Good way to encode your culture’s safeguards, bad way to ensure their future peace.
Yeah sure, all the uncomfortable verses always mean something different while all the positive verses are true and valid even without context.
You’re giving transphobic bigots too much credit; no one reads a verse saying that eunuchs aren’t allowed in the temple and infers that it’s a sin to be trans.
They aren’t reading the Bible and then developing prejudices based on what it says; that’s not what’s happening here.
Instead, what they are doing is starting with the prejudices they already have and then fishing through the Bible trying to find anything that even remotely matches so they can twist it into a post-hoc justification.
In this specific case, that verse doesn’t justify their position in any way shape or form.
The only reason anyone would interpret that as condemnation of trans people is if they’re actively looking for excuses to condemn them.
First off, that verse is talking about eunuchs rather than trans people, which is actually a really important distinction.
Further, that verse doesn’t even say that being a eunuch is bad; it just says they’re not allowed to enter the temple. which, for what it’s worth, hasn’t even existed for thousands of years.
Moreover, it is immediately followed by a verse saying the same thing about anyone whose ancestors (up to 10 generations back) were illegitimate children.
So, you can’t interpret it as saying that it’s a sin to be trans unless you also interpret it as saying it’s a sin to have great-great-great grandparents who weren’t married.
You’re right that neither the Bible nor any other religious text is a legitimate reason to persecute people, but that’s not what’s going on here.
They aren’t motivated by what the Bible teaches, they’re motivated by bigotry and performing mental acrobatics to try to find anything in the Bible that they can somehow twist into an excuse for their bigotry.
Deuteronomy more like Neuteronomy
Didn’t Jesus say he was the new covenant therefore ignore all the ancient laws and follow Jesus? Jesus himself is unworthy if you follow the Old Testament
Matthew 5, 18:
For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
In short: Nope.
In practice, Christians don’t think this means all old testament laws remain in force literally. That’s a contradiction when they want to use literalism elsewhere, but that’s not most Christians.
Of course they don’t, cause that would be uncomfortable. I know, cause I used to think the same way before ridding myself of faith.
That sounds like something of a thought terminating cliche. I think it’s at once simpler and more complicated.
Simpler because most Christians don’t think overly much about their beliefs and believe their church’s doctrine. More complicated because many do, and those that do think way beyond what’s “comfortable”. Scholarship going back millennia had dispelled - for scholars - any notion of biblical inerrancy, never mind literalism. For those who don’t believe the Bible’s plain reading is all true, there is no discomfort here - it would be a supreme arrogance to accuse minds such as Anselm, Augustine and Aquinas of merely believing whatever feels comfortable.
That doesn’t mean they’re right obviously, but you can do better than such dismissal.
It’s not arrogance to say that if you have already found your conclusion then any counter-arguments that clearly show a contradiction and make “the christian faith is true” impossible to be a true statement will just be explained away. Either by mistranslations, missing historical or cultural context or somesuch.
Sure but it’s arrogant to claim that all of these thinkers from ages past were actually doing that. I don’t agree with any of them because I’m not religious but they had serious reasons for the views they held, and there were serious disagreements on matters of religion that caused serious debates with serious arguments put forward.
any counter-arguments that clearly show a contradiction and make “the christian faith is true” impossible to be a true statement
We’re talking about the content of the Bible and its interpretation, not “counter-arguments that clearly show a contradiction.” (And: modern religions are far to flexible to be subject to “clear contradictions”. I’m sure you’ve heard the responses from religious people to your criticisms already - you find those response unsatisfactory, as do I, but they expose a way in which you misunderstood the fundamental character of the religion you were criticising. I can expand if necessary)
So when it comes to scripture like “I didn’t come to change the law” and so on, there are any number of ways of interpreting the language non-literally in a way consistent with modern Christian practice. I’m not going to play devil’s (God’s?) advocate with you but dismissing such things completely and out of hand is ignorant. People with better understanding of Biblical languages than you or I have studied more of the Bible than you or I have and have had long-running arguments it. If you don’t believe the fundamental principles then… just let them have it? Dispute them when they come up against obvious moral or scientific principles, or on their other statements, but claiming with zero argumentation that they don’t do any real thinking is silly.
If they aren’t ripping apart a pigeon and lighting it on fire on a rock after touching any wild game meat, then they’re not a true Christian.
What defines “true Christian” for you? Can he put sugar on his porridge?
Someone that follows the instructions of the book they believe in, where the book says to follow Every instruction.
Cool, that’s not what a Christian is. But that’s ok! You learnt something today!
There were 2 big things that cover 90% of things Jesus said in the Bible.
- love people. Full stop. Yes, them too.
- don’t listen to hypocrites that make up religious rules and tell you you have to obey them.
The other 10% includes Jesus declaring that you can’t conduct trade in a temple, and beating merchants with a whip.
I ain’t Christian but I will happily do the Christlike act of beating a priest with a whip.
Also something I want to note Jesus made the whip meaning that wasn’t just rage that was true fury that made him dedicate a day towards crafting his instrument of retribution. Which is just metal.
When you’re so furious you go home and craft for entire day, sleep, wake up and you’re still mad enough to whip ass.
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MAGA is just #newchristian hate
There’s a version of the bible they’ve been pushing that adds some “truth” to these nasty attitudes. And people love to shove it in your face “see!?! It’s printed here, it has to be true!!!”
Goddamn I love that shit. You know how many times I’ve been told I’m wrong for being an Atheist because “the Bible says God is real!” That line never gets old, I tell ya what.
So the magaTs are now anti modification but still completely fine with mutilating young males with circumcisions. Yeah, checks out for more insanity form the cult.
i do wonder why trans children are their main target when the plastic surgery industry has many more people to bully
I’m not sure if they’re main target, but they’re certainly a target. Anyone who isn’t behind them is an enemy.
To be fair, as long as they don’t crossdress, don’t have gay sex and don’t undergo genital surgery, they should be in the clear.
So as a trans person you’re allowed to… change your name and pronouns? I think that’s it, as far as the Bible goes.
The Bible old and New testament is trans affirming although it has some passages against homosexuality. In fact the old testament says that eunuchs are allowed and even favored in heaven, but aren’t allowed in temples. Jesus says that some people are made that way, some born that way, and some choose to be that way to serve God, but doesn’t create a strong requirement to be kind to them, rather saying, those who can understand this should understand it. So both God and Jesus are trans affirming and says so in the Bible, but a man should not lay with another man and also there is a verse about a man should t wear the clothes of a woman, but I don’t think that would apply to eunarchs which are not considered men or women or to have a gender.
This is actually a pretty cool loophole for gay people. If you are a bottom you could just become trans if you have to live in a religiously oppressive society. It gives at least one pathway to happiness and love, but I know there are many gay people who prefer to be masculine while also homosexual.
As a trans person I don’t believe in religion myself but I do pray to God. Maybe an old habit. My idea of God isn’t a skypervert, and authoritarian but more like a friendly spirit who helps people who have good hearts and teaches wisdom to those who have dark hearts, but still stay aligned with the ineffable platonic good.
Even as a child it always seemed really silly to me that a god would care about who you love or what you wore. That never made any sense to me. I always assumed God was more intelligent than your average human. People who believe those things are not really believers in my opinion. All their assumptions are obviously coming from a place of, not actually believing in God, but wanting to use it as a tool to hurt people they don’t like. I see a totally different perspective. To me those people seem miserable and suffering in their own confusion and I always considered that to be justice for their own shittiness and their audacity to badmouth God out of their cynicism. God usually doesn’t punish much, he will sometimes destroy, but when people abuse his name and know him not, then it’s kind of fair game. They are in his debt and owe him for the trouble they cause him.
Some of the anti-homosexuality texts in the New Testament also have some missing context that isn’t really applicable to the homosexuality of today.
What was frowned upon in the age those texts were written was the ‘effeminizing’ effect of being submissive in sexual activity, which males in society of that time (in the Roman empire) were expected to be strong, hard, dominant penetrators (manly qualities), not weak-willed, soft, submissively penetrated (feminine qualities). Abandoning manly expectations in society for feminine sex acts was unforgivable. That expectation of social/sexual roles contributes to the homophobia and toxic masculinity today.
Another Greek word that has been difficult to translate is arsenokoitai, which has traditionally been translated as ‘homosexual’ (and used as a proof text for the Bible’s anti-homosexual stance), but later uses of the word seem to indicate it was ‘rape or sex by economic coercion, prostitution, or pimping’, which introduces an asymmetry of power of an abuser and the abused, which is far more problematic than homosexual activity.
This is a common misconception of modern people. The Romans didn’t value masculinity. They valued refinement. They were people who worked on farms, and did everything by hand, and fought in the legion. People like that don’t idealize masculinity. They saw themselves as being superior to other people not because of their masculinity but because of their culture and way of life.
People idealizing masculinity are mostly modern affluent males who never really struggled or worked for anything. They work in offices all day, so they pretend to care about sports or hunting to appear more masculine. They are anything but. They idealize masculinity because they lack it in so many ways.
The Romans also didn’t think there was anything weird if wrong with being homosexual. They had no concept of it being taboo, and just thought it was a normal thing that nearly half of humans were by nature. The Jewish worldview and their dislike of homosexuality and sexuality in general, hadnt came along until long after. Israel was just a backwater at the edge of their empire. It wasn’t until Christianity and Islam took over much of the world that people started to associate homosexuality with gender and masculinity and stuff.
Nope, changing pronouns is compelling speech according to evangelical extremists. Oh and changing your name should only apply to last name’s of women and young girls getting married, cuz we gotta keep in mind however many states still allow child marriage.
“Man, how much waters did I have last night”
-Jesus (probably)
Well, I can’t remember exactly where but I know it’s in there somewhere.
Not sure you want to appeal to the contents of the Bible. I’m sure somewhere in their fairy tale being trans is a sin.
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Bad take. What are they forcing you to do? Say him / her instead of her / him? Oh how difficult. If I legally changed my name from Derrick to Dennis are you gonna moan at that too? “Stop trying to be someone else”. Idiot.
Cringe take that is factually wrong and out of step with modern, evidence -based medicine and research. Educate yourself before talking, otherwise people will think you’re stupid.
You make it sound like they have chosen to be that way.
Then you claim they force people “to adhere to their madness”
Which is wrong. They want people to stop down talking their self being. They want people to accept them as humans because people can’t just do that! Treating a humans like a human.
And this is what lot of assholes are against. Seeing that people who change gender are still people. Usually those assholes also don’t think women are equal to men which is why people changing gender makes them angry.
