Originally Posted by
Brenus
Well, that is YOUR interpretation. A sword is a weapon, a strike, not a strife. You can say whatever you want...
Taken in the context of what happens later in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus heals the slave of the Temple priest after Peter cuts off his ear, it's pretty clear.
That's Matthew 25.47-56.
Verse 51-25 Specifically:
Suddenly, one of those who was with Jesus put his hand on his sword, drew it, and struck the slave of the high priest, cutting off his ear. / Then Jesus said to him, 'Put your sword back into its place; for all who take the sword will perish by the sword.
If you read the Gospel all in one sitting, as you should, then it's quite clear that the "sword" Jesus is referring to earlier is not a literal sword, it is a sword of division. Jesus' "sword" is his message, and when he says "I have not come to bring peace" he is saying that the Christian message will not bring harmony but diviosn, because there will be those who accept it and those who reject it.
He also said Christians would be mocked.
Now, here you are two millennia later laughing at me and miss-quoting the Gospels, so I'd say he was an excellent judge of human nature.
Exactly!!! So the pretendence of religious people to know the alleged words of God is absurd. But when the text is clear, as slavery, slaughters, genocide, burning witches etc, nothing changed. Open your bible and these words are still nowadays in it, clear, precise, concise. Words of God or not? Religions say yes. Jesus did say, as much of the witnesses are telling as, that the Old Testament is still valid, so invasions, rape, slaughters are legitimate. It was with these texts that slavery was organised in the 3 Americas... Tell me if you dare that slavery is not allowed in the Bible!!!
So the Bible is against one of the basic Human Right. The Bible stated that women are inferior to men. The Bible gave numerous examples of slaughters not only authorised but ordered by the Divinity... All these are against the Humanity made rights.
Straw man - the position of the VAST majority of Christians and especially Christian doctors is that the Bible is the Word of God as recorded by man. There is no monolithic "religions", there are a few billion people who follow a variety of religious traditions originating from various different parts of the planet. Even if you take the largest group, Roman Catholics, you'll still find a wide variety of views on many topics.
There's also absolutely nothing about "witches" in the Bible at all. That whole thing stems from a famously bad translation in the KJV, where it says "Witch" it should probably say "Necromancer", and even if it does says "Sorceress" that doesn't mean the same as a Demon-following Witch. We're not actually sure what sort of Sorcery women were doing in ancient Israel, so we don't really understand the import of the condemnation.
Hell, the "Bible" doesn't even really exist! It's a group of writings (as in the title), an anthology and the various Christian groups can't even agree what should be included and what shouldn't. Even with Jews, who've had much longer to think about this, I don't believe there's agreement on the content of the Rabbicic writings or an awful lot beyond the basic five books of the Torah.
Still better than to be burned by the Holy Inquisition, I suppose.
Maybe try engaging with other people instead of just mocking them? You might learn something despite yourself, maybe your views of other people are capable of evolution.
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