I didn’t say that “Christianity” itself quotes the Old Testament for purposes of bigotry, but that the fact that some Christians do even when said bigotry contradicts Jesus’s teachings, which is indisputable, is proof that Judaism is indeed packaged into Christianity in a certain form. And the point of view under which it can be called Judaism for export is really quite simple: Judaism considers Hebrews to be the Chosen People and everyone else is just out of luck. At best, you can marry into the religion. Jesus comes along and in a manner of speaking opens up access to the Hebrew God for anyone willing to follow him, regardless of their bloodline. Hence Judaism for export. Christianity quite literally took several Jewish ideas, such as their creation myth, and packaged them with a new doctrine that allowed them to be exported to other peoples.

Let’s not throw around words like antisemitism with such carelessness. There is bigotry in the Old Testament, such as the infamous Leviticus 20:13. Mentioning this is neither an attack on an entire race of people nor an implication that bigotry is somehow exclusive to Judaism, which just for the record, it most certainly is not. I’m trying to have a good faith conversation comparing different belief systems, and I don’t have the filthy habit of judging a human being’s worth from their religion, or worse, from their ethnicity.

Those are all valid points. Still, Christian Cosmology is the same as Jewish Cosmology: the world as an artifact created and ruled by a single all-knowing monarch who is in essence different and separate from it. And Jesus did define himself as coming to confirm the teachings of Judaism e.g. in Matthew 5:17, although in practice his teachings were very different - hence Christianity not being considered a Jewish sect but a separate religion. And because of this claim he made, the Jewish scriptures were received into Christianity, bringing along several beliefs that simply have nothing to do with anything Jesus ever thought was worth mentioning and several more which directly contradict his teachings. So there is of course this powerful connection between the two that can’t really be severed.

As for “multiple gods through the Trinity”, I wouldn’t put it like that exactly. Rather than being similar to Greco-Roman polytheism, the doctrine of the Trinity seems to me closer to the Hindu Trinity of the Godhead (Brahman, Vishnu and Shiva). Hinduism is of course polytheistic but these three gods in particular are not separate persons but different aspect of the same entity that manifest in different circumstances. A crude analogy would be if a person adopted one identity at work, another one at home with their family and another one while asleep. It’s still the same person, but fulfilling different roles. So it is with the Holy Trinity of Christianity. Hence what Paul said in Philippians 2:5-8:

In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death — even death on a cross!

In any case, this is a very interesting discussion.

You’re welcome! It’s always a pleasure to geek out about something I find interesting.

Sort of but not really.

All branches of Christianity believe that Jesus was the Messiah and the Son of God and that the Bible was written under divine inspiration and is the literal Word of God, among other dogmas. They only differ in how they interpret the sacred scriptures.

Not only is there no centralized textual source for Buddhist teachings (there are several different sutras and each “kind” of Buddhism gets to pick and choose), and therefore no dogmas universal to Buddhism other than “what the Buddha said was true”, but as I said some believe in the Hindu gods, some in other local gods and some in none; some believe in reincarnation and some don’t; and some believe that the Buddha himself was born special like Jesus (though not from a virgin) while others believe he was just a regular Joe for his caste but who was brilliant enough to figure out a way to cease suffering.

So you could make a case for there existing Buddhist Hinduism, Buddhist Shintoism and even “atheist” (in the literal sense of not believing in the supernatural, not in the acquired sense of not being a religion) Buddhism. This last kind views the Buddha’s teachings as basically brilliant psychology lessons masked in mystical language to be more accessible to the audiences of the time.

The central point of mystery religions like the Eleusinian Mysteries is to cultivate the mystical experience. In judeochristian theology, that experience is considered sacrilegious. Some Jews let Jesus have it and became Christians, but nobody else is allowed. And the ones we call Jewish today didn’t even let that one guy have it.

The similarities between Christianity and Greco-Roman mysticism are only surface-level and were a marketing ploy to gain followers. In its core, Christianity is still Judaism, just packaged for export. Hence why two thousand years later, Christians are still quoting the Old Testament to justify bigotry, even though they claim to be followers of the guy who said “love each other as I have loved you”.

It isn’t a US-only thing. Conservatism in the Western world in general is closely linked to sexism and misoginy. If the guy were being an asshole in a politically neutral way, like taking up too much space in an airplane or getting drunk and talking too loudly, people wouldn’t bring politics into it. But he was being an asshole in a political way.

How does a monotheistic religion whose prophet explicitly claimed to be part of the succession of Jewish prophets and to have “come to confirm” their teachings seem more like a polytheistic religion where gods aren’t known for using prophets to send messages to the people to you? Serious question. I’m intrigued.

The Buddha never said to kill yourself, though. Your comment reads like those people who thought Nietzsche was depressed.

It’s much more diverse than Christianity, actually. Buddhism isn’t so much a religion in the judeochristian sense as a characteristic that many religions have. There are Buddhist traditions that worship gods, there are godless Buddhist traditions that worship the Buddha, and ones thay don’t even worship the Buddha but just think he was a pretty wise dude. Some require you to meditate daily, others to chant some mantras, and there are Buddhist traditions like Zen that worship nothing and are all about getting your head out of your ass.

#NotAllWomen but the ones who do like it rough often have fantasies that involve losing power and agency over what their partner does. Hence roleplaying rape and “do what you want to me”. However, sometimes they do have a script in their head and don’t like it when the partner deviates from that script because they just want to play at losing control, not actually lose it.

Then, if they haven’t agreed on a safe word beforehand, which they haven’t because we’re talking about people who don’t communicate properly, it turns into a confrontation.