Far too many people think that Jesus from the Bible was light skinned, even though he grew up in what we call the Middle East.
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People also think that Jesus was all love and light and goodness because they ignore or don't know about the other parts about Jesus.
Like when he says, just two verses after the famous John 3:16 verse, that you worship him or go to hell:
18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God's one and only Son
Then there's him being super racist:
21 Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. 22 A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is demon-possessed and suffering terribly.”
23 Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, “Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us.”
24 He answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
25 The woman came and knelt before him. “Lord, help me!” she said.
26 He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”
Mark 15:21-28
Or when he says in Matthew 19 that you can only divorce a woman (and, of course, a woman can't divorce a man) if she's cheating on you, essentially condoning domestic violence:
8 Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. 9 I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.”
There's more where that came from.
I'm sure some Christian would be happy to come in here and hand wave it all away with being out of context or misinterpreted or whatever. And yet quoting the Bible out of context happens every time they go to their church and they have no issues.
People most often praise Jesus for the Golden Rule. He didn't invent it.
Oof. Where do I begin? You actually incorrectly cited the source of the verse you are quoting, so we’re off to a great start.
First off, you’ve incorrectly cited the verse to Mark 15:21-28 which is about Jesus’ crucifixion instead of Matthew 15:21-28 which you also sneakily removed the last two verse (27, 28) which are necessary to understand the context.
27 “Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”
28 Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.
Also, Jesus alludes to his Parable of The Lost Sheep (Matthew 18:10-14, Luke 15:3-7) when he said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”. In this context, the Canaanite woman in Matthew 15 is just one of many lost sheep.
In regards to marital divorce in Matthew 19; yea, this one is pretty easy if we take into consideration that social customs have been continuously evolving. The first verse in Matthew 18 begins with Pharisees attempting to catch Jesus in an ideological “gotcha”.
“Some Pharisees came to him to test him. They asked, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?”
Jesus responds by saying, “…they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Keep in mind, when the Israelites were autonomous from foreign rule, they imposed the death penalty to those who committed adultery. It wasn’t until Moses that the concept of a divorce certificate was created, eliminating death to adulterers, which was a socially progressive move for that ancient time period. After all, you can’t create the act of divorce without first creating the act of marriage. I’ll continue with Matthew 19:7:
“Why then,” the Pharisees asked, “did Moses command that a man give his wife a certificate of divorce and send her away?” Jesus replied, “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning.”
The hearts of the people during Moses’ time had become hardened, cold, unsympathetic to those who committed adultery and sentenced them to death. The certificate of divorce that Moses proposed allowed for the hearts of people to soften instead of, you know, killing in the name of law.
So, when the Pharisees present this question to Jesus, he doesn’t actually say anything about whether women can or cannot divorce their husband, as you seem to imply. Jesus simply explains the history of the Pharisees’ own religious law back to them. They wanted him to take a definitive side so they could have him arrested for heresy and he didn’t take that bait.
So Jesus called gentiles dogs and only healed the daughter after her mother crawled in the dust? Not very loving, which is what OP pointed out. The two added verses don't change that.
Also, he admits here that he is there for the lost Sheep of Israel.
I always find it funny how Christians rally around a guy who called them dogs and made it clear he doesn't care about them, just because a random dude (Paul) had "visions" of Jesus 30 years after his death and from there on pretended that gentiles were part of the ingoup. While contradicting Jesus as well if the church of Jesus actual fucking brother on this very issue.
It's just wild.
Hey, I called it.
Well, you did incorrectly cite your source and disingenuously remove the last two verses of the passage you were trying to attack.
Adding a tag at the end of your comment that “some Christian is going to tell me I’m quoting out of context or misinterpreting the text” doesn’t dispel you of literally doing those things. Also, I didn’t “handwave” away your argument. I systematically approached each of your points and rebutted them with the correct sources.
The bible contradicts itself a few times. I think ultimately faith is faith based. (shocking I know)
The golden rule is so stupid too, I want to be left alone, should I leave people alone? My friend likes people coming to his place unannounced, should he come to places unanounced?
It's like everyone takes the rule and twists it so it benefits/excuses how they live and do.
May just be the neurospicy in me, but who likes people unannounced? Like, people can go about their day, knowing anyone could come at any time and they're ok with that?
He's a bit a one of a kind, his home is always open and that's what he likes.
Those seem like misinterpretations to me. Underlying your desire to be left alone is the desire to be treated how you want to be treated. So you can quite easily extend that reasoning, how do others want to be approached? The golden rule then suggests we should have the conscientiousness to inquire and respect the relative boundaries that each of us have.
This gets into letter of the law, vs spirit of the law. If you care about the latter, then the golden rule is quite good. But if you take advantage of the former, then you can subvert and break down any rule.
But for this to work, everyone has to understand every other person. I don't feel the golden rule is about that. Also, a rule which is abused if you use it straight out of the box without enough thinking is IMO not a very good rule, especially if it's supposed to be some sort of catch-all good rule.
As far as catch-all rule of life rules go, do you have any greater alternatives?
But again, your problems aren't really problems with the idea itself. You're just trying to make a general life guideline do more heavy lifting than it was meant to, and all your issues are again solved with a little bit of common sense and conscientiousness.
As a quick sidenote, "do unto others as you would have them do unto you," is not Yeshua's (Jesus's) principle law. His highest commandment was, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.'"
"Be nice to eachother" is good.
The idea itself is, IMO, wrong. That's why the rule is just bad. I won't do onto you what I want you to do onto me. Obviously if you think about it. There is no magic hidden idea inside it, it just sounds good if you don't think about it.
I couldn't care less who invented it but yes I know it wasn't jesus or santa claus lol.