Can someone explain the joke?
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2024
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The Romans were supposedly in the habit of executing prisoners with captured lions in their arenas. When Christianity was still a minor cult it was at one point technically treason to deny the Emperor was a god, and so being a Christian was technically a crime against the state by default. In these arena matches you'd throw some ill-equipped criminals against something they had no hope of beating and call it justice when they get mauled to death in the "trial by combat."
Anyways, the Christians with persecution complexes really like focusing on these few centuries of history with their millennias old church. This is a joke about both sets of prisoners signing up for the for "match" like it was a casual sporting event.
You can be a Christian and still believe in other gods. Those people chose to deny the emperor's kintype, if they really did so at all.
No. The Bible makes it clear that you can only believe in one God and the first line of the Nicene creed is "We believe in one God"
The Old Testament does makes it fairly clear that there are other gods, because it started as a polytheistic religion, Jehovah is just supposed to be your favorite (or he'll kill you).
It's the modern interpretations that decided to interpret that as monotheism, but that includes Christianity.
There's no evidence for your claim. And the old testament does not. Yes, it refers to other gods as concepts but not as literal Gods
The first commandment is literally "you shall have no other gods before me." If you look at different historical translations and viewpoints, it is well accepted that Judaism experienced a shift from polytheism to monotheism, and there is more evidence of that in the Old Testament. Passages referring to Yahwehs wife, waging war to defeat other gods, etc.
It's talking about concepts, and the false gods existing as a concept. You could even have something like money, etc, be your god. What's your source on "Yahweh's wife" apart from the Church itself being His bride? (Which still doesn't make the Church a god)
There's verses in Kings, Judges, and I'll look back over my Jewish Studies course notes from last semester for more academic sources tomorrow. Notably the worship of Baal and Asherah are present, and iirc Asherah was associated with some Israelites to be Yahwehs wife. We're talking pre-Greek and Roman time periods where Gods were considered much more physical - as we see with Genesis with Yahweh referred to as walking in the garden.
The concepts of gods being more etherial didn't come about for a few more centuries after, maybe by the time Christianity started popping off (again, gotta go to sleep but will check dates if ya need tomorrow). See also the Cyprus Cylinder for comparison and reference to conquering of the Israelites, orders that allowed them to continue to worship as they pleased, while still essentially talking shit and saying "Our God is stronger than yours."
May be worth asking chatgpt. The Bible has been rewritten so many times to adjust for major cultural shifts, but there's definitely evidence within it and other historical writings.
I'll need to know the exact verses. Yahweh has already had a physical form - through Jesus, who's identified as the actual creator of the world. There are plenty of appearances Jesus makes in the Old Testament as well through Christophanies. Now I hear you saying something about "oh that's just a modern Christian interpretation put on old Jewish texts", but the Incarnation of our Lord actually shows that God has always had that physical aspect of Him - Jesus Christ. Who was shown in fullness during the 33~ years He was on earth.
Again, the existence of worship of other gods like Baal and Asherah doesn't mean Christianity was ever polytheistic - in fact, the narrative strongly shows Baal and Asherah to be false gods - attributions. Not something that was actually canon, just a competing belief system. Kind of like how Mormonism claims to be an addition to Christianity, yet isn't Christian canon but is just a competing belief system, you had someone attributing a goddess to a yahweh as his wife.
In Christianity though, the bride of Christ is actually The Church - but that's a whole and another topic.
I mean, idk if we're having some difference in understanding, but this is a bit out of my scope as far as spiritual interpretation. I'm an atheist looking at it more in thought experiment mode with some historical reference. If those are your beliefs then power to ya, but it's not quite my bag of tea to debate spiritualism, sorry:) if I've misunderstood please lemme know
Their claim does have support in so far that the early testament contains a lot of work written by polytheistic people that later in would become the monolatrists and even later monotheists that we know as Jews, further branching off into what today are Christians.
This does not mean that Christians in any sense are not purely monotheistic. Not only are they so, it's one of the most critical parts of their beliefs, to the point where even believing that their one god has in any way shape or form some kind of tangible division is considered strict heresy from trinitarian churches which form the mainstream of Christianity and have done so for hundreds of years.
Edit: There is a great video by Alex O'Connor interviewing Esoterica on that topic in particular and they talk about the evidence that supports the viewpoints.
Wrong, read a book.
You tell him to read a book.
I think you should open your eyes.
You'll find that's usually the way the sighted read books.
I've read a book; the Bible, and it makes it clear that there are no other gods. Even an atheist can read the Bible and decipher that
As if it's not typical for y'all to read something and decide it means what you want it to mean and not what it literally says ;)
Yes, plenty of people do this. Notably theological liberals and people who view other doctrines and worldviews in judgement of the Bible. This isn't the standpoint I am arguing for, though.
I've never heard of this creed, it must not be important
Or you're just simply not part of The Church...
Which one?
The one that Christ established. Christianity. The one with the Nicene creed that I just mentioned.
Oh, yeah, no, not a part of that one
Do you have a religion? Did you have one? Or even grow up in one? Genuinely curious to your background
I'm a polytheist. I'm not involved in any worship currently but I'm friends with a few gods. I don't have to worship my friends to be mad that a monotheist cult wants their genocide.
Well that makes sense why you've never heard of the Nicene creed for a start 🤣
I hear about Assassin's Creed all the time. It must be important
/s
So there's these things called the 10 commandments...
And the first one is to have no other gods before Yahweh. Not to have no others, period
No, Christians believe in only one g*d. They would be extremely offended at the notion of other people declaring belief in other g*ds or themselves a g*d. It's the best way to piss off both an atheist and a christian at the same haha, at least according to me (atheist) and a (Mormon) friend I have. Before there were Christians, you had people believing there were multiple g*ds and then the Christian g*d clearly says he is a jealous g*d and he is the only one that can be worshipped according to Moses and the ten commandments.
They're differentiating between belief in a god and worship of a god.
Also, put a backslash before asterisks and it won't make italics.
The ten commandments don't say no other gods. They say "Thou shalt have no other gods before me". It's absolutely fine to have other gods behind Deus, or equal to Him. Just no worshipping other gods more than Deus if you're a christian.
Monotheism isn't an essential part of christianity, it's a pointless and harmful choice that assholes decided to justify by hiding behind the abuse of their own supposed religious beliefs.
1 Corinthians 8:6, Deuteronomy 6:4, 1 Timothy 2:5, Isaiah 44:6, James 2:19, John 17:3 would disagree with you.
Need any more?
You got any pre-roman sources or are you just going to trust what the Romans made up about Christianity after Jesus died?
Deuteronomy and Isaiah are Pre-Roman.
And the New Testament was not written by the Romans, but by first Century Christians
If you think the Romans didn't modify those to suit the Capital C Church based in Rome... Well, it doesn't matter that much to the discussion because Jewish belief at the time was firmly monotheistic and that is in fact a primary grievance for the Jewish rebellions that happened at the time.
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We literally have a surviving copy of Isaiah from before Jesus was even around, nevermind the Roman Church
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We have complete manuscripts of the New Testament that are still dated from before Constantine
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There is no evidence of the New Testament or Old Testament being altered by the Roman Church
That seems unlikely in mainstream, especially pre-protestant, Christianity. Typically festivals survived a culture turning Christian, but not the gods
"unlikely" "typically". Yeah, I'm not saying it was normal for christians to be tolerant of others, I'm saying it's normal for them to CHOOSE to be exclusionary. Being put to death isn't a proportional response, but it's not that much worse than they deserved. Look what happened when we put the monotheists in charge and let them do whatever they wanted; the crusades and the genocides in the new world. Monotheism is dangerous and you need to stamp it out. With violence if necessary. There is such a thing as polytheistic christianity, and it is the only good form of it.
Did you just call Christians exclusionary and then tried to justify executing monotheists.... Which makes up like a quarter of the world's population?
No, I didn't justify executing them, I mitigated it. I justified a more general call to violence against monotheists. Pay attention.
Monotheism is a choice. It's not an essential part of any belief system unless you count being a dick. It's violent, and it deserves a proportional response.
I feel it's pretty clear from context that it means to not put other gods before their god rather than acknowledge the existence of a god.