Always eyeing someone suspicious who basically says that they would murder, steal and rape if it wasn't for their religion.

That's the paradox of tolerance.

Always conservatives

You seem to misunderstand my two previous comments. Reread carefully, and don't hesitate to ask for precisions or complementary explanations about what I said.
Also remember that contrary to some people's belief:

• atheism is not a recent thing
• secular communities that can influence a whole society have not waited the 20th or 21th century either
• christian churches didn't exist before the 1st century. The world without it was not a hellhole without any community, solidarity, or any beneficial value.
• christians churches are a model only to people whose personal culture was heavily influenced by any christian culture. Other social and cultural systems have other models.

That forced social obligation angle is an important if weird part of how churches benefit society in non-religious ways.

That's not at all specific to churches, nor does it only produces beneficial consequences for society. (Domination systems pose many societal problems, some deadly.)

People who only ever do what they want when they want end up in isolation bubbles.

I don't agree with that statement. That doesn't match the acts of solidarity and socialisation I witnessed.

As attendance at churches has plummeted while the remaining churches have politicized, people have replaced those communities on social media,

Or not. Offline social hubs, politicized or not, and old school online social hubs still exist. Aside frop those I cited before, bars / pubs / cafés are still social hubs. The workplace is one too, at least in places where workers can have purely personal interactions with their colleagues.

By the way, politisation is not inherently bad, and the politisation of churches is as old as churches. Charity is political, preaching is political, clergy is in a way a political organisation. Hell, countries like the USA or France have law separating the "State" from the "Church" precisely because of the history of political ingerence from religious organisations like the roman catholic Church or the anglican Church.

which have algorithmically placed them in echo chambers.

Which difference with a community of churchgoers ? The religious belief systems, combined to the rules dictated by the clergy and peer pressure, can also cause an echo chamber. Any kind of community can become an echo chamber. Predatory communication media on internet (including the so called "social networks" or "social media") are indeed efficient at maintaining very-large-scale echo chambers that transcend geography.

And occasionally hanging out with friends is not participating in a third place like a church.

Agreed, but I cited this only as an exemple of possible forced interactions. They can however lead to create or participate in what you call "a third place".

They no longer regularly socialize with hundreds of community members they otherwise would never speak with.

Very probably false. Your statement is, once again, based on the assumption that church was and still is the sole purveyor of motivation to socialise, form communities, help each other, etc. That has never been true.

And that is a loss. It's one reason people are increasingly lonely.

Irrelevant since the premise is false. I didn't rigrously studied socilogy meta-studies on the subject, and you didn't either considering how you phrase your statements, but I'm pretty sure the so called "loneliness epidemic" does not count the decrease in church attendance (or the secularisation of most christian dominated societies) as a significant cause. I'm sure these may share common causes, though.

Inknow people who are stuck in dead-end careers and hate their lives whonreally should just move somewhere else, but they're afraid to because they have like 5 people in the world they're close to, and literally don't knkw how they'd find a new socialmgroup if they moved across the country. The answer to that used to be to move to a new area, start attending church, and meet people.

You almost had it. The church part was only one possibility among athoers. For some people, avoiding any church at all costs was a solution.

Because contrary to how you portray churches and their communities, these are not paragons of happiness, fulfilment, or benefits to society. Some communities may be mostly beneficial, some mostly detrimental. On the whole a common aspect of religions is control : religions can be viewed as systems of belief or systems of social cohesion, sure, but they also can be viewed as systems of domination. You yourself mention that aspect when talking about the obligations.

Systems of domination are never beneficial to society. They are beneficial only to the few at the top of these systems. These are the main tool enabling all kind of abuses :

• rapes and other sexual abuses are most often related to domination. Which international organisation related to our discussion is infamous for enabling many such abuses, and covering them ? The roman catholic Church. (Other cults are also infamous for that.)
• ethnic cleansings, wars, colonisation, racism, are related to domination. Religious beliefs and organisations have been contributors to all of these. ("Missions", religious wars, crusades, etc) The driving factor being greed for money and power, capitalism and its ancestries and variants can often be the main contributor, but religion provides tools and "workforce" for these processes.
• minorities that stray to far from the societal "norms" are often oppressed by the dominant groups (in terms of power and influence in the societyn not in terms of demography). Such minorities include non cisgender people, as well as gender non-conforming cisgender people. You know what is an hostile environnement to these groups ? Most churches and their communities.
• non exhaustive list

For oppressed groups, churches cannot be a solution if they and their church-affiliated communities are part of the oppressors. Are they condemned to be isolated though ? No. They can find a sense of community, belonging, support, solidarity, an contribute to benefit the society as a whole, and chruches are not to thank for that. Mostly, autosupport organisations are their main salvation. Can these be echo chambers ? Depending of the subject, of course, like any community. Can they suffer from social media ? Yup, because their oprresor are dominant there too, but autosupport groups can also exploit the less predatory ones to help extend their group, and thus their ability to support each other and defy oppression.

Tl;dr : even when talking about community, belonging, solidarity, benefical impact, etc, churches are not the center of the world, nor the main model. Churches can even be an obstacle.

MAGA having divorced themselves from reality isn't a condemnation of the paradox of tolerance.

Are you calling whoever they were a liar?

Yes, Exodia is a liar

wwssjd?

How could they have "also said it shouldn't matter," when they wouldn't say anything for the first question?

Christians who only do good to get into heaven are inherently bad people.

Cub appears to be an idiot

For anyone who hasn't seen it
https://www.beliefnet.com/news/2003/09/the-gospel-of-supply-side-jesus.aspx

Ok fair, I don't know them

What would Super Saiyan Dave do?

That's bait

90+% of people used to attend church weekly. What percentage of non-churchgoers (religious or not) have replaced that time with weekly attendance at other community gatherings?

Yes - many things can theoretically fill that void, but they don't. For the most part, people aren't replacing religious community involvement with non-religious community involvement. As church attendance has declined, people have largely stopped being involved in the community on a regular basis.

you forgot the exclamation point that makes it embed correctly, it should be 

Yes, this person really could use some help understanding Christianity. It might be an interesting eye opener for him.

So... Nat-C's

The average American knows nothing about anything past their town boundary, though they claim much more.

The average American Christian believes that countries and religion exist in a 1:1 relationship and that our own founding fathers would decry our wicked acceptance of non Christian beliefs.

I almost got into a fight with a Christian the other day.
He’d insulted a woman for no reason & I called him on it.

He then followed me around the store. When I loudly told him to get the fuck away from me he said he wouldn’t. I ended up asking him to step outside.

While I would have gladly beat the shit out of him, the problems it would bring just aren’t worth it, especially not because of this douche.

I could tell he was expecting a fight so when we were nearing the door I told him to come around the corner & talk.

You know how you can tell when really dumb, obviously lonely, bigots start shaking when the adrenaline hits? It was clear he was ready to explode so when I started to talk in a calm voice he seemed super confused.

I told him that it was a dick move to insult the woman. He responded brilliantly with “Well at least I don’t use the F WORD!” as if language pegs people as sinners. I explained, calmly, that using that language is part of my commitment to authenticity & that the way I used it, saying get the fuck away from me, was not considered fighting words. Thinking on it, that’s probably the opposite of fighting words.

My minor in Religious Studies came in handy &, this might piss some of you off to learn that I’m now a polytheist. I’ve always been an amateur scientist & was agnostic until about 5 years ago. A few concrete spiritual experiences with several different deities or messengers of different spiritual systems I’ve had led me to understand that, for me, God or a higher power or whatever works for you is the universe, our collective consciousness, & basically everything.

Most of the experiences were with Egyptian Gods but also Aztec & Finnish Paganism. & actually Christian which was definitely not expected. But the gist is that I have my own personal spiritualism & personal relationships with these messengers & actually know my shit.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to push it on you. I only suggest you find what works for you & let other people choose their’s.

So I, of course, asked what Jesus would say about insulting some rando.

I watched his eyes roll back leaving a tiny crescent of iris, the space between his scraggly eyebrows, with this one weird extra hair that was just begging (BEGGING) to be plucked, crinkle into a search for any remaining crumbling bits of frontal, let alone prefrontal, cortex, & his mouth drop open.

It was pitiful really.

Watching this grown-ass man try to figure out what to say that could show he was right & just keep thinking “Nope, not that one. Noooo, that doesn’t work, nuh-uh, damn!” etcetera, etcetera, etcetera was akin to watching the slowing struggles of a duck hit by a car &, despite rushing them to the emergency vet 5 blocks away, they pass right before your eyes.

Yeah. That sucked.

So I interrupted the creaking, rusty mechanical gears’ fruitless attempt to conjure up something, anything, by explaining that Jesus told us to love each other with agape, which is basically love for humankind itself & all its members.

His response made clear that he hadn’t read his scripture. I was nearly dumbstruck when he actually said:

“WELL, WE’RE ALLOWED TO CORRECT THEM [other people]!!!”

Nearly.

I realized he was a Fox News Christian who worships talking tv heads more than he understands the true words & meaning of what he claims is his religion.

I explained the general meaning of:

• Matthew 7:3–5 (NIV): "Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? ... First take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye."

Basically, before you shit on someone else, check to see if you’re going to get shit on & maybe take steps to prevent that from happening to you any more rather than impose the same thing on another person.

It went on. He tried to argue a couple times & was an easy mark. In the end, I think I got slightly through enough to get him to feel kinda confused to learn that Jesus wasn’t an asshole elitist. He was obviously surprised when I held out my hand & thanked him for talking outside. I like to blow their mind that way.

I do NOT believe a person should subscribe to a religion. Doing so just closes you off to the rest of this incredible world, makes a person subservient, & instills the views & interpretations of the priest or pastor, or whoever leads a congregation.

But if you, for some terrible reason, decide to do so, do what I told my fifth graders when teaching writing.

READ THE FREAKIN’ PRIMARY DOCUMENTS!!!

Ask Jesus if he's also a legal good citizen American fighting for the true American kingdom

Some still do it despite it, just the others want to do it openly.

Supply Side Jesus

I... I know.

What do I do?

Give to him who asks you, and from him who wants to borrow from you do not turn away.

If there's a hell, there's a special place in it for "Christians" who fervently oppose the literal words of their deity

Excluding people because of their conscious choices and actions is something that basically every human organization and government does on a daily basis.

Excluding people because of racial/religious labels is something bigots do and it is often illegal for the organizations mentioned above to do it.

Especially after the Fox News "40 Days and 40 Nights of Bible Release Coverage!"

"therefore drinking is not bad for people" -> tu quoque fallacy
"therefore you are a hypocritical asshole" -> not fallacious

Does she knows that the characters in the book are Hebrews? Apart from the parts in Greece.

What a dope 🤦

Sadly, I said “in to” and not “into.”

We are in a far less radical timeline.

90+% of people used to attend church weekly.

No. This number comes out of nowhere. Maybe 90+ % of churchgoers did, but that's what a churchgoer is.

Or you talk about a time when this was mandatory for the population. Pretty sure that was never the case in the USA, whose constitution in incompatible with mandatory participation in religious office.

I have no interest in continuing this interaction, since you don't seem to accept that communities always existed and thrived outside of religious duties and cult sites.

Bye.

Also : please re-read this lemmy community rules, as I just did, because you pushing the idea that only church have meaningful communities is not really compatible with the claimed goals of this community.
(Me engaging in a debate with you seeam to also break a rule. Sorry fellow atheists and apostates.)

Shrug, I used "link" instead of "image" and that is how Summit formats it. It looks exactly the same both ways for me so I didn't know it would break for others.

I need some advice regarding some other elements of God's Laws and how to follow them.

1. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighbouring nations.
   A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?
2. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of Menstrual uncleanliness - Lev.15: 19-24.
   The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence.
4. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord - Lev.1:9.
   The problem is my neighbours. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
5. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death.
   Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?
6. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination, Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I do not agree. Can you settle this? Are there 'degrees' of abomination?
7. Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I must admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle-room here?
8. Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
9. I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
10. My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two diverse kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn't we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)
    I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help.
    Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.

Samaritans were still isreallites, though. Just not “Jews”- different tribe. And there were some tensions there- but the law requiring hospitality and kindness to each other still applied.

Jesus was perfectly okay with enslaving non-Israelites, however. And also stonning unruly children.

Is it really a surprise to find that christians sometimes turn into assholes?

A lot of the southern evangelicals here lean into the asshole side than they do the “we should be nice” side.

and that particular Samaritan was "one of the good ones"

Samaritans were still Israelites (tribes of Ephriam and Manasseh, iirc,) and still part of the Mosaic covenant.

The beef with the Jews at the time comes from having been split off long enough to start developing their own tradition. Like which books are canonical and aren’t and which mountain was special (Mt Gerizim not the one at the Temple Mount,) and which temple (theirs,) was “special”.

The beef is kinda like the beef England and France had against each other. By the end of it, they were basically the same culture and that’s really why they hated each other.

Except that’s a lie. You know that the southern Baptist convention split off in 1845 in order to keep owning slaves, right?

They even used the Bible (and yes, the New Testament at that,) to support their position.

Going back further European colonialism (and the enslavement of indigenous peoples,) was supported by the church, and in fact commanded.

Even further than that, when Jesus claimed to be messiah and talked about the coming conflict, he was talking about a physical, military campaign in which everyone would be forcibly converted to Judaism.

The velvet glove to the iron fist.