#christians — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #christians, aggregated by home.social.
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My people came from Vilna. I have zero desire to go visit Europe. Its just one giant Jewish graveyard in my mind.
"A rare "antisemitic incident in #Lithuania: A local #blogger and #socialmedia activist was arrested after being filmed spitting at three #Israeli #rabbis visiting #Vilnius and urging others to do the same.
According to #Lithuanian authorities, the suspect, #GintarasLiutkevičius, posted a video on social media showing him approaching the three #Jews, who were wearing traditional religious clothing, spitting toward them and encouraging others to follow his example.
“I heard you love to spit on #Christians ... what if I spit on you?” he is heard saying in the video. “You need to go home. This is not your home. This is Lithuania — go home.”
https://www.ynetnews.com/jewish-world/article/rjjjgezefe?utm_source=flipboard&utm_medium=activitypub
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Illustration: Hypatia of Alexandria and Giordano Bruno.
If I encounter a #Fundie or an Xtian who speaks gently, I try to speak gently in return. Now that #MAGA is in the picture, as MAGA is distilled hatred, the Everclear of Christianity, gentle isn't always possible. However, I'd like to lay out a few points in this thread with civility in mind.
Part 1. We can all agree that Wikipedia is just a starting point for research.
It isn't true that just anybody can sign up and add whatever they like. That used to be true. In 2008, the situation was over the top and there was an internal [but public] trial to settle one case. For old-timers, I'm referring to the Slender Virgin Naked Shorting scandal. Which, technically, may have contributed to the Crash of 2008. Yay, Wikipedia.
The trial worked primarily to sweep abuses under the rug. FWIW Jimmie Wales offered to discuss the matter with me. When I pointed out that he'd destroyed evidence, he seemed to lose interest in the discussion.
However, if just anybody adds just anything these days to a Wikipedia article, and it's an important subject, the additions are reverted. To survive, the website has become a least common denominator project.
Part 2. No, there is no strong evidence that #Jesus of Nazareth ever even physically existed. He may have physically existed, but claims which go beyond that don't rise even to the level of myth that is consistent among His contemporaries.
The New Testament, the primary source even as myth for the existence of this person, is a set of texts composed up to 90 years after the putative death of Christ. Some of the texts were composed much earlier, 30 years after His death, but those claim to be by a single person, Paul, when [scholars agree] a number of different people wrote them.
To be fair, there is a core set of Pauline texts, about half a dozen, that were probably written by one person. The others are fan fiction, not a pejorative point but accurate enough, that were added to canon later.
The author of the Pauline core set, Paul, is the only named New Testament author who probably existed and probably wrote at least part of the New Testament. And Paul didn't even claim to have met Jesus Christ.
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John weren't named formally as New Testament writers until the Second Century A.D. Four people with those names probably existed. But there is no significant reason to believe that they wrote the texts that are attributed to them. Attribution didn't take place until Christ, if He existed, had been dead for at least 120 to 150 years.
Today, we can't agree about what happened 3 months ago even if it's on video. And this was, again, 120 to 150 years.
We haven't even started on contradictions that are common to all imagined stories that grow over time into myth. A good question to ask Xtians is, "How did Judas die?" The response that is usually offered is, "You're only repeating what the Devil says. I can't hear you. Maranatha. Maranatha."
Spoiler alert: Judas both hanged himself and fell from a height and burst open. #Xtian apologists say that it was both, but it's an awkward conflation.
Nor have we gotten to the fact that the most commonly cited non-Church reference to a historic Christ, the one in Josephus's writings, was faked by Christian copyists. There is a claim that a reference existed before the Christians edited the text, but I haven't seen the evidence to this effect.
I realize now that this thread requires a book. Which has actually been written a number of times.
I'm not able to see how this thread started. But the part about how Christians shouldn't cite Christianity, the fact that it exists, as a justification for anything strikes a chord.
My mother's father was a religious leader of the Ukrainian Diaspora 100 years ago. He was the gentlest man alive. This doesn't change the fact that the religion he supported has been the most horrific and brutal force, after Genghis Khan aka Temujin, of the past 2,000 years. So, it's a conundrum.
The Catholic Church began with the rape and murder of Hypatia circa 415 A.D. This was the moment when civilization could have headed down either of two paths: Enlightenment, progress, a move away from the fact of ape origins. Or a millenium of darkness, horror, and torture and murder of the innocent.
It was the second path. Yay, Church.
They allowed Galileo to live. They burned Giordano Bruno to death. They burned countless other men, women, and children to death as well.
"Oh, that was the past" ? A secular organization can come back from that. But not a "religion". If a "religion" behaves as the one and only original Church did, it isn't possible to brush it aside and still be the religion.
I welcome discussion with #Christians who are civil despite the fact of the brutality of Christianity. MAGA, a subset, not so much. I recommend civility to others as well. But the context isn't argument from authority by Christians. -
https://www.europesays.com/es/403753/ Manuel Turizo aterriza en LOS40 Básico el próximo 9 de marzo: ¡consigue tu invitación! | LOS40 Básicos Santander #brotherhoods #catholics #christians #Entertainment #Entretenimiento #ES #España #Music #Música #processions #ReligiousTraditions #Spain #traditions
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Spirituality & Religious Studies @spiritualityreligiousstudies.wordpress.com@spiritualityreligiousstudies.wordpress.com ·Samaritanism
Samaritanism is an Abrahamic monotheistic, ethnic religion. It comprises the collective spiritual, cultural, & legal traditions of the Samaritan people.
Often preferring to be called Israelite Samaritans, who originated from the Hebrews & Israelites. They began to emerge as a relatively distinct group after the Kingdom of Israel was conquered by the Neo-Assyrian Empire during the Iron Age. The Neo-Assyrian Empire was the 4th, & penultimate, stage of ancient Assyrian history.
Central to their continuity as an Indigenous Heritage in the Holy Land is keeping the Patriarchal & Mosaic covenant as specified in the Samaritan Torah. Samaritans believe this is the original & unchanged version of the Pentateuch (which is the first 5 books of the Hebrew & Christian bible) since Moses & the Israelites at Mount Sinai.
The Abisha Scroll is traditionally held by the community to be the oldest existing scroll written by Abisha, son of Aaron the priest, around 3,000 years ago based on living tradition. However, Jewish & Christian theologians have made attempts to dispute this claim which proved unsatisfactory.
Judaism claims Samaritanism developed right alongside their own religion. Samaritanism asserts itself as the true preserved form of the monotheistic faith that the Israelites kept under Moses. Samaritan belief also holds that the Israelites’ original holy site was Mount Gerizim, near Nablus, the State of Palestine (West Bank).
They also believe that Jerusalem only attained importance under Israelite dissenters who had followed Eli (In the Book of Samuel, Eli was a priest & judge of the Israelites in the city of Shiloh) to the city of Shiloh.
The Israelites who remained at Mount Gerizim would become the Samaritans in the Kingdom of Judah. Mount Gerizim is revered by Samaritans as the location where the Binding of Isaac occurred. In comparison to the Jewish belief that it occurred at Jerusalem’s Temple Mount.
Today there are only about 900 registered communal members. This puts Samaritanism as 1 of the smallest ethnoreligious groups globally in the Abrahamic faiths. Samaritans believe that this is a prophecy fulfilled from the scriptures: “You’ll be left few in number.”
Though they hope for a future time when a prophet like Moses known as the “Taheb” (Restorer) will perform 3 signs, namely the jar of manna, the staff of Moses, & Cherubim, or the Golden Candlestick.
This time period they believe is when an era of Divine Favor would return, & the hidden tabernacle of Moses would miraculously be revealed for the Israelite people & Mount Gerizim is restored to its former glory.
Samaritans trace their history, as a separate entity, to a period soon after the Israelites’ arrival into the “Promised Land.” Samaritan historiography traces the schism to High Priest Eli leaving Mount Gerizim, where stood the 1st Israelite altar in Canaan, & building a competing altar in nearby Shiloh.
The dissenting group of Israelites who followed Eli to Shiloh would be the ones who, in later years, would head south to settle in Jerusalem (the Jews). Whereas the Israelites who stayed on Mount Gerizim, in Samaria, would become known as the Samaritans.
Genetic studies in 2004 suggest that Samaritans’ lineages trace back to a common ancestor with Jews in the paternally-inherited Jewish high priesthood (Cohanim) temporally near to the period of the Assyrian conquest of the Kingdom of Israel. They’re probably descendants of the historical Israelite population. The Cohanim refers to the Jewish priestly class, male descendants of Aaron the priest.
The Hasmonean king, John Hyrcanus, destroyed the Mount Gerizim Temple & brought Samaria under his control around 120 BCE. This led to a long-lasting sense of mutual hostility between the Jews & Samaritans.
From this point, the Samaritans likely sought to consciously distance themselves from their Judean brethren. Both peoples came to see the Samaritan faith as a religion distinct from Judaism. By the time of Jesus, Samaritans & Jews deeply disparaged one another, as shown by Jesus’ Parable of the Good Samaritan.
The main beliefs of Samaritanism are:
- There’s 1 God, Yahweh, the same God recognized by the Jewish prophets.
- The Torah is the only true holy book & was given by God to Moses. The Torah was created before the creation of the world & whoever believes in it is assured a part in the world to come. The Torah’s status in Samaritanism as the only holy book causes them to reject the Oral Torah, the Talmud, & all the prophets & scriptures, except for a version of the Book of Joshua (which they don’t hold as Scripture), whose book in the Samaritan community is significantly different from the Book of Joshua in the Jewish “Bible.” Moses is considered to be the last of the line of prophets.
- Mount Gerizim, not Jerusalem, is the 1 true sanctuary chosen by God. The Samaritans don’t recognize the sanctity of Jerusalem & don’t recognize the Temple Mount, claiming instead that Mount Gerizim was the place where the Binding of Isaac took place.
- The Apocalypse, called “the day of vengeance,” will be the end of days. When an entity called the Taheb (basically the Jewish Messiah equal) that comes from the tribe of Joseph will come, be a prophet like Moses for 40 years & bring about the return of all the Israelites, following which the dead will be resurrected. The Tahib will then discover the tent of Moses’ Tabernacle on Mount Gerizim, & will be buried next to Joseph when he dies.
The Samaritans have retained the institution of a high priesthood & the practice of slaughtering & eating lambs on Passover Eve. They celebrated Pesach, Shavuot, & Sukkot. But they use a different method from that used in mainstream Judaism in order to determine the dates annually.
For example, Yom Teru’ah (the biblical name for Rosh Hashanah), at the beginning of Tishrei (This is the 1st month of the civil year & the 7th month of the ecclesiastical year in the Hebrew calendar.), isn’t considered a New Year as it is in Rabbinic Judaism.
Their Sabbath is observed weekly by the Samaritan community every week from Friday to Saturday, beginning & ending at sundown. For 24 hours, the families gather together to celebrate the rest day: all electricity with the exception of minimal lighting (kept on the entire day) in the house is disconnected, no work is done, & neither cooking nor driving is allowed.
The time is devoted to worship which consists of 7 prayer services, reading the weekly Torah portion, spending quality time with family, taking meals, rest & sleep, & visiting other members of the community.
Passover is particularly important in the Samaritan community, climaxing with the sacrifice of up to 40 sheep.
The Counting of the Omar remains relatively unchanged. The Counting of the Omar is a ritual in Judaism that consists of a verbal counting of each of the 49 days between the holidays of Passover & Shavuot. However, the week before Shavuot is a unique festival celebrating the continued commitment Samaritanism has maintained since the time of Moses.
During Sukkot, the Sukkah (the temporary hut built for use during Sukkot) is built INSIDE of houses, instead of OUTSIDE like mainstream Judaism. This Samaritan tradition is traced back to the persecution of the Samaritans during the Byzantine Empire.
The roof of the Samaritan Sukkah is decorated with citrus fruits & branches of palm, myrtle, & willow trees. This is in accordance with the Samaritan interpretation of the 4 species designated in the Torah for the holiday. The 4 species are 4 plants (the etrog, lulav, hadass, & aravah) mentioned in the Torah as being relevant to the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.
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#120BCE #4Species #Aaron #Abisha #AbishaScroll #AbrahamicFaiths #AncientAssyria #Apoclypse #Aravah #BindingOfIsaac #BookOfJoshua #BookOfSamuel #ByzantineEmpire #Canaan #Cherubim #Christians #CitrusFruits #Cohanim #CountingOfTheOmar #Eli #Etrog #GoldenCandlestick #Hadass #Hasmonean #HebrewCalendar #Hebrews #HighPriestEli #HighPriesthood #IndigenousPeoples #IronAge #IsraeliteSamaritans #Israelites #Jerusalem #Jesus #Jewish #JewishProphets #Jews #Joseph #Judah #KingJohnHyrcanus #KingdomOfIsrael #Lulav #Manna #Messiah #MosaicCovenant #Moses #MountGerizim #MountSinai #Myrtle #Nablus #NeoAssyrianEmpire #OralTorah #Palestine #ParableOfTheGoodSamaritan #Passover #PatriarchalCovenant #Pentateuch #Priest #PromisedLand #RabbinicJudaism #RoshHashanah #Sabbath #SamaritanTorah #Samaritanism #Shavuot #Shiloh #StaffOfMoses #Sukkah #Sukkot #Tabernacle #Taheb #Talmud #TempleMount #Tishrei #Torah #WestBank #Willow #Yahweh #YomTeruAh
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And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common. […] Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold, and laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
[Τοῦ δὲ πλήθους τῶν πιστευσάντων ἦν καρδία καὶ ψυχὴ μία, καὶ οὐδὲ εἷς τι τῶν ὑπαρχόντων αὐτῷ ἔλεγεν ἴδιον εἶναι ἀλλ᾽ ἦν αὐτοῖς ἅπαντα κοινά. […] οὐδὲ γὰρ ἐνδεής τις ἦν ἐν αὐτοῖς· ὅσοι γὰρ κτήτορες χωρίων ἢ οἰκιῶν ὑπῆρχον, πωλοῦντες ἔφερον τὰς τιμὰς τῶν πιπρασκομένων καὶ ἐτίθουν παρὰ τοὺς πόδας τῶν ἀποστόλων, διεδίδετο δὲ ἑκάστῳ καθότι ἄν τις χρείαν εἶχεν.]The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Acts 4: 32, 34-35 [KJV (1611)]More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-nt/79660/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bible #newtestament #actsoftheapostles #apostles #charity #Christianity #Christians #commongood #commune #community #donation #incommon #need #property #redistribution #sharethewealth #sharing
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The faithful all lived together and owned everything in common; they sold their goods and possessions and shared out the proceeds among themselves according to what each one needed.
[πάντες δὲ οἱ πιστεύοντες ἦσαν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ εἶχον ἅπαντα κοινὰ καὶ τὰ κτήματα καὶ τὰς ὑπάρξεις ἐπίπρασκον καὶ διεμέριζον αὐτὰ πᾶσιν καθότι ἄν τις χρείαν εἶχεν·]The Bible (The New Testament) (AD 1st - 2nd C) Christian sacred scripture
Acts 2:44-45 [JB (1966)]More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/bible-nt/79533/
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bible #newtestament #acts #actsoftheapostles #Christians #commune #community #faithful #money #ownership #property #sharing #togetherness
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I just want society to recognize that #religion and #bibles don't add virtue or good to, well, anything. It's a tossup, whether #Xtianity helps or hurts a situation. Stop giving it the benefit of the doubt. #Christians #Christianity
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At #Trump’s request, Jeffress’s #church sent the White House Faith Office a 7-page letter outlining what it called “wrongful weaponization” of the #law & the “unlawful targeting of our church.” The letter, obtained by NYT, included recommended actions, & a mention of a Texas lawsuit, which offered a vehicle to declare that the law was wrong.
3 months later, #conservative #Christians scored a major victory.
#TaxLaw #Christianity #Evangelism #NewApostolicReformation #ChurchAndState #TaxExempt
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How #Conservative #Christians Cracked a 70-Year-Old #Law
The #IRS recently said that #churches could endorse #political candidates from the pulpit, a break from a longstanding interpretation of American #nonprofit law.
#law #TaxLaw #Trump #Christianity #Evangelism #NewApostolicReformation #NAR #ChurchAndState #TaxExempt
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/30/us/johnson-amendment-church-free-speech.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare -
#Fundie #Christianity is #TOXIC!
#Christians Can’t Be #Honest or Open, They Must Hide, #Lie and Deceive -
haha. Facebook reminded me of this post from two years ago. I was in a #TerryPratchett group that was being overrun with Evangelical Christian spam. I took a couple of the spam posts and photoshopped them into something more appropriate for the group.
#gnuterry #discworld #proselytizing #evangelicals #christians
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#SOCAS NEWS -
#US. #Christians pushing back on #Christiannationalism
They’ve come for the #Haitians: Why we need #churchstate separation for #immigrants’ rights
#SupremeCourt asked to consider #Oklahoma #religious #charterschool’s case
Oklahoma defends #Bibles-in-#schools proposal after report that only Trump’s might qualify
Organization Did Not Show That Its #AntiAbortion Views Are Religious #Beliefs
#Confessions of a (Former) #Christian #Nationalist
https://flipboard.com/@dustcircle/church-state-separation-g5hp0m0uy
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🎺 JDV Maximum Weirdness alert.
#JDVance chose a disturbing location for his #Arizona campaign stop.
Generation Church in Mesa, Arizona, is led by a #pastor who claims #Christians can't vote for #Democrats and women who seek divorce after #abuse are defying God's word.
Overt #misogyny and #chauvinism are fundamental to the current #RepublicanParty. So it really comes as no surprise that the rally featured rhetoric full of #hypermasculinity and #xenophobia.
https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/jd-vance-arizona-campaign-ryan-visconti-rcna169768
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Day 9 ( Travel to NOLA - February 2024 )
Original : https://www.flickr.com/photos/miguel_discart/53897122700
#CatholicReligion #Chretiens #Christians #Church #Culte #Eglise #Holiday #LieuDeCulte #Louisiana #NewOrleans #Night #Noche #Nuit #PlaceOfWorship #ReligionCatholique #Travel #UnitedStates #Usa #Worship -
Hurrah for modern computers! Today I needed the 350th root of a number. It took me longer to type the command than for it to calculate it for me.
Someone on a #podcast was all astounded that after 350 years there were 6 million #Christians. That's a growth rate of only about 4% per year. And when you consider the really high growth rate early years documented in the #ActsOfTheApostles, the growth rate after that was *way* lower than 4%.
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For those that were exposed to the "700 Club" and Pat Robertson back in the day, you may not have realized that he wasn't exactly a paragon of virtue. This article (and the film it references) were published before he died. Of course this sort of thing still goes on. Personally I would not ever trust any preacher, but especialliy not one that has a television show. Those charlatans are not in their business to serve a deity, they are in it to make money and to gain power and influence.
‘Mission Congo’ Alleges Pat Robertson Exploited Post-Genocide Rwandans For Diamonds
https://www.thedailybeast.com/mission-congo-alleges-pat-robertson-exploited-post-genocide-rwandans-for-diamonds#exploitation #exvangelical #christian #christianity #christians #fundie #scandal #religion #ReligiousTrauma #patrobertson
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Twenty-Five Years Ago, a Murder Most Foul
The burning alive of Graham Stuart Staines and his two young put the politics of religious hate, and even the apex court, on trial, writes John Dayal.
#GrahamStaines #StainesMurder #BajrangDal #DaraSingh #hindutva #odisha #ChristianMissionaries #christians #ReligiousFreedom #CommunalViolence #india
https://thewire.in/communalism/graham-staines-murder-25-years
