Jesus said that the whole of the law is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Seems pretty simple to me.

He said nothing about homosexuality, nothing about abortion, but a lot about greedy rich people.

I have no idea where you got the idea that "Jesus said that the whole of the law is to do unto others as you would have them do unto you" - are you thinking of Crowley's "harm no-one, and do as you will shall be the whole of the law"?

Or are you thinking of Matthew 22, 35-40?

34 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.
35 One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36 “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”
37 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’
38 This is the first and greatest commandment.
39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

The two things to note here are that a) love of God is explicitly more important than love of one's fellow men, and b) the Bible repeatedly, clearly and explicitly states, in both the Old and the New testaments, that homosexuality is hateful to God.

If you want a line explicitly attributed to Jesus (that is, put into his mouth by the Gospel writers, rather than from the writings of his followers) then the most obvious one is "I come not to abolish the law, but to fulfil it" - a law which makes homosexuality a capital offence. But the distinction between lines attributed to Jesus by his followers, and lines attributed to his followers, is obviously an artificial one - it's useful if you've decided in advance that Jesus was a liberal and are trying to explain away the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, but it's not useful if you're trying to work out what it is most likely that he actually thought.

Mathew 22:36-40:
To love your neighbor as yourself is how Jesus says we should treat one another. If we do so, we will treat people as we wish to be treated.

Luke 6:31:
Jesus says to do to others as you would have them do to you. The two verses support each other.

Mathew7:5 :
Jesus says to remove the beam from your own eye before you remove he speck from your neighbor's eye. All three verses support each other.

As to homosexuality, find me a verse where Jesus condemns homosexuality. Good luck in that. Plus as to the Old Testament and homosexuality, the Old Law was modified by the new: Read Hebrews 8:6-13

As to Crowley, he claimed to despise Christianity and what he described as patriarchal religions, but also claimed to be religious and some of his followers considered him a prophet. He also claimed to be inspired by a holy angel who detailed the law to Crowley. Perhaps a case of knocking down the old statue and replacing it with one of yourself?

I hope this proves helpful.

All the bible contains is the views of Jesus's followers. Some of those views are placed in is mouth directly (although by people who didn't know him), others are second or third hand.

If your goal is to work out what he thought, there's no reason to place more weight on the former than the latter. If, on the other hand, your goal is to dismiss the evidence that he thought something you don't like, I guess it's a useful gotcha game.

If you do want a verse specifically attributed to Jesus, try Matthew 5:17 - "I come not to abolish the law but to fulfil it".

Then you say:

"All the bible contains is the views of Jesus's followers. Some of those views are placed in is mouth directly (although by people who didn't know him), others are second or third hand.

If your goal is to work out what he thought, there's no reason to place more weight on the former than the latter. If, on the other hand, your goal is to dismiss the evidence that he thought something you don't like, I guess it's a useful gotcha game."

Finally, you quote one of His followers, Matthew, as "proof" that your view is the clearly more correct one. But you use the words of one of His followers to support your view. A position you have just called a "gotcha game".

ALL of the Gospel dialogue where Jesus is quoted is regarded as His words. One can either believe that they are his words, or are not his words, or a combination of the two.

The story of Jesus teaching to love everyone. I hope this changes and we can start pulling this country back together again.

I don't care for those that clutch their bibles to their chests and proclaim they are better that anyone else. They are not, we know they are not, Thinkingabout.

thank you.

They poise as pillows of the church and then sow their hate.

If the shop owner is even half the "Christian" she claims to be, that $800K coming in from donors would bypass her account and go directly to helping the poor. And to that we hear a resounding "As if!"

This whole damn thing is going into my quotes collection. Marta, I LOVE the way you put things!

"...who is cherry picking which parts of the bible she wants to believe and thus justify her actions with...",
"...but she is doing a job every day that the bible doesn't give her permission to do...",
"...based on some antiquated baseline of human behavior...",
"cannot bring yourself to serve an arbitrary subset of your customers, for whatever reason...",
"Drag yourself into the 21st century..."

The whole essay is GOLD. Mainly because those are not just delicious turns of phrase, but also WUNNNNNNNNderful and highly repeatable talking points. SO BEAUTIFULLY clarifying ideas we all find ourselves debating with some knuckle dragger at work or in the neighborhood or somewhere from time to time. Always good to have simple-and-effective verbal ammo in the arsenal. A keeper for sure! This is one situation in which you WANT someone to put words in your mouth! Makes you a more effective fighter and activist and defender of the liberal/progressive worldview we all cherish. You know, the one that just also happens to be Christian in the true Jesus sense of the word.

I love reading stuff like this. Intelligent, simple, easy-to-remember, and makes me feel better-armed.

And this:
The one bible quote I wish everyone would listen to is from Luke 6:31, yet so many don't: And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them. It's the Christian thing to do, to treat others with kindness and concern. If you're going to say you're a churchgoing Christian, then act like one.

Kinda cool how we're discussing all this on Easter Sunday, 'eh? The original Star of our show in THAT case is the Guy who originated the "Golden Rule."

That is why I asked to post it in full. To many never bother to follow the links here.

Thanks for highlighting the best of the best that Marta said.

They don't need us. It's the other way around. And sheshe2, too!

Looking at the world today, what exactly does religion give us?

John Lennon had it right:

"Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace"

I love this piece so much.

In the south, they found plenty of verses to justify slavery.

Bigots can always find churches with hateful preachers to justify their bigotry with cherry picked bible verses.

Since the faithful have learned never to question anything pertaining to faith, there is no way to get through to them. They lie to themselves about their essential natures almost as much as addicts do and for the same reason, to tell themselves they're good people and the rest of the world has gone wrong.

No one ever told them when they were growing up that if they were the only sane people in a crazy world, the opposite was likely true.

Unhappily for them, the country has decided to move forward with full equality for all citizens, no matter whether or not a twisted interpretation of one holy book or another says some citizens are inferior and should be despised, imprisoned, or killed.

The Bible very clearly, repeatedly explicitly and unambiguously mandates bigotry against gay people, and yet I am always amazed by how many liberals try and claim otherwise.

Female children were fair game, of course.

Tell Marta I think she should keep on writing.

I was hearing shit like this in the early 80s, from my fundie freak husband. All sorts of shit that was supposed to be in the bible, but when I asked him to show it to me, he couldn't find it, he just believed it because his pastor told him so. I would find passages in the book that said the opposite from what he was spouting, but he always got mad at me.

He told me I was going to hell, but I said I was already there.

They're getting bolder, because people in the government are letting them get away with it, and many are right on the front lines. I think some groups are hoping to start a civil war, thinking the military is on their side. It would be a nice way to control people. Take away their freedoms, control the Internet, the media, the military.

Get poor people fighting each other under the guise of a race war, or a religious war, and then have the excuse to send in troops with lots of fancy, new weapons to get things settled down.

She definitely cherry-picked which parts of the bibble she liked. Spent some time engaged in lots of "bad" behaviors, found her version of bejsus, get raunchy again, married me, found bejsus again and apparently lost him and has been unable to lead a stable life.

The faster we sane people can get separated from "them" the better.

In the long run the people/businesses that deny reasonable services to others are cutting themselves off from society. Like many small communities they'll inbreed and self-ligate.

Any more than standing in a garage makes one a car.

These people are not Christ followers.
Of all the commandments, the greatest of these is love. Christ commands to love your neighbor as yourself. To feed to hungry, clothe the poor, help the sick. Jesus wasn't about hate. These people hate with every fiber of their being.

The Bible repeatedly and explicitly condemns homosexuality as sinful.

Jesus was not the 21st century liberal most left-wingers would like to believe, he was a devoutly religious Jew from 2000 years ago, and the core of his message was not peace and good works, let alone "tolerance", but the necessity of accepting him personally as the Messiah, because the apocalypse was just around the corner.

Poor Steve had to listen to me rant for 15 minutes first thing Sunday morning when I read the article. I thought I'd better write it out so I could work through my thoughts, and spare him the rant.

Marta

Welcome to DU! So glad you are here.

Brava, for such a well written piece.

as for feeling bad because Steve had to listen to your rant ....... I'm betting you owe him a few.

My best to both of you.

I'm so glad you are here. I feel like I know you.

Beautiful piece, Marta! Thanks for writing it and thanks for letting sheshe post it here!

"You can safely assume that you've created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do."

ARE one of the big reasons this culture can't rid itself of racism, bigotry, ignorance and hate. Period. And thank you Marta and sheshe.

but fortunately I am not a good Christian. I would tell you to go to hell, but I don't believe in either your hatred or your hell.

Some say that ignorance is bliss, I don't believe that. Poor Michelle is not happy and will forever be plagued by her ignorance.