#the bible is stupid

[exvangelicalrage]

What Is Crooked Cannot Be Straightened

5/29/23

When I started going to therapy for religious trauma, my therapist directed me to Abraham Piper, a rather famous exvangelical and son of John Piper, a famous evangelical fundamentalist. Abraham Piper's TikTok account was interesting, philosophical, and entertaining all at the same time, and many of his ideas hit home with me, as someone who was floundering with the idea of religious trauma, despite it having been nearly 8 years after my Exit. 

One of the tags he used was #abusurdism which I'd never heard of before, and being a curious type of person, I googled it. 

"What is absurdism?"

Of course, as you might expect, I found dozens of articles and reddit threads discussing Albert Camus, existentialism, and meaninglessness.

I was hooked. 

Meaninglessness had been an appealing concept to me since the first time I read Ecclesiastes, the only book of the bible I ever really liked. 

Even now, if you asked me what my favorite book of the bible was, I'd still say Ecclesiastes. When I was young, my reason was that it was beautiful poetry written by a clearly intelligent person who understood the futility of life, and which ended by directing you to trust god. 

Now my reason is because Ecclesiastes breaks christianity. It's like a computer virus. As soon as you run ecclesiastes.exe, blue screen.

In Ecclesiastes, the writer concludes that everything is meaningless, therefore, your best bet is to fear god and follow his commandments (cough *philosophical suicide* cough). The ending offers an easy "skip" button. 

"Fear god!" christian you might think. "Great, that's all I need to know. I was gonna do that anyway."

This answer is good enough until you read that verse in Romans about how you're supposed to study the scriptures. And then you do study them.

As soon as you really begin to look deeply into Ecclesiastes, one key thing leaps out: if everything is meaningless... so is following god and his commandments. That solution the Teacher offers? Just as meaningless as any other solution.

All of christianity centers around one foundational element: the meaning of everything is god.

But if there is no meaning to everything, if god is not the meaning after all... what does that mean for the entirety of the christian religion? 

If you take Ecclesiastes literally, then making the choice to "obey god" is just as meaningless as making a different choice. Even if you choose to "follow god," the method for doing so is meaningless. You could choose to follow the old testament god or the new testament god, you could follow Thor or Allah, you could rename the universe "god" and call it a day—and you get to make up your own "rules" about what following god looks like, and at least philosophically speaking, you're good to go.

Most christians would argue that therefore you must follow the christian scripture, because obviously the bible doesn't contradict itself, because it says so. heh

But this doesn't work. Literally no one follows the scriptures literally. Not even literalists. Because it's impossible. Because the bible doesn't agree with itself about anything.

And even if you find ways to look past all the other contradictions, Ecclesiastes undermines everything else. It puts questions where They don't want questions. It adds flexibility where They don't want flexibility. It adds meaninglessness where They want meaning.

And They can't get rid of Ecclesiastes. Because if They do that, then they're picking and choosing what scripture to follow. And if you can cut and paste Ecclesiastes, then it follows you can cut and paste the rest of the bible, in which case you might as well just throw the whole thing in the trash and start over. 

As far as I can tell, the "best" argument against my interpretation of Ecclesiastes is "no, you're misinterpreting it" which... isn't an argument. The very fact that Ecclesiastes demands interpretation in order to "fit" with the rest of christianity, means that I can interpret it however the hell I want.

And I choose to interpret it as an exploration of the meaninglessness of everything that ultimately undermines the whole of christianity.

When faced with ultimate meaninglessness, some people choose to avail themselves of the pleasures of life. Some people choose to work. Some people choose to find meaning in the mundane. Some people create their own meaning. Some people (like Solomon) choose to follow god and obey the king. And some people simply... accept meaninglessness.

And this is the heart of absurdism: choosing to accept meaninglessness as a fact of life, rather than fighting against it, trying to fix it, or trying to solve it.

Everything is meaningless. Utterly meaningless.

Including Ecclesiastes.

Everything is meaningless and that’s okay. Not only is it okay, it's good. Because acceptance often brings peace, freedom, and joy where there was only cognitive dissonance before.

[answermywearyquery]

#just boc things

[nando161mando]

[likedovesinthewindd]

me listening to SZA's mother and grandmother talk at the end of her songs

[kinnbig]

and that's what you missed on KinnPorsche! [1/?] KinnPorsche + Glee Quotes

inspired by @cytharat's incredible KP mean girls gifs

[alexxcatboy]

expect so many stupid doodles while i wait for s2

if this has been made before i genuinely wouldn't know </3 (also sorry for the bad quality i didn't realize the image was that small)

[ximiiixx]

imagine cove as your bodyguard. i see a lot of rockstar!cove aus that i gobble up without even a modicum of decorum, so imagining a music artist mc (of whatever genre, although i think it'd have to be mainstream for the 'bodyguard' aspect to be believable - either that or you're the one making the genre mainstream, hehe) with cove as a bodyguard...

and he's so good at making you feel safe, even though he couldn't look big and tough to save his life - there's only rare instances where you get to see him serious (if only because you enjoy teasing him too much to ever see him with any expression that isn't flustered or embarrassed...)

he'll see a fan get too close for a picture or start to mouth off at you when you politely deny any stopping in favor of keeping on schedule (your monochromatic manager, lenient as he is, prefers running a tight ship), and all pretense will be thrown out the window as he approaches with no little sternness and wards them off so you can pass. and when he looks back at you to make sure nothing happened, he's so thoughtful and concerned and it makes your heart flutter and melt all at once.

oough, thinking of you asking him to feature on one of your tracks a la government hooker...and when asked why you wanted him to be on your song instead of a fellow singer, you reply that "his voice is hot. do i need another reason?"

and he's sitting backstage watching this interview go down, face flushed to high heaven - and god, he can't even look at you when you get back because he just knows acknowledging your imploring gaze will lead to at least a week's worth of teasing...

maybe he likes it, though - when you tease him. maybe he thinks about that spark in your eyes lighting the fuse of your words a little more than professional standards dictate - rolls your words over in his head like stirring honey into tea, sweet and sublime and all too easy fodder for him to get lost in daydreams and fantasies; the kind of which he'd never had before you.

but he's still under your employ. so, for now, he'll keep those thoughts where you - and your pr team - can't see them.

[llavbit]

Bible, Jeff and their twin agenda in digital sketches from today's day of procrastination

[cirr0stratus]

shitty baberoe sketch for the tl based on the fanfic ever

[green-tea217]

The urge to make another account to post Leo bible verses

[reddogcollar]

thinking of the scripture that refers to god cleansing people of sin as "crimson being washed white" and gabriel act 2 starting enraged (red) before being washed white. fucking whatever

[vnknowcrow]

This bastard is lying in his last conversation. I know it, this Slimey rat has never been in the UA dealthclaws or had a wife or whatever sad shit he says. I'm onto you

[maslosstuff]

Maybe I went to overboard…

[specialagentartemis]

I especially love that elodieunderglass wrote that whole rant about how historians are all conservative stupid-heads who just don’t understand storytelling or education and that’s why STEM gets all the funding, because children just aren’t compelled by art or history and historians never do public outreach and just don’t want to save the world, and then tags their rent as “I am not stupid.”

Unfortunately I have to disrespectfully disagree there. I Think You Are Kinda Stupid

[dieinct]

being a jewish ancient religion (post-temple judaism / hb+LXX+rabbinics) studyer is so funny because people will say stuff about the bible and i'll be like "well that's simply just not true" and then i remember about. like. christianity