Today I had a Bible verse on my Masto timeline. And I know I shouldn’t care, but it made me so angry. Like the verse itself was nice and all, no doubt. But holy fuck. You can find so much bullshit in that book. Why don’t you quote that? You can’t just cherry pick the quotes you like best.
I can’t also go around and just quote random passages from Mein Kampf because they sound nice without the context.
I hate that so much. I always need to refrain from dropping Leviticus 21:18-21 or Timothy 2:12 or some other bullshit in the replies.
Sorry for the rant. Just needed to let it out somewhere.
“The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.”
- William Shakespeare The Merchant of Venice
The devil can cite Shakespeare for his purpose too of course. But there was a funny thing once where someone was attributing Hitler quotes to Taylor Swift and putting it out there as memes.
Reply with fake Bible verses and see if they notice.
You can’t just cherry-pick the quotes you like best
The whole religion is just picking the quotes you like.
Christianity is a lot like a fandom. If I say something like “We were going to Canada for some french fries and gravy,” or “I’m gonna pistolwhip the next guy who says shenanigans,” anyone who likes Super Troopers will giggle a little and we’ll be able to bond a little over that. Evangelicals are like people who only want to quote Farva… but like, aren’t in on the joke and think the things he says are funny in the same way.
Well, the difference is that the bible is heavily bigoted. It’s not a “fun recreational franchise”.
I find it hilariously astute when intelligent people come back at ‘em by quoting the fucked-up parts of the Bible. Makes Christians’ do a double-take. (Or not. Cuz of the way they are.)
I think this kind of thing is partially what drew me to Daoism. The daodejing, as religious/philosophical texts go, has 2 major things going for it. 1) very quotable but almost no outright bad or evil advice, and 2) it’s short!
Ah but every religion has negative and positive aspects, every text even, and can be cherry-picked from (and kind of has to be). That’s what any quotation is, though I would agree that a well-chosen quote should represent the overall text. With a book as varied and long as the Bible, I think people who even have read it probably construct a throughline that appeals to their existing views and then dismiss the rest as outdated, irrelevant, or perhaps they just allow it to slip past their minds.
For daoism, there’s the cult-like immortality stuff, along with a fair bit of mystical healing woo in general. I personally dismiss a lot of latter stuff as not getting it, and focus on just the daodejing.
Ah but then there’s the yijing (I-Ching) which is older and has lots to say about lot’s of things, haha. And so many people have so many interpretations of it. I suppose it doesn’t carry the same fervent degree of “this book is infallible because God wrote it” that the Bible does though, which makes selective reading less of a material issue.
Well, that’s enough rambling for now. Tldr, uhhh, I don’t think I really had a point to make!
@CodexArcanum I think the negative side of daoism is probably things like The Art of War. The bible is a collection of texts from different periods; if we made one for daoism it would definitely contain that.
ah yes. and the first comment i see here is someone quoting the bible. i guess nobody understands the bible. because all I see on my feed is people cherry-picking the bible to prove how bad it is. and that’s the same BS
How is that related to the comment you replied to? They weren’t saying anything about tolerance.
So, the original comment said it’s equally wrong to cherry-pick the negatives. These negatives and positives almost exclusively revolve around tolerance. The Bible is racist, antisemitic, ableist, homophobe, transphobe, etc. All of these topics are “tolerance” related. On the other hand, you have bible verses that teach us to be tolerant. And these are the ones that theists mostly quote. That’s precisely the pinnacle of the tolerance paradox. It’s exactly the fallacy of the horseshoe theory.
Maybe this image explains it better:
If we pretend that the Bible is “good”, because we tolerate the intolerant sections, we are not in a neutral position. We would rather have a power balance that pushes intolerance.
Are you seriously comparing religions to Nazism? Wtf. We “tolerate” uncomfortable BOOKS all the time, that’s part of what makes literature nuanced and worth analyzing. Yes people cherry pick quotes from the Bible, like they do for… Everthing? Every book, every person, every event is quoted with the bias and intent for whoever is quoting it.
Why do you need to refrain? Do it!
I need an alt account … 😬
Imma make a Masto bot 🤔
But don’t do it!
