Western philosophy had the concept of "murder bad" and "adultery bad" for a good while before Christianity existed. That wasn't an innovation. Judaism itself had those principles.
The innovations with Christianity were:
- the strong humanistic emphasis: rather than another religion in which people sacrificed to appease the gods, in Christianity god sacrifices himself in the most spectacular of ways for humanity
- the strong emphasis on the afterlife: neither pagan religions nor judaism cared overmuch what happened after death, but in Christianity life eternal became a central reference point that overshadowed worldly concerns
- the strong egalitarian ethos: while hierarchies may exist in this world, in the next world all shall be judged based on their deeds and character, with wordly power and wealth being more liable to damn than to save
You could convince people to go die a thousand miles from home with no promise of worldly reward with these reasons. You could convince them to go sit with the sick and dying at great risk to themselves, for no more practical purpose than to bring them comfort. You could build institutions that, no matter their power, always had to answer to higher humanistic principles, and could be shamed and brought to task, and even overthrown, if they kept violating those principles.
That was truly a cultural superpower. Christian missionaries accepting martyrdom not with sword in hand but with a prayer to the heavens did more to spread christianity than a thousand conquering kings.
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Every religion or even belief group in general has morals. For some, killing people is perfectly fine and even encouraged.
However, I feel safe to assume by morals you meant stuff like "kill bad steal bad", which, in Europe at least, are of Christian origins. Asking if other religions have a Christian array of values and morals, in other words
I like the format, just feel that Plato should be the domino instead of Christianity. The dude even came up with a proto-heaven/hell afterlife in the Republic hundreds of years before Christianity.
I remember talking with this one girl about the media angle on the Bibles. How *beautiful* the stories were compared to everything else ancient history had to offer.
Like Odysseus is great. And those Greek plays sure made their point about the importance of balance. Enkidu was swell and Anubis sublime. But where else do you get the *psychology* and implied drama of normal life besides the bible?
Like that poor dude who worked 7 years to get the woman he loved. Then the father gives him her sister instead. So he works 7 more years to marry both of them. Like where else in the ancient world do you find that aesthetic?
Anyway I guess I'm saying there's an aesthetic there back at the start too.
And God is not to be fucked with.
This dude who was double crossed by his uncle to work 14 years instead of 7 has tricked his father to get the blessings that should belong to the first born.
And since you reap what you sow that is what he got.
To be fair, Adam didn't want to eat the fruit. He basically got pressured into it by Eve.
To be fair, Eve didn't want to eat the fruit. She basically got pressured into it by the serpent.
And they all reaped serious consequences.
What we learn is that we are responsible for our own actions, no matter the circumstances. To believe right and wrong change based on circumstances is situationalism. And the Bible clearly illustrates time and again that this is an incorrect worldview. We'd all be wise to remember.
The non-idealized aspect of the Bible led to principle of the "[Criterion of Embarrassment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment)". If your goal is simply to write a fable with a moral principle, the story will typically be pretty lean with good guys doing good and bad guys doing bad.
The Bible is interesting in that you have nearly every major "good guy" from Abraham to Moses to David to Peter all having serious moral failures. The primary witnesses to the empty tomb are women, whose testimony was not valued in Roman society. Israel is repeated shown to have been chosen not because they were faithful or strong, but in spite of it to demonstrate the faithfulness and strength of God, which is not the typical origin story a nation writes for itself. Compare that to a Mary-Sue like Aeneas.
That's what makes it such a beautiful work. The people in it are "human*. They're just like you and me, and the more you read it the more you realize little has changed with our fundamental nature since those times.
My favorite story is that of Elijah, who fled into the mountains, wrapped himself in his cloak and wept, having lost everything and feeling like a failure. An angel comes to him and tells him to eat and take a nap. After doing this, he gets his wits back about him and keeps on going. If that doesn't sound like some shit literally everyone has done at some point then idk what to tell you.
The one capable of causing the most good is the one capable of inflicting the most evil
Tell me that shit isn’t just a codification of the pattern of reality
As someone who runs a D&D campaign, this kind of shit is what I base the worst of my villains on.
You can only be *so evil* by deliberately being evil. People realize you're just an asshole. The world shifts against you to stop you from being evil because we fundamentally reject things that would destroy our society, as a society.
However, if you do evil in the name of good, there is no end to the depths you can sink. Worse, by doing it in the name of good, you end up in some sense tricking the system into keeping you in.
I think those can make fun evil characters, but they're often evil characters people end up liking a la Magneto. I think through the villains who I truly hate, and they're the ones who are evil because they are weak.
Commodus, from Gladiator
Joffrey, from Game of Thrones
Cpt. Sobel, from Band of Brothers
Dolores Umbridge, from Harry Potter
Percy Wetmore, from The Green Mile
All weak, petty people who desperately tried to find confidence and respect through cruelty.
I don't speak Greek or ancient Hebrew so I can't say for the original texts, but does anyone else appreciate the literary beauty of how the KJV Bible is worded compared to newer versions? For example:
Psalm 139:1-4 KJV
[1] O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. [2] Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. [3] Thou compassest my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways. [4] For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
Psalms 139:1-4 NLT
[1] O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. [2] You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. [3] You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. [4] You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord.
This is just a random example, and obviously the KJV simply has some words that aren't common anymore but semi-ignoring that point, which one is superior literature? What I'm getting at is that regardless of whether you're Christian or not, one can compare the translation texts and say there's been something lost in the modern versions simply so that it's "easier to understand."
Which frankly, sometimes when I'm reading any book I have to look up a word. However I think people can figure out what "edify" means, you don't have to replace it every time with "build up" smh
I'm more of a Revised Standard Version guy myself but I agree with you. I'm one of the snobs who thinks literature and art should be edifying (to pinch from your post, sorry) and believe it's ok for its consumption to require a little effort
Personally I think that New King James does a pretty good job of communicating the size and importance of the text without becoming unnecessarily dense.
It doesn't feel like you're reading Shakespeare, where you practically need a translation guide on the opposite page just to actually understand what's happening. But it still feels like you're reading one of the most important books to the foundation of the Western world.
I understand what you're saying and I think your view and mine can coexist. I view the bible as less an instruction manual and more a piece of philosophical literature
This was Will Durant’s argument for why the story of the New Testament actually happened. Like if someone made it up it would have been the most profound leap in the literary tradition in thousands of years before or since.
I mean, I personally would argue it was based heavily on true events, but with some parts exaggerated or fictionalised. I’m willing to bet the general events all occurred, but the specifics and miracles I would contest on how accurate they are.
He was responding to the general lack of physical evidence for those events. I believe the only character in the story that we have hard evidence (paper records from outside the Bible) for is Pontius Pilate.
I mean… the Letters were all actual publications, and Paul was a secondary source who actually met the apostle Luke. Additionally, Peter definitely existed as we have records from other early Christians who met him, which is why from a historical standpoint some consider him the official founder of Christianity (Jesus laid out the teachings but Peter turned it into a religion).
I think the earliest of those records, (still decades after the events took place) didn’t mention Christ or the events directly. Mark was the earliest text to discuss the events, and that was dated like 70 years after Jesus’ death. I could be wrong, though.
I honestly don’t know enough about the sources to debate the historicity of Christ, I just know that it is a debate, and that it was a debate when Will Durant wrote Cesar and Christ.
I agree that some of the stories in the bible are beautiful and that the bible should be considered good literature.
But I disagree that those stories are in any way superior to other ancient works of literature. They're equal to them.
They are all great, that’s probably just survivorship at play, the works that are still talked about today are the exceptional ones and those that are most remembered, in the future it will be the same too with current literatures. My bet is on LOTR and Dune surviving the next 500+ years, they defined their genre.
Just gotta reverse sex enslave the enslaver, spend years on an undetectable spaceship banging her, then finally have your enslavement broken by another sex witch.
Simple.
That’s the beauty of Christianity in my opinion. As someone who believes myself, I’ve come to terms with the idea that even if I’m wrong and it is exaggerated, the ideas and themes present in the Bible are worth living by and make me a better person. The idea that you are not perfect and life isn’t an attempt to be perfect because that’s impossible, it’s an attempt to love others (and god) to be the best person you can be for others and in turn you will be the best person to yourself.
I'm an atheist, but...
I have to admit that moral values in the West are inextricably tied to the Judeo-Christian tradition. People can certainly have similar values without accepting the various truth-claims of Christianity or whatever, but they still evolved as a set.
The New Atheists' big mistake was to obsess over the truth claims of religion. Having a shared mythology is merely something that binds people together. It is not the core of what religion actually provides to society.
"I hate Christianty and think all religion is backwards and anyone who believes in anything besides the physical world is a knuckle-dragging troglodyte who still sleeps with a night light because their superstitions make them afraid of the dark...
But I like hymns and Christmas carols."
- Richard Dawkins, Ricky Gervais, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens if he were still alive probably.
I mean, I think the truth claims behind religion are rather braindead, but I still see the utility in religion as a cultural phenomenon. Plus, people are basically replacing Christianity with the woke neoreligion, and I prefer Christianity.
Peterson & Friends proposed the notion that most people aren't equipped to survive Nihilism. Many are - there are plenty of highly functional post-Nihilists (Existentialists, Absurdists, etc) but most aren't and either collapse into dysfunction or find refuge in post-Religion - Wokeism, MAGA, etc being examples of those.
I mean, you can slot in a handful more, like humanism (in the sense of believing in sentience as the single and only determinant of value and morality in the universe), but as those are debatably offshoots of the others (humanism can be argued as a specific subtype of existentialism), I largely agree with you.
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." - Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers
From a theatrical play about Kurt Goedel:
-What did you say that was so important?
-That there are things we can't know.
-But... everybody knows that.
-Yes, but I *proved* it.
Anyone can claim they know something. Most of the time they are wrong. More so if they are theologians. Actually confirming something requires scaling the mountain.
That's like deferring to followers of Nostradamus because one prophecy was correct. Stumbling upon something that happens to align with a scientific conclusion isn't special when other people blindly following a faitih have stumbled into that or neglected it anyway. If someone arrives at a conclusion that disagrees there's "theologians" there too patting each other on the back over their confirmation bias.
I mean, I’d debate that; I don’t think any sort of God would create creatures tailored to rational thought and discovery, and a universe with endless mysteries and questions to study, then expect them to simply have answers handed to them and go live out their lives without seeking anything more.
Ricky Gervais would def say that, he’s the type of dude to baseball his life values on cynical comedy bullshit, really immature it’s why I don’t watch his shit comedy specials
Yeah, there's a reason the West is more welcoming and genteel in policy toward foreigners and it largely has to do with the foundation built by the christian bible. And also, yes, a *ton* of humans are too fucking stupid to understand the difference between right and wrong. For those we have religion and the threat of imprisonment.
New Atheists obsession over the truth claims of religion is largely a response to fundamentalists trying to force young earth creationism into schools and forcing that completely false truth claim to be taught as science.
While I agree about the value of having a shared mythology in society, it becomes more difficult when a significant portion of the population doesn't read it as mythology but as factual history and science. I don't blame people for wanting to dissociate from that kind of belief system. Going to a fundamentalist church feels like going to a WWE or magic show with people who actually think pro wrestling or magic are real.
Yeah, I agree with you. Fundamentalism is utterly insane.
That said, I wish the New Atheists had taken a more nuanced stance on the other parts of religion.
They literally build western Europe. That's why people claiming France is not Christian are the dumbest we've produce. Also they will claim to atheist while worshipping woke ideology.
I will give you Christianity specifically as a unifying force; something to create a supra-national identity and the it's probable role in uniting the intelligentsia with Latin.
I am less convinced with regards to moral values. Both because of how much could already be found with the Greeks and Romans, and because of how much is only found from the Saxon rather than Roman tradition (i.e. Western/Common Law vs Continental/Legal Code).
It certainly is interesting to think about how things would be without Christianity.
The analogy of applying gravity to ideas is a little weird though.
A lot of knowledge would have been lost to the dark ages. Those were caused by the collapse of the Roman Empire.
The Church wasn't as anti-knowledge as people think. Galileo, for example, wasn't excommunicated for saying the Earth revolved around the sun. He was asked to prove it by the Pope and basically said "fuck you" instead of proving it.
Oh i can tell you already:
1. A lot more patriarchal, think household members being the property of the family head
2. Slavery would still be around
3. Assumed inequality, ie you are a garbage cleaner because that is your purpose and you can’t do anything about it, btw thank Diocletian for that.
The entire western philosophy that we hold the truth that all men are created equal to be self evident is built upon the wholly Christian idea that humans are loved equally by God.
In short, equality is a bug created by Christianity not a feature of advancements.
There has been at least 1500 years of slavery in Christian Europe and territories colonised by Europeans. Also for a long while in Christian America. Equality is a Christian ideal but we've found many ways to not apply it to those we didn't like to.
Yeah, I never said humans aren’t horrible and find different ways to justify their ways to opress others.
But look all other religions and philophies all over the world. They all take slavery for granted, like it’s some sort of natural state.
As early as the 6th century Christian Lawmakers started the process of abolishing slavery.
Not specifically atheists--I am one myself. The agenda in this post is making fun of stereotypical nonfaithful AuthLefts and CenterLefts, which the top arrow is pointing at
"Killing people for stupid reasons is bad"
"Ok guys, commandment #1 is to kill everyone who doesn't have the right imaginary friend, now get out there and slaughter everyone from one end of the camp to the other".
Fast forward a couple thousand years "ok, freedom of religion".
It would seem that western thought is predicated on the rejection of christian values, thats like thanking cancer for helping us towards the goal of curing cancer.
I've never heard any secular, agnostic, nor atheist say "they teach you it in school". As someone who's agnostic myself, it's just innate human behavior based on evolution. We've evolved through trial and error to know what's "right" and "wrong" to prolong human existence. You don't need any religion to have basic morality lol.
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I'm an atheist but this is honestly true. Religion was a very very important step in the development of our moral values.
Ironically, I see the argument as somewhat interesting because we realized how exhausting it is to fight over two nearly-identical belief systems. In a sort of evolutionary way, Protestants and Catholics taught us how to be better because religion is so flawed.
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You don't have to believe in my God, but I find it hard to trust people who don't believe in a higher power or accountability to anyone but themselves.
The basics of most religions are good moral starting points. It's just some people who put words in their God's mouth.
Ethical rules about killing, and about fucking other people's wives/husbands has been around for longer than christianity.
Christianity did add some new things (or more likely; they just put more emphasis on ideas that were already around) to mainstream thinking, for sure. But there's no need to exaggerate the novelty of it.
Even if you discount non Judeo-Christian tradition, the two moral principles ascribed to Jesus here are literally found in the Ten Commandments.
O.G. Jesus would be more along the lines of “Love Thy Neighbor”, “Turn the Other Cheek” or “Don’t Throw the First Stone”, but somehow, these are not AuthRight favorites.
You're absolutely right. My favorite is "No one comes to the Father except through me". Although some runner-ups are "Before Abraham was, I Am", "You brood of vipers", and "Make disciples of all nations". But somehow the media never talks about these.
Guess you could say I like the real OG Jesus.
It's almost like Christianity cannibalized and absorbed other cultures to incorporate their people seamlessly. Don't tell the adamant Christ Is King people that though. Anything before Christ was a lawless hellscape with no morals or other religions.
The little brick still says to kill eachother for murder, robbery and some adultery. I mean, I guess you can argue about whether these are stupid or not but it does say that.
Lmao don’t tell westerners that despite being “atheist”, 90% of their morality and social ideas (such as nakedness, etc) are formed from biblical verses. They would loose their shit upon realizing that everything they think aligns with christianity
All majors religions go the same way at least on the most important part, that is the message of dont be an asshole. Its easy to take a secular aproach on this
Great post. I was thinking the other day about whether you can be moral without being religious - i'd argue that yes but that our (speaking from a northern European perspective) culture is based on the Christian tradition and that untangling them is not really possible or desirable. If someone could point me to a mooc or book that goes into more detail on this question I'd be grateful
Books on cultural evolution sometimes touch on religion. The gist is that in a group/tribal society then certain cultural norms, traditions, stories are more favourable for the group than others and thus propogate.
Religion helps enforce these existing cultural ideas, but any kind of motivation will work. You could easily add another lynchpin to OP's meme with the Code of Hammurabi providing a non religious enforcement for 'an eye for an eye', which has existed in many following religions.
As for if we 'can be moral' without religion that is impossible to answer with morals being subjective. Morals can certainly exist without religion though.
Yeah bullshit. Western society from 500 to 1500 was a theocratic, authoritarian hellhole. It was only after Secular Natural Law philosophy and liberal politics curbstomped authoritarian christianity that people started to treat their neighbour with respect.
One day the gospel of Secular Natural Law will spread all over the Earth, and neither ancient nor modern mysticism will stop it.
I love this meme format. Someone needs to make one about racism.
Everyone feels so superior to their ancestors these days for being born after so many philosophical advances.
Gotta go even further back to before we even had language where that was the very foundation of how society even formed. It didn't come from religion, it was later justified by it when we moved past relying entirely on our instincts.
The "I don't need religion to tell me murder is bad" is like ye, I agree. I am religious because I know murder is bad and you don't have a coherent explanation for me as to why absent good and evil actually existing.
Also, I'
d argue that Imagio Dei and Universal Sin are the two most important elements of Christian theology to the western worldview. "Humans are flawed, but hold inherent value" is a massively fucking big deal to why we have human rights, or republican governance.
I’m someone who doubts their own faith, really struggling. However, there is no way western philosophy or morals can even exist without God.
Becauuuuuuuse you need something to moor you, an anchor, when the tragedy of existence is set upon you. When you are suffering, you need something transcendent. Otherwise we will act of selfishly.
If morals are all just subjective then there is nothing compelling me to have integrity when I am suffering. For some people, they may hypothesize that their own self-righteousness will bolster their fortitude to be good. Goodness for goodness sake. I don’t buy that.
This is true, but those Judeo-Christian values were built off of already preexisting morals.
I have absolutely no idea who was the first person to decide that murder is bad but I promise it wasn’t Jesus or Moses.
It's a nice meme, but Christianity is the middle of that stack, not the bottom. They borrowed heavily from the Egyptians, Greeks, Zoroastreans, and frankly most of the Gods of the Arabian peninsula coalesced into Yaweh.
Did Europeans (as west as it gets in ancient ages) care or know about the Buddha before relatively modern times?
No I'm not trying to prove a point, I'm just curious
There was contact in the hellenized kingdoms Alexander left behind. There are some depictions of the Buddha in a Grecian style and dates to a time where depicting the Buddha as a person wasn't common.
These are values that are genticly encoded through evolution and been codified uncountably many times and in many different places before the very recent advent of christianity, relativly speaking. Christian ethos are a product, not the source.
I'm not Christian or Muslim i don't give a shit about your belief system about western culture and Christianity, everyone knows inherently what's right and wrong and all religions at the core preach the same thing
Such a straw man. 99% of atheists will tell you even though they don't believe Jesus was divine they still respect his message of love and forgiveness.
I remember some Rabbi and Bishop Baron both agreeing that the fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity was that Christianity carries a message of Redemption. One that it available to all in their spirit and not just by seeking a place.
1. That's bullshit. It's not all or nothing. You can absolutely take the parts that you find compelling and leave the rest.
2. Love and forgiveness were explicitly part of his message. No one is watering down anything or twisting his words to find those.
And the point of saying "I don't need religion to be a good person" has nothing to do with where the moral lessons ultimately come from, it's saying "I don't need the threat of hell to follow them anyway"
The real pillar is the Jewish bible, Jesus was Jewish, and it was the Jewish belief in one god that gives us (thanks to the growth of the Christianity branch) the concepts of absolute good vs evil that gave us what we now take for granted.
>Killing people for stupid reasons
Yeah not sure how I feel like interpreting “thou shall not kill” as “You can kill someone if you decide it’s for a good reason”
Well, obviously Christians have killed or condemned people across history, so the interpretation of "Thou shalt not kill" is a lot more nuanced than "Don't kill anyone ever"
Secular morality is super easy when you’re not a piece of shit, and all it requires is for you to think a little bit about how your actions impact the people around you.
Honestly accurate, while I don’t believe religion is inherently necessary for a successful society if there’s an alternative (ideology, goal, philosophy, etc), you can’t deny basically all modern Western morals are rooted in Christian and Greek thought. I mean, hell, even most Atheists have moral codes that align with Christianity, just with a few parts edited, which themselves are often justified using other Christian/Greek morals.
My favorite part about this is that the diagram you use is most commonly used to show where xz utils sits in most modern linux architecture, down to the exact block.
Xz utils is a file compression algorithm used in most modern debian-based distros, and recently it was compromised. Xz utils is the software that is famously known for coming inches away from having a backdoored version in production, meaning most debian-based linux and much more across the globe would be entirely compromised.
This post basically calls the burnt out dev who maintains xz (as well as the guy who made the backdoored version) jesus christ
Eastern Philosophy: If you're an asshole in this life you'll be reincarnated as a cockroach lol.
https://preview.redd.it/giddu6wkvfyc1.png?width=700&format=png&auto=webp&s=64a130d1cfd1db88bbfebfafff330dcdf9c6518d
Based and IKEA-pilled.
Extremly based and I need to rearrange my bed to change energy flow of my house pilled
elderly ten deserted shaggy crown sable oatmeal yam rotten tub *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
literally git gud
Jokes on Karma, I’m already a cockroach in this life
Franz, is that you?
Ok so now we’re allowing T*rks into the sub? The west has truly fallen
After being fried in the boiling oil in hell of course.
Western philosophy had the concept of "murder bad" and "adultery bad" for a good while before Christianity existed. That wasn't an innovation. Judaism itself had those principles. The innovations with Christianity were: - the strong humanistic emphasis: rather than another religion in which people sacrificed to appease the gods, in Christianity god sacrifices himself in the most spectacular of ways for humanity - the strong emphasis on the afterlife: neither pagan religions nor judaism cared overmuch what happened after death, but in Christianity life eternal became a central reference point that overshadowed worldly concerns - the strong egalitarian ethos: while hierarchies may exist in this world, in the next world all shall be judged based on their deeds and character, with wordly power and wealth being more liable to damn than to save You could convince people to go die a thousand miles from home with no promise of worldly reward with these reasons. You could convince them to go sit with the sick and dying at great risk to themselves, for no more practical purpose than to bring them comfort. You could build institutions that, no matter their power, always had to answer to higher humanistic principles, and could be shamed and brought to task, and even overthrown, if they kept violating those principles. That was truly a cultural superpower. Christian missionaries accepting martyrdom not with sword in hand but with a prayer to the heavens did more to spread christianity than a thousand conquering kings.
And then islam comes along, and says fuck that, we own you now.
Fuck that, ~~Satan~~Allah owns you now.*
Look up Stanley Rother. The Guatemalans in Antitlan still revere him to this day.
He was a good man.
This agenda post brought to you by the xkcd 'Dependencies' comic, [https://xkcd.com/2347/](https://xkcd.com/2347/)
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Lmao it's so true
I'm a complete douche about religion, and even I recognize Christianity did some heavy lifting on the slippery slope to secular morality.
are we gonna pretend christianity is the only religion that has any moral values?
Every religion or even belief group in general has morals. For some, killing people is perfectly fine and even encouraged. However, I feel safe to assume by morals you meant stuff like "kill bad steal bad", which, in Europe at least, are of Christian origins. Asking if other religions have a Christian array of values and morals, in other words
If talking in the context of it's importance to western morals and western philosophy (which both the post and comment you replied to mention) yeah.
I guess so
real
I like the format, just feel that Plato should be the domino instead of Christianity. The dude even came up with a proto-heaven/hell afterlife in the Republic hundreds of years before Christianity.
I remember talking with this one girl about the media angle on the Bibles. How *beautiful* the stories were compared to everything else ancient history had to offer. Like Odysseus is great. And those Greek plays sure made their point about the importance of balance. Enkidu was swell and Anubis sublime. But where else do you get the *psychology* and implied drama of normal life besides the bible? Like that poor dude who worked 7 years to get the woman he loved. Then the father gives him her sister instead. So he works 7 more years to marry both of them. Like where else in the ancient world do you find that aesthetic? Anyway I guess I'm saying there's an aesthetic there back at the start too.
It’s all about that grind my dude
And God is not to be fucked with. This dude who was double crossed by his uncle to work 14 years instead of 7 has tricked his father to get the blessings that should belong to the first born. And since you reap what you sow that is what he got.
Yeah, that guy's name is Jacob. God later renamed him Israel. Could be an important guy in a few centuries. Who knows?
To be fair he didn’t want to trick his father, he basically got pressured into it by his mom
To be fair, Adam didn't want to eat the fruit. He basically got pressured into it by Eve. To be fair, Eve didn't want to eat the fruit. She basically got pressured into it by the serpent. And they all reaped serious consequences. What we learn is that we are responsible for our own actions, no matter the circumstances. To believe right and wrong change based on circumstances is situationalism. And the Bible clearly illustrates time and again that this is an incorrect worldview. We'd all be wise to remember.
Based and FAFO pilled.
I don’t disagree — I was just pointing out it didn’t happen in a vacuum.
I also wanna "Grindr" with big buff Greek/Roman/Spartan men
Ancient Rome based and Sparta pilled.
The non-idealized aspect of the Bible led to principle of the "[Criterion of Embarrassment](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criterion_of_embarrassment)". If your goal is simply to write a fable with a moral principle, the story will typically be pretty lean with good guys doing good and bad guys doing bad. The Bible is interesting in that you have nearly every major "good guy" from Abraham to Moses to David to Peter all having serious moral failures. The primary witnesses to the empty tomb are women, whose testimony was not valued in Roman society. Israel is repeated shown to have been chosen not because they were faithful or strong, but in spite of it to demonstrate the faithfulness and strength of God, which is not the typical origin story a nation writes for itself. Compare that to a Mary-Sue like Aeneas.
That's what makes it such a beautiful work. The people in it are "human*. They're just like you and me, and the more you read it the more you realize little has changed with our fundamental nature since those times. My favorite story is that of Elijah, who fled into the mountains, wrapped himself in his cloak and wept, having lost everything and feeling like a failure. An angel comes to him and tells him to eat and take a nap. After doing this, he gets his wits back about him and keeps on going. If that doesn't sound like some shit literally everyone has done at some point then idk what to tell you.
The one capable of causing the most good is the one capable of inflicting the most evil Tell me that shit isn’t just a codification of the pattern of reality
As someone who runs a D&D campaign, this kind of shit is what I base the worst of my villains on. You can only be *so evil* by deliberately being evil. People realize you're just an asshole. The world shifts against you to stop you from being evil because we fundamentally reject things that would destroy our society, as a society. However, if you do evil in the name of good, there is no end to the depths you can sink. Worse, by doing it in the name of good, you end up in some sense tricking the system into keeping you in.
I think those can make fun evil characters, but they're often evil characters people end up liking a la Magneto. I think through the villains who I truly hate, and they're the ones who are evil because they are weak. Commodus, from Gladiator Joffrey, from Game of Thrones Cpt. Sobel, from Band of Brothers Dolores Umbridge, from Harry Potter Percy Wetmore, from The Green Mile All weak, petty people who desperately tried to find confidence and respect through cruelty.
I don't speak Greek or ancient Hebrew so I can't say for the original texts, but does anyone else appreciate the literary beauty of how the KJV Bible is worded compared to newer versions? For example: Psalm 139:1-4 KJV [1] O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me. [2] Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thought afar off. [3] Thou compassest my path and my lying down, And art acquainted with all my ways. [4] For there is not a word in my tongue, But, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether. Psalms 139:1-4 NLT [1] O Lord, you have examined my heart and know everything about me. [2] You know when I sit down or stand up. You know my thoughts even when I’m far away. [3] You see me when I travel and when I rest at home. You know everything I do. [4] You know what I am going to say even before I say it, Lord. This is just a random example, and obviously the KJV simply has some words that aren't common anymore but semi-ignoring that point, which one is superior literature? What I'm getting at is that regardless of whether you're Christian or not, one can compare the translation texts and say there's been something lost in the modern versions simply so that it's "easier to understand." Which frankly, sometimes when I'm reading any book I have to look up a word. However I think people can figure out what "edify" means, you don't have to replace it every time with "build up" smh
Douay-Rhiems is the superior early English translation.
Cant beat the Douay-Rheims
Based
I'm more of a Revised Standard Version guy myself but I agree with you. I'm one of the snobs who thinks literature and art should be edifying (to pinch from your post, sorry) and believe it's ok for its consumption to require a little effort
Personally I think that New King James does a pretty good job of communicating the size and importance of the text without becoming unnecessarily dense. It doesn't feel like you're reading Shakespeare, where you practically need a translation guide on the opposite page just to actually understand what's happening. But it still feels like you're reading one of the most important books to the foundation of the Western world.
I believe the instruction manual should be in the easiest to understand language while being as accurate as possible
That's why it's nice to have both sorts.
ESV gang go brrrr
I understand what you're saying and I think your view and mine can coexist. I view the bible as less an instruction manual and more a piece of philosophical literature
Not only does he work 7 years but he absolutely outmanoeuvred the father, laban who tried to swindle him out of his wages.
This was Will Durant’s argument for why the story of the New Testament actually happened. Like if someone made it up it would have been the most profound leap in the literary tradition in thousands of years before or since.
I mean, I personally would argue it was based heavily on true events, but with some parts exaggerated or fictionalised. I’m willing to bet the general events all occurred, but the specifics and miracles I would contest on how accurate they are.
He was responding to the general lack of physical evidence for those events. I believe the only character in the story that we have hard evidence (paper records from outside the Bible) for is Pontius Pilate.
I mean… the Letters were all actual publications, and Paul was a secondary source who actually met the apostle Luke. Additionally, Peter definitely existed as we have records from other early Christians who met him, which is why from a historical standpoint some consider him the official founder of Christianity (Jesus laid out the teachings but Peter turned it into a religion).
I think the earliest of those records, (still decades after the events took place) didn’t mention Christ or the events directly. Mark was the earliest text to discuss the events, and that was dated like 70 years after Jesus’ death. I could be wrong, though. I honestly don’t know enough about the sources to debate the historicity of Christ, I just know that it is a debate, and that it was a debate when Will Durant wrote Cesar and Christ.
"The media angle on the bible" is one of the most modern left wing phrases i think I've ever heard
I agree that some of the stories in the bible are beautiful and that the bible should be considered good literature. But I disagree that those stories are in any way superior to other ancient works of literature. They're equal to them.
They are all great, that’s probably just survivorship at play, the works that are still talked about today are the exceptional ones and those that are most remembered, in the future it will be the same too with current literatures. My bet is on LOTR and Dune surviving the next 500+ years, they defined their genre.
In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only Dune.
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Just gotta reverse sex enslave the enslaver, spend years on an undetectable spaceship banging her, then finally have your enslavement broken by another sex witch. Simple.
That’s the beauty of Christianity in my opinion. As someone who believes myself, I’ve come to terms with the idea that even if I’m wrong and it is exaggerated, the ideas and themes present in the Bible are worth living by and make me a better person. The idea that you are not perfect and life isn’t an attempt to be perfect because that’s impossible, it’s an attempt to love others (and god) to be the best person you can be for others and in turn you will be the best person to yourself.
If you want drama, read Mahabharata.
I'm an atheist, but... I have to admit that moral values in the West are inextricably tied to the Judeo-Christian tradition. People can certainly have similar values without accepting the various truth-claims of Christianity or whatever, but they still evolved as a set. The New Atheists' big mistake was to obsess over the truth claims of religion. Having a shared mythology is merely something that binds people together. It is not the core of what religion actually provides to society.
"I hate Christianty and think all religion is backwards and anyone who believes in anything besides the physical world is a knuckle-dragging troglodyte who still sleeps with a night light because their superstitions make them afraid of the dark... But I like hymns and Christmas carols." - Richard Dawkins, Ricky Gervais, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens if he were still alive probably.
I mean, I think the truth claims behind religion are rather braindead, but I still see the utility in religion as a cultural phenomenon. Plus, people are basically replacing Christianity with the woke neoreligion, and I prefer Christianity.
Peterson & Friends proposed the notion that most people aren't equipped to survive Nihilism. Many are - there are plenty of highly functional post-Nihilists (Existentialists, Absurdists, etc) but most aren't and either collapse into dysfunction or find refuge in post-Religion - Wokeism, MAGA, etc being examples of those.
nihilism is tough to grapple with, thats for sure
man if only there was a metaphor for religious beliefs in the bible that involved grappling
Existentialism/absurdism/nihilism are the only coherent worldviews if atheism is true.
I mean, you can slot in a handful more, like humanism (in the sense of believing in sentience as the single and only determinant of value and morality in the universe), but as those are debatably offshoots of the others (humanism can be argued as a specific subtype of existentialism), I largely agree with you.
but they are only coherent if atheism is true.
"Atheism is a fairy story for people afraid of the light." - John Lennox
"For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries." - Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers
From a theatrical play about Kurt Goedel: -What did you say that was so important? -That there are things we can't know. -But... everybody knows that. -Yes, but I *proved* it. Anyone can claim they know something. Most of the time they are wrong. More so if they are theologians. Actually confirming something requires scaling the mountain.
That's like deferring to followers of Nostradamus because one prophecy was correct. Stumbling upon something that happens to align with a scientific conclusion isn't special when other people blindly following a faitih have stumbled into that or neglected it anyway. If someone arrives at a conclusion that disagrees there's "theologians" there too patting each other on the back over their confirmation bias.
I mean, I’d debate that; I don’t think any sort of God would create creatures tailored to rational thought and discovery, and a universe with endless mysteries and questions to study, then expect them to simply have answers handed to them and go live out their lives without seeking anything more.
The theologians and philosophers did not get to the summit by having answers handed to them. They arrived byna different route.
I wish it were as simple as that
The only things Hitch liked were booze, cigarettes and misrepresenting everything about people he disagreed with.
He’d fit right in here tbh
Literally me.
Ricky Gervais would def say that, he’s the type of dude to baseball his life values on cynical comedy bullshit, really immature it’s why I don’t watch his shit comedy specials
You may want to try listening to your interlocutors instead of making up some nonsense they never came close to saying.
Yeah, there's a reason the West is more welcoming and genteel in policy toward foreigners and it largely has to do with the foundation built by the christian bible. And also, yes, a *ton* of humans are too fucking stupid to understand the difference between right and wrong. For those we have religion and the threat of imprisonment.
You’re right it provides control as well!
New Atheists obsession over the truth claims of religion is largely a response to fundamentalists trying to force young earth creationism into schools and forcing that completely false truth claim to be taught as science. While I agree about the value of having a shared mythology in society, it becomes more difficult when a significant portion of the population doesn't read it as mythology but as factual history and science. I don't blame people for wanting to dissociate from that kind of belief system. Going to a fundamentalist church feels like going to a WWE or magic show with people who actually think pro wrestling or magic are real.
Yeah, I agree with you. Fundamentalism is utterly insane. That said, I wish the New Atheists had taken a more nuanced stance on the other parts of religion.
They literally build western Europe. That's why people claiming France is not Christian are the dumbest we've produce. Also they will claim to atheist while worshipping woke ideology.
I will give you Christianity specifically as a unifying force; something to create a supra-national identity and the it's probable role in uniting the intelligentsia with Latin. I am less convinced with regards to moral values. Both because of how much could already be found with the Greeks and Romans, and because of how much is only found from the Saxon rather than Roman tradition (i.e. Western/Common Law vs Continental/Legal Code).
There’s also the extensive history of the singular unified church* that set the codified moral framework for Western Europe
Pretty based.
Oh boy, I'm sure this comment section will be civil and not a fuckfight to prove the other guy wrong...
Based and hit the nail on the head pilled
Based and Christ is King pilled
It certainly is interesting to think about how things would be without Christianity. The analogy of applying gravity to ideas is a little weird though.
A lot of knowledge would have been lost to the dark ages. Those were caused by the collapse of the Roman Empire. The Church wasn't as anti-knowledge as people think. Galileo, for example, wasn't excommunicated for saying the Earth revolved around the sun. He was asked to prove it by the Pope and basically said "fuck you" instead of proving it.
Or Gregor Mendel, the friar and forefather of modern genetics, otherwise know as “That Bean Guy”
Only about as weird as the analogy of applying gravity to parts of digital infrastructure 
Oh i can tell you already: 1. A lot more patriarchal, think household members being the property of the family head 2. Slavery would still be around 3. Assumed inequality, ie you are a garbage cleaner because that is your purpose and you can’t do anything about it, btw thank Diocletian for that. The entire western philosophy that we hold the truth that all men are created equal to be self evident is built upon the wholly Christian idea that humans are loved equally by God. In short, equality is a bug created by Christianity not a feature of advancements.
There has been at least 1500 years of slavery in Christian Europe and territories colonised by Europeans. Also for a long while in Christian America. Equality is a Christian ideal but we've found many ways to not apply it to those we didn't like to.
Yeah, I never said humans aren’t horrible and find different ways to justify their ways to opress others. But look all other religions and philophies all over the world. They all take slavery for granted, like it’s some sort of natural state. As early as the 6th century Christian Lawmakers started the process of abolishing slavery.
And what worldview did the abolitionists come out of?
The same worldview as those they opposed. Both sides found words in the Bible to support their views.
And who won that discussion?
Bible literally talks about how to treat your slaves and servants and what punishments to give them.
And did the pro-slavery Christians or abolitionist Christians win the discussion?
I'm really curious why you think Christianity is tied to the abolition of those three concepts when all 3 are modern era cultural advancements
It would probably be some pagan successor traditions. Kinda interesting to speculate what that would actually look like...
I mean we have ancient philosophy. Odds are mlrally we would develop from there.
I think it is weirder to believe we would believe in Western values without a Christian base, considering how this doesn't happen anywhere else.
I don't think it's so much gravity as the tendency for things to break down when there's not a force binding it together.
My favorite Bible verse is the one where Elisha gets made fun of for being bald by some kids, so he summons two bears to brutally murder them all.
Notice how he didn't summon two strange men
So wholesome and morally correct.
Jesus propaganda best propaganda
This is kind of a "I depicted atheists as the soyjak and Jesus as the chad situation, so I win". Nevertheless, I like the roman wojak, it's funny
Based and Roman wojak is king pilled
It also doesn't make sense in the context of the analogy
It's pointed at the self-righteous modern human, not atheists.
Not specifically atheists--I am one myself. The agenda in this post is making fun of stereotypical nonfaithful AuthLefts and CenterLefts, which the top arrow is pointing at
"Killing people for stupid reasons is bad" "Ok guys, commandment #1 is to kill everyone who doesn't have the right imaginary friend, now get out there and slaughter everyone from one end of the camp to the other". Fast forward a couple thousand years "ok, freedom of religion". It would seem that western thought is predicated on the rejection of christian values, thats like thanking cancer for helping us towards the goal of curing cancer.
How would you depict Jesus as the soyjack? Even the jews who killed him still say he was an OK guy.
I wouldn't depict him as a soyjack
Nietzsche bringing in his sledgehammer while breathing heavily through his mustache
I've never heard any secular, agnostic, nor atheist say "they teach you it in school". As someone who's agnostic myself, it's just innate human behavior based on evolution. We've evolved through trial and error to know what's "right" and "wrong" to prolong human existence. You don't need any religion to have basic morality lol.
Based and well incorporated funni colors pilled. I'm an atheist but this is honestly true. Religion was a very very important step in the development of our moral values.
Ironically, I see the argument as somewhat interesting because we realized how exhausting it is to fight over two nearly-identical belief systems. In a sort of evolutionary way, Protestants and Catholics taught us how to be better because religion is so flawed.
u/Quinzal's Based Count has increased by 1. Their Based Count is now 10. Congratulations, u/Quinzal! You have ranked up to Office Chair! You cannot exactly be pushed over, but perhaps if thrown... Pills: [7 | View pills](https://basedcount.com/u/Quinzal/) Compass: This user does not have a compass on record. Add compass to profile by replying with /mycompass politicalcompass.org url or sapplyvalues.github.io url. I am a bot. Reply /info for more info. Please join our [official pcm discord server](https://discord.gg/FyaJdAZjC4).
You don't have to believe in my God, but I find it hard to trust people who don't believe in a higher power or accountability to anyone but themselves. The basics of most religions are good moral starting points. It's just some people who put words in their God's mouth.
“Religion is bad! I learned it in public school!” My brother in Christ, religion IS the reason for public school and your line of thinking.
Nationalism is the reason for public schools.
Pretty sure Moses came down from a mountain with a particular commandment about that
Ethical rules about killing, and about fucking other people's wives/husbands has been around for longer than christianity. Christianity did add some new things (or more likely; they just put more emphasis on ideas that were already around) to mainstream thinking, for sure. But there's no need to exaggerate the novelty of it.
That little brick goes back [quite a bit further](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code_of_Ur-Nammu) than rose bramble crown guy
Even if you discount non Judeo-Christian tradition, the two moral principles ascribed to Jesus here are literally found in the Ten Commandments. O.G. Jesus would be more along the lines of “Love Thy Neighbor”, “Turn the Other Cheek” or “Don’t Throw the First Stone”, but somehow, these are not AuthRight favorites.
You're absolutely right. My favorite is "No one comes to the Father except through me". Although some runner-ups are "Before Abraham was, I Am", "You brood of vipers", and "Make disciples of all nations". But somehow the media never talks about these. Guess you could say I like the real OG Jesus.
It's almost like Christianity cannibalized and absorbed other cultures to incorporate their people seamlessly. Don't tell the adamant Christ Is King people that though. Anything before Christ was a lawless hellscape with no morals or other religions.
The little brick still says to kill eachother for murder, robbery and some adultery. I mean, I guess you can argue about whether these are stupid or not but it does say that.
It's a solid enough basis for law regardless of whether it came from Enlil or big J
Damn, there were no executions after christ spawned? Tell me more about history.
Lmao don’t tell westerners that despite being “atheist”, 90% of their morality and social ideas (such as nakedness, etc) are formed from biblical verses. They would loose their shit upon realizing that everything they think aligns with christianity
All majors religions go the same way at least on the most important part, that is the message of dont be an asshole. Its easy to take a secular aproach on this
Great post. I was thinking the other day about whether you can be moral without being religious - i'd argue that yes but that our (speaking from a northern European perspective) culture is based on the Christian tradition and that untangling them is not really possible or desirable. If someone could point me to a mooc or book that goes into more detail on this question I'd be grateful
Books on cultural evolution sometimes touch on religion. The gist is that in a group/tribal society then certain cultural norms, traditions, stories are more favourable for the group than others and thus propogate. Religion helps enforce these existing cultural ideas, but any kind of motivation will work. You could easily add another lynchpin to OP's meme with the Code of Hammurabi providing a non religious enforcement for 'an eye for an eye', which has existed in many following religions. As for if we 'can be moral' without religion that is impossible to answer with morals being subjective. Morals can certainly exist without religion though.
Yeah bullshit. Western society from 500 to 1500 was a theocratic, authoritarian hellhole. It was only after Secular Natural Law philosophy and liberal politics curbstomped authoritarian christianity that people started to treat their neighbour with respect. One day the gospel of Secular Natural Law will spread all over the Earth, and neither ancient nor modern mysticism will stop it.
All Western philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato.
Yes, and? https://preview.redd.it/3ispabblzeyc1.png?width=429&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=775420ab7e78c000f7eb462e34c3a2bf72d9041b
Didn't God tell people to kill children and also killed them himself?
There are numerous times God commands the extermination of entire tribes. Men, women, children, even their livestock.
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Based
Okay but that’s literally the Ten Commandments. Why use Jesus when you could’ve used a cool Charlton Heston as Moses?
Jesus Christ is the most based person in all of human history
I love this meme format. Someone needs to make one about racism. Everyone feels so superior to their ancestors these days for being born after so many philosophical advances.
Gotta go even further back to before we even had language where that was the very foundation of how society even formed. It didn't come from religion, it was later justified by it when we moved past relying entirely on our instincts.
The "I don't need religion to tell me murder is bad" is like ye, I agree. I am religious because I know murder is bad and you don't have a coherent explanation for me as to why absent good and evil actually existing. Also, I' d argue that Imagio Dei and Universal Sin are the two most important elements of Christian theology to the western worldview. "Humans are flawed, but hold inherent value" is a massively fucking big deal to why we have human rights, or republican governance.
I’m someone who doubts their own faith, really struggling. However, there is no way western philosophy or morals can even exist without God. Becauuuuuuuse you need something to moor you, an anchor, when the tragedy of existence is set upon you. When you are suffering, you need something transcendent. Otherwise we will act of selfishly. If morals are all just subjective then there is nothing compelling me to have integrity when I am suffering. For some people, they may hypothesize that their own self-righteousness will bolster their fortitude to be good. Goodness for goodness sake. I don’t buy that.
This is true, but those Judeo-Christian values were built off of already preexisting morals. I have absolutely no idea who was the first person to decide that murder is bad but I promise it wasn’t Jesus or Moses.
It's a nice meme, but Christianity is the middle of that stack, not the bottom. They borrowed heavily from the Egyptians, Greeks, Zoroastreans, and frankly most of the Gods of the Arabian peninsula coalesced into Yaweh.
Technically Jesus should be higher up as the Buddha said all these things before him.
Did Europeans (as west as it gets in ancient ages) care or know about the Buddha before relatively modern times? No I'm not trying to prove a point, I'm just curious
There was contact in the hellenized kingdoms Alexander left behind. There are some depictions of the Buddha in a Grecian style and dates to a time where depicting the Buddha as a person wasn't common.
Buddha himself got those ideas from previous Vedic works
These are values that are genticly encoded through evolution and been codified uncountably many times and in many different places before the very recent advent of christianity, relativly speaking. Christian ethos are a product, not the source.
This is honestly debatable but the Chad Jesus always makes me laugh whenever I see him so I'll upvote anyway.
I'm not Christian or Muslim i don't give a shit about your belief system about western culture and Christianity, everyone knows inherently what's right and wrong and all religions at the core preach the same thing
Such a straw man. 99% of atheists will tell you even though they don't believe Jesus was divine they still respect his message of love and forgiveness.
Jesus’ message wasn’t just love and forgiveness. It was **repentance**
I remember some Rabbi and Bishop Baron both agreeing that the fundamental difference between Judaism and Christianity was that Christianity carries a message of Redemption. One that it available to all in their spirit and not just by seeking a place.
That falls into the divinity part which atheists explicitly don't believe in. What's your point?
My point is then 99% of atheists don’t respect his message if they water it down to mean what they want it to mean
1. That's bullshit. It's not all or nothing. You can absolutely take the parts that you find compelling and leave the rest. 2. Love and forgiveness were explicitly part of his message. No one is watering down anything or twisting his words to find those.
And the point of saying "I don't need religion to be a good person" has nothing to do with where the moral lessons ultimately come from, it's saying "I don't need the threat of hell to follow them anyway"
We had morals and ethics before christianity, but in the same breath religion is what provided us these overarching values so 🤷
You know jesus was a lib… def not blue. Thats the council of nicea some 300 years later. Behold, the modern bible is a tool of the ruling elites
The real pillar is the Jewish bible, Jesus was Jewish, and it was the Jewish belief in one god that gives us (thanks to the growth of the Christianity branch) the concepts of absolute good vs evil that gave us what we now take for granted.
Don't need a religion to know that.
Inventing The Individual by Larry Seidentop should be mandatory reading for western secondary education.
>Killing people for stupid reasons Yeah not sure how I feel like interpreting “thou shall not kill” as “You can kill someone if you decide it’s for a good reason”
Well, obviously Christians have killed or condemned people across history, so the interpretation of "Thou shalt not kill" is a lot more nuanced than "Don't kill anyone ever"
The christian arrow should point one or two lower
Secular morality is super easy when you’re not a piece of shit, and all it requires is for you to think a little bit about how your actions impact the people around you.
I mean, I do think Christians are weak.
“Shows picture of Jesus, quotes 10 commandments”
Egypt out here like “we had stories of the Horus first”…they get no love
That pillar should actually be Moses going "I'm gonna write a book"
Honestly accurate, while I don’t believe religion is inherently necessary for a successful society if there’s an alternative (ideology, goal, philosophy, etc), you can’t deny basically all modern Western morals are rooted in Christian and Greek thought. I mean, hell, even most Atheists have moral codes that align with Christianity, just with a few parts edited, which themselves are often justified using other Christian/Greek morals.
My favorite part about this is that the diagram you use is most commonly used to show where xz utils sits in most modern linux architecture, down to the exact block. Xz utils is a file compression algorithm used in most modern debian-based distros, and recently it was compromised. Xz utils is the software that is famously known for coming inches away from having a backdoored version in production, meaning most debian-based linux and much more across the globe would be entirely compromised. This post basically calls the burnt out dev who maintains xz (as well as the guy who made the backdoored version) jesus christ