From Acrylic Painting for Dummies - Colette Pitcher

It’s primarily a Jewish and Muslim thing. Christianity doesn’t really require it.

He was also a eugenicist!

Covering the organs with a cage has been practiced with entire success. A remedy which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision, especially when there is any degree of phimosis. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anaesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases. The soreness which continues for several weeks interrupts the practice, and if it had not previously become too firmly fixed, it may be forgotten and not resumed.

John Harvey Kellogg - Plain Facts for Old and Young

The only animal I can think of that won’t eat when hungry is a lonely guinea pig.

You’ve never talked to anyone who raises snakes, have you?

It’s kinda amazing how this thread has brought out a bunch of people who wouldn’t pass an intro high school biology class, but seem to think they’re a genius on animal welfare.

“We can’t make this a narrative about how trans people are all crazy? Never mind.”

Bible scholars who are aren’t apologists start from the baseline assumption that it is not divinely inspired. Academic biblical scholarship which comes out of most mainstream universities treats the books of the Bible as they were written by human hands without divine intervention. It’s not even about trying to get some sort of moral message - it’s about understanding the world that ancient Hebrews lived in and how it changed through different periods of time. Gods existence or non existence is completely irrelevant to the process of analyzing the historical text. A good scholar is looking for biases in what the human author wrote. This is going to be the case for anyone that isn’t at like Moody Bible college.

Emmanuel Macron enters the chat

I love the black and white thinking. Obviously, I must be a Christian because I don’t think the Bible is nothing but “kill all unbelievers” scrawled repeatedly in blood.

C’mon Mister Logical - can you tell me what a false dichotomy is?

Paul doesn’t count

But also

every verse about the Amaleks does

You pick and choose like a good little Christian. The anti semitism is always lovely touch too.

I’d love for you to give me an example of a non sexist Bronze Age society.

it’s a compilation of books by multiple authors with multiple perspectives, and treating it like it’s supposed to be a cohesive text that’s supposed to have a single message makes it impossible to understand as a historical text…

I do not accept the fundamentalists claim that the book was directly inspired by God himself - and many Christians would not agree with that fundamentalist claim either. Different books of the Bible were written by different authors with different purposes. This is a necessary jumping off point to do any critical analysis of it.

The entire point here is that it is stupid as an atheist to accept the fundamentalist’s argument, to treat the compilation of books like it is even supposed to be a unified Voice of God.

Notice how the compilers of the Genesis often included two versions of a story next to each other. Were Adam and Eve created at the same time, or was Eve made from Adam’s rib? How many of each animal did Noah bring on the Ark? These things contradict, because the compiler was trying to include all versions of the story available. I suspect a big purpose is to legitimize a unified political identity - that you have a merging of different groups, different tribes, and you don’t want to piss anyone off by leaving out their traditional story.

Then later, different authors are compiling stories of historic kings, and they include stories of behavior that was genocidal and awful. They throw in some justification, because at the time these books are serving as political history.

Then you have the “prophets” post Exile trying to cope, trying to understand what went wrong and coming up with different explanations.

By the time you get to the New Testament, you have a strong influence of Greek philosophy, and again, political tensions in relation to the Roman Empire.

Saying “the Bible condones genocide” is meaningless. Saying something like “the authors of Samuel condone genocide” is more accurate.

There’s literally a fucking Wikipedia article you genocide denying troll. Here’s all the rape you can stomach!

In its June 2024 investigative report, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory (CoI) concluded: “The frequency, prevalence and severity of sexual and gender-based crimes perpetrated against Palestinians since 7 October across the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) indicate that specific forms of Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) are part of Israeli Security Forces (ISF) operating procedures.”

It just annoys me when atheists do the same thing. “The Bible condones genocide.” Parts of the Bible do, and parts of the Bible don’t. Picking and choosing which parts of the Bible you think are more accurate is good critical analysis. We know some of Paul’s letters were forgeries, we are pretty sure about the agendas of some of the authors of the Pentateuch…

So many take a lazy Reddit tier atheist “it’s all stupid and useless” that is just so fucking boring than struggling with what the document actually is. Because it is fascinating. Parts of it are inspiring and compelling, parts of it are boring instructions for constructing shit, some of it is brutal and evil. But it’s much more than “lol stupid goat herders.”

Almost as if it’s a compilation of books by multiple authors with multiple perspectives, and treating it like it’s supposed to be a cohesive text that’s supposed to have a single message makes it impossible to understand as a historical text…

It’s not just “babby’s first anti-Christian rant.” There’s a reason he said “jewsus”…

You are totally misrepresenting the last verse.

He replied, “It is not right to take the children’s bread and toss it to the dogs.”

“Yes it is, Lord,” she said. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.”

Then Jesus said to her, “Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted.” And her daughter was healed at that moment.

Jesus is being called out by the Cannanite woman and is in the wrong here.

So is him running for a third term, but his office is filled with “Trump 2028” hats.

She made the allegations 35 years ago. But because he was one of the “good old boys,” no one did anything.

According to a statement posted on social media from elders at the church, the allegations were brought to light 35 years ago.

After that, he stepped away from ministry for two years to receive counseling. He acknowledged in a sermon in 2014 that he was “sexually immoral” when he was a teenager.

He returned to ministry in March of 1989, two years after his abuse was exposed, he says with blessing from the girl’s father and church elders.

A teenage girl, in Texas. Where it is legal to fuck kids if you marry them. Her dad even took the rapist fuck’s side. He admitted to it to his flock, but characterized it as consensual.

She probably did tell a cop, who probably asked her what she did to entice him. People on here have this delusion where reporting rape does anything. I know of a local middle school where a teacher fucked kids for decades before finally enough spoke up for them to do anything.

Sneak is basically useless with the code patch though. Even with max sneak, iirc the max chances of pickpocketing even like a spoon is ~30%.

Forcing those military generals to sit through a campaign speech showed that the Hatch Act is basically dead.