“In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.”
Nice way to cherrypick the verse and remove context 🤦
It’s part of a wider account of Thomas literally seeing the risen Christ in front of him and still not believing. So Thomas insists that he touches His wounds. And this is simply Jesus’ response blessing him who believes what he saw with evidence, but also blessing those who haven’t witnessed the resurrection and risen Christ.
So He blessed two groups of believers: Those who critically investigate the resurrection narrative, and those who didn’t feel the need to.
Nice way of accusing me of removing context while doing it yourself.
Assuming that what is written is true - and not just a folk tale like the Little Red Riding Hood, which is more probable - and that this specific God exists and became his own son and then died and got resurrected.
If we take into account the context that this text has been written several hundreds of years after it happened, anyone alive back then and also today can *only* be one of those who believe without seeing, because we can’t go back in time to experience it ourselves like Thomas or the other apostles did.
So, we can’t be the one “who believes what he saw with evidence”. And we can only be “those who haven’t witnessed the resurrection and risen Christ”. And this is one of the fundamentals of any religion, but especially Christianity where you have to believe in Christ otherwise you will go to hell.
There is also the subtle nuance that if there is evidence then you don’t need to believe, you just know.
With this context, at least I come to the conclusion that “religion demands you to go against evidence and just believe”, otherwise you will go to hell, which nobody wants.
“In the ordinary moral universe, the good will do the best they can, the worst will do the worst they can, but if you want to make good people do wicked things, you’ll need religion.”
Problem is that if you even read the Gospel of Luke or even Matthew alone, it basically already contradicts a lot of Trumpian rhetoric
This has never stopped anyone, in the contrary, religion demands you to go against evidence and just believe. See https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John.20.29&version=NIV
Nice way to cherrypick the verse and remove context 🤦
It’s part of a wider account of Thomas literally seeing the risen Christ in front of him and still not believing. So Thomas insists that he touches His wounds. And this is simply Jesus’ response blessing him who believes what he saw with evidence, but also blessing those who haven’t witnessed the resurrection and risen Christ.
So He blessed two groups of believers: Those who critically investigate the resurrection narrative, and those who didn’t feel the need to.
I, personally, fit into the former category.
Nice way of accusing me of removing context while doing it yourself.
Assuming that what is written is true - and not just a folk tale like the Little Red Riding Hood, which is more probable - and that this specific God exists and became his own son and then died and got resurrected.
If we take into account the context that this text has been written several hundreds of years after it happened, anyone alive back then and also today can *only* be one of those who believe without seeing, because we can’t go back in time to experience it ourselves like Thomas or the other apostles did.
So, we can’t be the one “who believes what he saw with evidence”. And we can only be “those who haven’t witnessed the resurrection and risen Christ”. And this is one of the fundamentals of any religion, but especially Christianity where you have to believe in Christ otherwise you will go to hell.
There is also the subtle nuance that if there is evidence then you don’t need to believe, you just know.
With this context, at least I come to the conclusion that “religion demands you to go against evidence and just believe”, otherwise you will go to hell, which nobody wants.
The Gospel of John was written 40-70 years after the resurrection of Jesus.