“Falsehood flies, and truth comes limping after it, so that when men come to be undeceived, it is too late; the jest is over, and the tale hath had its effect: […] like a physician, who hath found out an infallible medicine, after the patient is dead.” —Jonathan Swift

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  • TheTechnician27@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.worldMy Religion
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    16 hours ago

    For what it’s worth, that’s not an especially relevant passage here, as it’s less to do with being open about your faith and moreso about intent. For example, those who would go to the synagogue to pray or who would give alms to make themselves feel better and appear righteous. The Bible is crystal clear that you should be openly expressing your faith to others should the intent be to spread the religion. Mark 16:15–16, for example, reads (NIV):

    He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned."

    Probably more relevant for your case are the passages along the lines of: “Look, give it the old college try, but if they aren’t willing to listen, don’t be a bitch about it; just move on.” For example:

    Matthew 5:43–44:

    “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

    Matthew 7:1–3:

    “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

    “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

    Matthew 10:13–15

    If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

    The Parable of the Weeds.

    Etc.


















  • Ignoring for a second all the controversy around the term “two-spirit”, even if we say that two-spirit is the extremely Western concept – detached from indigenous culture – of a male and female in the same body (or even just generically two genders in one body), that still doesn’t apply, because all of the entities are male. In set theory, if you keep adding the same element to the set over and over, the set doesn’t change.

    Moreover, even if there were the kind of history you’re talking about, I’m not sure why dissociative identity disorder is being brought up here, because that categorically isn’t how God as multiple entities works within the fiction of the Bible. We see God and Jesus talking to each other back and forth multiple times, and that’s not how DID works. DID – a controversial diagnosis – isn’t a sitcom where two flatmates hang out inside your mind and banter. You’re dissociating so badly that you lose continuity, but God is clearly able to work as all three just fine at the same time.



    • The Father, God, is referred to as “He” consistently thousands of times in modern translations of the Bible, and he’s either literally or metaphorically “the Father”.
    • The Son, Jesus, is unambiguously male in his earthly incarnation, and he’s either literally or metaphorically “the Son”.
    • The Holy Spirit is referred to as masculine in English translations of the Bible, while Greek translations treat the Spirit more like an object-force-of-nature type whose pronouns change at any time to coincide with the type of object describing it (e.g. “comforter” is masculine, but “spirit” is neutral) and Hebrew just sticks with the feminine pronoun of the noun “spirit”.

    If you read a modern English version of the Bible, you have three entities in one which all are all consistently identified as masculine. Trying to treat God as non-binary with regard to modern English translations is more mental gymnastics than arguing why Kris Dreemurr isn’t non-binary.

    Given this is all fiction, it’s safe to say that death of the author is in play here, namely that 99.99% of the modern Christians who’d get offended at non-binary people existing would also not think of God as non-binary even after pondering on it, because their culture and holy book categorically treat God as masculine.