Never seen a Camel walk through the eye of a Needle. : memes

[–] Minotaur@lemm.ee 92 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (4 children)

Without getting too /r/atheism, it is funny to see the lengths many Christian scholars will go to try and justify that line.

“Oh, well they were probably actually referring to this giant arch that might have once been translated as “the eye of the needle”, meaning that they were saying it’s really easy to get into heaven”

Like what the fuck? What do you guys think is the point of the passage then?

And these aren’t like yokels and grifters. They’re like PhDs in Christian Theology. The religion at a point is just almost entirely concerned with making up translations and it literally always has been

[–] originaltnavn@lemm.ee 32 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Especially when the next couple of verses explains it.

[–] lolcatnip@reddthat.com 18 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Christians love to do this thing where they pretend each verse, taken completely out of context, stands on its own. Seems to be especially popular with American evangelicals.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 19 points 7 months ago

In fact, they like to think that the verses only make sense out of context. No matter how many other verses you can cite across multiple books where Christ makes it clear He's commanding you to abandon the idea of worldly, material possessions and dedicate yourself and your wealth to helping other people and spreading the word, they'll go "No it was just a gate" and keep not doing what Christ told them to while pretending to be Christians.

[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 15 points 7 months ago

Yeah, it's pretty unambiguous. Jesus tells the rich boy that came to him to give away all their possessions and let the Lord clothe them as he does the birds and flowers. Rich boy gets real sad and goes away.

[–] Grayox@lemmy.ml 31 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Kind of how they only focus on half of the definition of Gluttony and ignore how it also means excessive Greed.

[–] Perfide@reddthat.com 7 points 7 months ago

Which is besides the point because Greed is already one of the deadly sins in it's own right.

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[–] Nougat@fedia.io 11 points 7 months ago (1 children)

And these aren’t like yokels and grifters.

They’re not?

[–] Minotaur@lemm.ee 12 points 7 months ago (3 children)

No. Many of them aren’t. I get the jab, but I think reducing everyone who has strange or perplexing, even illogical views to just being “an idiot or a grifter” isn’t productive.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Ah right - they're the griftees, having paid a fuckton of money for a PhD in "Christian Theology."

[–] Minotaur@lemm.ee 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

I guess so. It’s still a bizarrely reductive and self serving viewpoint, but whatever helps you.

[–] Nougat@fedia.io 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (5 children)

We're not talking about people who have an academic interest in Christian mythology in the way that there are people who have academic interests in Egyptian mythology or Norse mythology. We're talking about people who believe the myths as divine truth. It's like if I had a PhD in Norse mythology, and I thought I was going to Valhalla, a real place.

In the US at least, and elsewhere for sure, Christian nationalism partnered with fascism is on a very steep rise. This is a "bad thing," and I experience exactly zero shame in standing against people who are already trampling the rights and agency of so very many people based on religious views.

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[–] Venator@lemmy.nz 5 points 7 months ago

Well it's pretty easy to get around even without the translation mental gymnastics, you just have to ask for forgiveness before you die and put the church as the only beneficiary in your will.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 64 points 7 months ago (9 children)

Christians are so desperate to ignore Christ that they literally made up a gate that they called The Eye of the Needle and said that's what Christ was talking about. This gate, which definitely never existed and was not at all what Christ was referring to, was supposedly a bit narrower than other gates and a camel could get through it if it was only carrying a moderate amount of wealth rather than an extreme amount.

[–] stinerman@midwest.social 27 points 7 months ago (2 children)

You can defeat Jesus on technicalities. This is why it's always important to have a lawyer write your holy books.

[–] drolex@sopuli.xyz 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

To be a perfect Christian, you have to become Jewish then? Mashallah! (Just to be sure)

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[–] prime_number_314159@lemmy.world 23 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I talked to one of the authors of the New American Bible, who told me the text is a mistranslation, and it's more like "harder than putting a rope through the eye of a needle", which would've been an idiom familiar to the fishers in the area.

It means "impossible", which is suitable because the things Jesus called for you to do make a rich person into a not rich person, as far as material wealth goes.

[–] Live_your_lives@lemmy.world 7 points 7 months ago

According to the Lexham Bible Dictionary, this interpretation "dates back to the fifth century and suggests that kamelos, the Greek word for camel, should actually be read as kamilos, which denotes a rope or a ship’s anchor cable. ... However, most scholars reject this interpretation because the meager textual evidence most likely can be attributed to speculations about this verse by some church fathers (Origen, Cyril of Alexandria; see Fitzmyer, Luke, 1204; Barclay, Matthew, 239)."

They also disagree with the gate interpretation, saying that "Scholars have found no historical foundation for this view, and no evidence supports the existence of such a small gate in Jerusalem’s walls."

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago

I'd be curious to see some actual source on that. Shit like that happens all the time and I find it fascinating.

[–] drolex@sopuli.xyz 6 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Maybe Jesus was referring to cigarettes and meant that only Marlboro smokers could go to heaven.

Although 'Jesus' means 'Mexican First Name' in Spanish so it could be something entirely different that we are missing

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 46 points 7 months ago (5 children)

camel?

[–] NauticalNoodle@lemmy.ml 20 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

So are you suggesting we should grind up and forcibly extrude rich people through a small tube into a container devoid of air? I'm open to this idea.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 16 points 7 months ago

[–] Akasazh@feddit.nl 19 points 7 months ago (1 children)

You don't need the saws, just a big enough pressure difference. Google explosive decompression or the Buford dolphin accident

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 10 points 7 months ago (2 children)

I figured Delta-P would be good enough as well... I had just picked a suitable meme for all to enjoy. Y'all Lemmings are smart cookies!

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[–] PyroNeurosis@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 7 months ago

This is terrible design. You'd want it oriented vertically (gravity is basically free energy!) And some unacceptable loss-of-camel may occur due to circular saw use instead of a complementary-conical camel-squisher.

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Given the amount of force and level of violence it would take to make that happen, I'd think the needle would get destroyed or pushed out of place pretty quickly.

You'd need to embed the needle halfway through the tube, and it would have to be flush with the rest of the tube. And it'd need to be a thick ass tube.

You're also going to need to strain the bones and cartilage out, and pulp them.

[–] Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works 4 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It might be easier just to pick up a camel juicer and gravity feed the camel juice through the needle.

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[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 40 points 7 months ago (8 children)

There's another verse of the bible that says "all things are possible with god"

However...One thing the bible is pretty consistently against is liars, cheaters and thieves.

To be a mega-church preacher, you need to be a liar a cheater, and you need to know how to run a scam, so that would fall under the category of a thief.

"Give me all of your money and god will cure your cancer!" obvious scam and a lie.

"Give me all of your money and god will make your credit card debt vanish" is another thing I've seen mega-church types say.

The one time Jesus was ever violent was when he flipped tables and used a whip to get all the merchants out of the church. But under 100% of other situations, he literally wouldn't fight anyone even if they attacked him unprovoked.

Does that sound like the kind of guy that wants a church to be a for-profit business? Mega-churches claim they're non-profit, but all of them live in giant mansions and own multiple private jets and multiple cars that each cost more money that I've ever earned in my life.

I'm non-religious, but I'm more in line with what Jesus wanted people to do than 99% of self proclaimed Christians.

[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 10 points 7 months ago

Luke 19:45-46: Then he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling things there; 4and he said, “It is written, ‘My house shall be a house of prayer’; but you have made it a den of robbers.”

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 7 points 7 months ago

22“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23“And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’

Matthew 7:22-23

I shudder to think of how these types have deluded themselves. To think they'd meet their Creator and say something like:

"Look, Lord, I know we locked the homeless out during a blizzard and used desperate peoples' resources to buy a private jet, and undermined the Gospel's perception across the entire world at every turn....but we raised so much money...for YOU!"

[–] Seasoned_Greetings@lemm.ee 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

"Give me all of your money and god will cure your cancer!" obvious scam and a lie.

"Give me all of your money and god will make your credit card debt vanish" is another thing I've seen mega-church types say.

Incidentally, there's a conjecture around Christian circles I've seen that says these kinds of actions are what the phrase "thou shalt not take the lord's name in vain" actually warns against.

Not cursing, as it has become commonly associated with, but the literal act of using the lord for vain purposes. Like saying "Give me your money and god will cure your cancer"

[–] EmperorHenry@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 7 months ago

An omnipotent and supreme being, who loves me, wants all of my money before he'll get rid of my cancer?

Hey Christians! Who do you think Jesus would deny healthcare to? Who do you think Jesus would be okay with dropping a drone-bomb onto?

[–] Rev3rze@feddit.nl 5 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, I don't believe these megachurch pastors believe the word of God at all, or they wouldn't be in that line of work.

Somehow in being an atheist I'm a more honest Christian than them in that I at least state outright that I'm not a Christian. That's more honest than pretending to be Christian just to leverage people's hopelessness to scam them into an even more dire and hopeless situation.

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[–] Daydreamer@lemmy.ml 25 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Grew up with this stupid interpretation that it refers to some small gate in Jerusalem that camels had to bend down to use or something.

Jesus literally gives the answer in the next sentence:

”Indeed, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” Those who heard it said, “Then who can be saved?” He replied, “What is impossible for mortals is possible for God.”“ ‭‭Luke‬ ‭18‬:‭25‬-‭27‬ ‭NRSV‬‬

God can save anyone. And my layman’s interpretation on top of it, no man can save himself.

[–] reverendsteveii@lemm.ee 9 points 7 months ago (22 children)

God can save anyone.

Well yeah, but if you're a Christian you believe that it's literally God telling you that you can't be rich and go to heaven. God may make an exception, but it would be just as absurd for you to count on being an exception to this rule as it would be for you to count on being the exception to the rule that "none come to the father but through me". If you're rich, you're just as damned as if you were never Christian to begin with.

[–] nonfuinoncuro@lemm.ee 7 points 7 months ago

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[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 25 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Dank and based Christian memes calling out hypocrisy from religious political factions?

Thoughtful discussions on faith in the comments without immediately devolving into a bashing-all-faiths circlejerk?! On LEMMY?

And that's how we made Reddit obsolete.

There's still some bitterness around here, but I'm glad there's room for talk and respect. Love you all. ❤️

(Christian Anarchist here, if anyone cares)

[–] Shou@lemmy.world 5 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Cult-dropout here. I care.

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[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 25 points 7 months ago

He said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for rich people to go to heaven.

[–] rotopenguin@infosec.pub 24 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Shaking hands with St. Peter, slipping him a crisp $20: I think everything's all set here, don't you Pete? C'mon, open up those big beautiful pearly gates.

[–] variants@possumpat.io 6 points 7 months ago

You need to keep a good lawyer and a good priest on retainer, to keep you out of jail and out of hell

https://i.imgur.com/JwuGK8O.mp4

[–] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 17 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Jesus warned his followers to beware wolves in sheep's clothing, only there to prey upon the flock from within.

So who else would they be besides con artist preachers?

[–] SuddenDownpour@sh.itjust.works 13 points 7 months ago

Also Evangelicals: No, no, why do you bring up the Pope, we're talking about CHRISTIANS, not CATHOLICS.

[–] NutWrench@lemmy.world 12 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Evangelicals call it "prosperity gospel" and it's a total perversion of Jesus' teachings. Basically, it claims that rich people deserve to be rich because their wealth is proof that they have God's favor. It's used to explain away why preachers are allowed to own private jets, yachts and diamond mines.

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[–] skozzii@lemmy.ca 9 points 7 months ago

They should just release a version of the Bible word for word, except the title of the book would be "Liberals Guide to Life", and watch them all go crazy over the nutty stuff in there.

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