Particularly with regard to punishment and value of human life.
Considering the manner of Jesus’s own death I think we can safely state that he would not have approved of torturing people to death, and the people of the Middle Ages (or the Bush administration) were deluded in their understanding of their religion. What’s tragic is how little progress has been made in the last 2000 years.
What I really dislike about Christianity is that there's a book with "absolute moral code" but it's written in stories and riddles so the absolute rules are interpreted differently by every single person, while all of them claim that the book (and thus the God) fully supports their position. There are people who abuse women and keep saying it's because Jesus said that's right, and at the same time there are people claiming that behavior is clearly forbidden by Jesus so Christianity must be good.
>A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.
Maybe a few would take issue with: "A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet. "
They also teach that it's best to beat up children if they don't listen to "commands", they call it "training" as if it was a dog and not a little powerless human. There are entire books on the subject sold right in the churches (pretty expensive too - but God recommends it so what can you do).
We could also talk about transphobia and homophobia, about the "reeducation" camps, about the torture they make these people go through - mentally as well as physically.
And they make old sick poor people donate the few coins they saved up - in a damn building with more gold on it than the local bank has in its treasury. Wtf.
Don't get me started on how they encourage parents and other family members to disown and discommunicate the members of their families who break these """principles""". Several of my friends eventually bowed down to this pressure even though they fucking hate every single thing about it.
The saddest thing I ever encountered was a nice young woman who was raised (indoctrinated and groomed) in this hell and believed it was all right - and tried to get me to behave this way, took me to the fucking marriage classes. They had to call the police on me, I nearly burned that place down. I'm getting so angry I'm shaking just by remembering the terrible shit they said there.
Of course now there's also the whole thing about abortions in Poland, some US states etc - women are dying senselessly because of this - or being sent to prison. Every month I make a point of donating to the nonprofits that are trafficking women hidden in fucking windowless vans as if they were criminals running away to my state for abortions - and then they can't ever return home in many cases, because now they make doctors register pregnant women in a damn central database.
This is literally Nazi-esque shit, sponsored and encouraged by the damn churches. There already were border police chases, and it's only a question of time when somebody crashes and dies - or they start shooting. The "funny" thing is, our local police protects these vans - I wouldn't be surprised if there was a major diplomatic incident (as in cops shooting at each other) soon.
It's all horrible. Excuse me, I need to go throw up.
(yeah sure I know, this is not the true Christianity, right?)
At this point I don't believe any Christian a word out of their mouth unless they show me how they're trying to make this shit right - and I mean receipts of donations to all the nonprofits dedicated to the cause.
Then again he also said:
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple.
From another commenter:
> A man ought not to cover his head, since he is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man; neither was man created for woman, but woman for man
And also:
> A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to assume authority over a man; she must be quiet.
Tell us please how we just misunderstood the context of these two. Or were we supposed to begin reading between the lines now that it doesn't sound so positive?
https://biblehub.com/interlinear/luke/14-26.htm
Neither of those other quotes were from Jesus, they were from Paul. Neither of them say abusing women is ok. I agree that parts of the new testament sound off to modern ears. If you're interested in how those quotes can be interpreted, one example is
https://www.thegoodbook.com/blog/interestingthoughts/2019/04...
I guess this depends on if you think it is abuse to treat women as subservient beings and deny them their voice. But you must really fear smart women to think this is good thing.
https://www.crossway.org/articles/what-does-it-mean-that-wom...
It means "treat like shit and abandon". You can see this from other examples:
> He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.”
> Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
That man's father is still alive. When he says "bury my father" he means continue living with his father until his father dies and he then becomes fully independent and can have time to follow Jesus. Jesus says don't wait for some long future day, follow me right now. The guy isn't literally walking to the cemetery at that moment to bury his father.
> Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”
Jesus isn't saying we shouldn't have ties to our family. Jesus goes with Peter to visit Peter's mother in law for example, and Jesus keeps in touch with his own mother. In this instance, Jesus sees this guy is making excuses and says we need to stop making excuses. Following God is more important than anything else and if we put off God in favor of family, that's wrong. We should still love our family and treat them with respect, but don't use them as an excuse to avoid following God.
At this point you are just writing fan-fiction.
> We should still love our family and treat them with respect,
That may be what you believe, which is great, but that is just not what Jesus is saying. Leaving your family without saying goodbye is just a really horrible thing to do.
Ok, looking into it more, it looks like it's not a completely agreed upon point on whether the father is alive or dead[1]. The thing is, you and I, being so far removed and thus unfamiliar with the culture and idioms of the time, don't have a real basis to claim one way or the other whether the father is alive.
>Leaving your family without saying goodbye is just a really horrible thing to do.
Jesus can see into the man's heart and knows he's making excuses. We don't really know anything about this man, but Jesus was with him frequently, and knows him well. Maybe he doesn't have any close family and is referring to distant cousins. Jesus knows that and we don't. Jesus' disciples don't abandon their family, because we're told of Jesus visiting their families with them.
You are just making up stories. Of course you are free to make up any story you want if this helps with the cognitive dissonance arising the text.
Christianity does not condone today acts of barefaced cruelty. But it says that our world was created by God. Thus, either the natural order must be perfect and natural cruelty must be part of it, or He created an imperfect world for us to suffer in it. I don't suppose any loving human being would be okay with either of those statements.
From observation and experience, I'd say the world, with facets of beauty and love notwithstanding, is a rather corrupt and messed up place. I'd say the same about the human heart and condition. I'd also say the former proceeds from the latter.
What does that mean? Everything is a human notion.
Are you saying corruption doesn't really exist because it's merely a human notion?
Whatever, but sex trafficking, Uighur concentration camps, Putin's invasion of Ukraine, these are all evil, corrupt, wrong, bad, choose your terminology.
> the faults of the world are not ours; thinking otherwise is dearth of humility.
You're saying humankind taking responsibility for the evil we've committed is an example of lack of humility? I would think quite the opposite.
While they did use torture (but keep in mind that torture was practically the standard way of obtaining a confession or validating a witness’ statement, both in roman and in later trials) and sentence people to death, the great majority of the Inquisition’s sentences were not of this kind.
I’m sorry, but this is just Christian whitewashing.
Were the other secret police services as brutally murderous as the NKVD? Maybe yes, then I'd argue that the popular image of the other secret police services are mostly untrue.
Funny enough, you named this "Christian whitewashing" but historically the violence of the Inquisition was also exaggerated by protestants, who are also Christians, so... a case of Christian blackwashing? :)
* as the comment from Bayart points out, I was referring (like the OP) to the medieval/Roman Inquisition, which is a different entity from the Spanish one
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_Inquisition#Torture
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Inquisition#Historiograp...
As a result, witch-hunting is a practice that blossomed in areas where Catholic institutions lost power during the Reform era.
Your perception might be coloured by the Spanish Inquisition, which was under the command of the Spanish crown and was thus a civil institution first.
Even modern day christianity has been "adapted". Pointing nuclear weapons at your enemy isn't really compatible with "turning the other cheek".